Deborah Blank

• Proposed a new polling station configuration in Pittsburgh (USA) to address overcrowding and inequality, then assessed the feasibility of such a reallocation via semidefinite programming and optimisation techniques
• Predicted customer purchasing patterns through the development of a Bayesian filter on a data set with tens of millions of entries
• Developed an equity trading strategy derived from the results of running sentiment analysis on recent tweets
• Suggested optimal skills to include in an elite cheerleading routine in order to maximise the team’s score by accounting for a high degree of performance uncertainty with robust optimisation
• Simulated US fixed income markets by building and comparing interest rate models derived from Treasury data.

Deborah has completed research in neuroscience as well as in mathematics. She was a back-to-back public speaking state champion (Wisconsin, USA) and continues to perform as an improviser.

Deborah holds a degree in Mathematical Sciences (operations research and statistics) from Carnegie Mellon University, USA. She also earned a minor in Business Administration, and graduated with university honours.

Deborah enjoys reading, escape rooms and puzzle-based games, and closely follows her favourite sports, all-star cheerleading and gymnastics.