Soma Dhavala

Soma Dhavala has extensive work experience in various roles and organizations. Starting in 2010, they worked as a PostDoc at Texas A&M University. They then worked as a Senior Biologist and later as an Associate Research Scientist at Dow AgroSciences from 2011 to 2014. In 2014, they became the Chief Data Scientist at Ilimi.in. From 2016 to 2018, they worked as a Freelance Data Scientist at NIIT Limited. In 2018, they founded mlsquare, a foundation focused on democratizing AI and ML and promoting open source tools and knowledge dissemination. They also worked as a Consultant at Framewirk from 2018 to 2019. In 2017, they co-founded and became a Director at VitalTicks Pvt Ltd. They also worked as a Volunteer Teacher at Purnapramati - A Centre for Integrated Learning in 2017. From 2019 to 2020, they worked as a Visiting Faculty at PES University. Currently, Soma Dhavala holds the position of Principal ML Scientist at Wadhwani AI, and they are expected to become the Director of Machine Learning starting in January 2023.

Soma Dhavala obtained a Bachelor of Science (B.S) degree in Electronics and Communication from Andhra University in 1997. In 2000, Soma Dhavala completed an M.S degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Later, from 2003 to 2005, Soma Dhavala attended Iowa State University, though the specific degree obtained is not mentioned. In 2010, Soma Dhavala earned a Ph.D. in Statistics from Texas A&M University. Recently, from 2020 to 2022, Soma Dhavala pursued a Master of Science (MS) degree in Computational and Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington.

In addition to formal education, Soma Dhavala has obtained several certifications. This includes "Introduction to ML Production" and "Machine Learning Data Life Cycles in Production" from DeepLearning.AI in 2022. In 2021, Soma Dhavala completed certifications in "Build Basic Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)" from Coursera, as well as "High Performance Collaboration: Leadership, Teamwork, and Negotiation" and "Introduction to Marketing" from Coursera. Soma Dhavala also earned an MBA Essentials certification from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in June 2023.