Data Science Wins First Prize for the Verisk Fraud Analytics Competition 2016

Vivek Pandiyan, a graduate student in Data Science, won the first prize for the Verisk Fraud Analytics Competition 2016. This text mining competition had the following goal: develop an automated solution to help an insurance company identify news stories about frauds without misidentifying the individual who committed the fraud. The jury was composed of Nigel DeFreitas (left on the picture), CTO of Verisk Analytics in Jersey City, Shane De Zilwa, Vice President of Analytics, and Vasudev Daruvuri, Scientist at Verisk Innovative Analytics in San Francisco.

Vivek Pandiyan

Vivek explained how he utilized the skills he had developed in the M.S. in Data Science and Business Analytics program at Saint Peter’s to obtain the solution with the highest accuracy. Other candidates included Hari, Aakash, Raghu and Natasha, who enjoyed the opportunity to demonstrate their talents and creativity using the data modeling and prediction techniques that they had learned.

After the ceremony, Nigel DeFreitas gave a talk on the emerging field of the Internet of Things and Insurance Analytics. Students learned that with data collected directly from every car on the road, car accident claims could be filed automatically even before a call to 911 occurs. This is likely to provide many career opportunities for graduates with advanced analytics skills.