What do free pizza, paper planes and convincing professors to offer extra credit have to do with succeeding as a lead data scientist using artificial intelligence at General Mills, the packaged food giant with a market cap over $30 billion?
For Sabin Pradhan ’16, ’18, it all goes back to his time with the Saint Peter’s University Physics Club. When he and his friends were struggling to attract more than a handful of attendees to their lectures on astronomy, flight and plasma, they turned to some creative troubleshooting.
Want people to show up for your astronomy documentary? Pizza. Want to get them thinking about the Wright Brothers? Paper plane contest. Need enough people for a guest lecture? Get a professor to offer extra credit to anyone willing to write a paper on the esoteric topic of plasma science. “We went from having four people show up to standing room only in Pope Hall,” Pradhan said. “The sales side of data science is all about asking how I can take something that’s really complex and figure out what really matters to the folks I’m trying to engage with.”
Today, that experience helps Pradhan play a key role at General Mills, where he has spent the last five years helping shape the company’s technical direction by using artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize operations. A highlight was being the recipient of the 2025 AI Momentum
Maker Award for building high-value AI pipelines in whitespace domains that unlocked new opportunities for the company. “I spend a lot of time identifying new opportunities within our data,” he said. “A big part of my role is guiding the technical direction to help shape our approach.”
At a Data Science Showcase held at Saint Peter’s in December, Pradhan offered students one key piece of advice: Focus less on mastering every technical tool and more on solving meaningful problems. He drew a parallel to his physics courses, where complex math only became valuable when applied to real-world challenges. “The most difficult math classes I took were my physics classes, because you had to put the tools in context of a problem you’re solving,” he said.
Read the full story in the Summer 2025 issue of Saint Peter’s Magazine