Winner. Scientist of the Year 2023

Vaijanath Rao

Academic title, degree: Bachelor of Computer Science
Fields of science: Computer Science
Research interest: Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing
Career Development: Experienced
Organization: Quicken Inc.
Position: Head of Data Science
City: San Rafael, California
Country: USA

Vaijanath Rao is a massive machine learning expert involved in data science in finance. He has more than 15 years of professional experience in building and solving Large Scale Search Solutions and in building Large Scale Recommendation Systems. He also has extensive experience using Natural Language Processing for improving relevancy, Machine Learning for solving complex problems in Search, Recommendation, and Predictive Modeling using distributed large-scale systems such as Hadoop.

After receiving a Master's degree in Research in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Vaijanath joined Yahoo, where he was part of the team responsible for the search for verticals and developed federated search, which could take and call multiple searches behind the scene.

In 2008, Vaijanath joined AOL Online India, where he built a mobile search for AOL and improved map search for MapQuest, applying a comprehensive and growing knowledge of expertise in his field. He was awarded a patent for the work they did in query segmentation.

After coming to the United States, Mr. Rao joined Ask.com, where he became a Search Architect and, along with improving the search for Questions and Answers, he developed many novel techniques and was awarded two patents for his work. This resulted in improved user experience and became an essential aid for the business.

In 2016, Vaijanath joined Glassdoor as a Search Architect, where he was responsible for improving the job search experience. He wrote the first truly personalized job search at Glassdoor and built many tools and applications that helped supercharge the large-scale ML efforts at Glassdoor. Vaijanath was consistently voted as the best employee in the ML org for his work. He was involved in building many other tools, such as FAQ, which would parse the users' reviews and generate question-and-answer pages so that users could find more about the company. This also led to the Review Intelligence product, which was hailed as one of the products that resulted in opening access and understanding of a company's competitors. This also opened up a business area for Glassdoor.

In 2021, he joined Quicken as a Head of Data Science, being responsible for ML across all the teams, namely Product, Marketing, and Finance.

Patents:
• Systems and Methods for Online Search Recirculation and Query Categorization (8712999);
• Batch crawl and fast crawl clusters for question and answer search engine (9495457);
• Image extraction service for question and answer search engine (9361384).

Apart from his professional life, Vaijanath Rao is an avid speaker and presenter and has shared his knowledge as an expert within the company and outside in well-known forums like Hadoop World and Massive Hierarchical Classification. He has also written chapters in NLP books and always participates in the review of books which helps in assimilating ML easily in the tech world.

Vaijanath Rao’s illustrious career graph and contributions to the growing Applied ML and Data Science have earned him several awards and exclusive membership in communities comprising outstanding individuals like the Fellow of Engineering Research Council, IEEE, ACM, and IFIA.

Vaijanath Rao, Head of Data Science at Quicken, has created revolutionary solutions to some of the toughest challenges facing the financial industries in general and personal finance in particular.

Mr. Rao has worked in varied roles in leading institutions and tech companies worldwide. His main professional accomplishment lies in the building and launching of Mobile Search at AOL, MapQuest Address/POI Search, Information Extraction Pipeline at Ask.com, New Question and Answer Search as ASK, Personalized Job Search at Glassdoor, Review Intelligence Sentiment Analysis at Glassdoor, Reviews FAQ at Glassdoor and Developing methods to deploy models at Quicken.

With over 15+ years of experience in the tech industry, he has fueled the company’s growth by setting the foundation for machine learning and data science intelligence. He has developed and deployed models such as Transaction Categorization, Merchant Name Normalization, Investment Categorization, User Activity Fraud, and Spend Forecasting, to name a few. All these models help the core business of Quicken to be the best in personal finance management and better understand users, informing about their habits.

With such an intense sharing of his knowledge of Machine Learning and Data Science with the world and providing solutions to key issues faced by the personal finance industry, Vaijanath Rao is unquestionably one of the foremost leaders of the industry.