Melanie Sclar

I’m a BSc + MSc in Computer Science from the University of Buenos Aires, with a heavy focus in Mathematics. I did my MSc thesis in visual search modeling (see arxiv, in submission).

I am a Lead Machine Learning Engineer at ASAPP, where I develop models to efficiently rank text in real-time. Before that, I was a Lead Data Scientist at BrightSector, developing different NLP models for the largest e-commerce site in Latin America. I did two Software Engineer internships at Facebook, where I was granted two patents for my work in video stabilization (see 1, 2).

I won several international awards in mathematics and informatics olympiads. Among them:

• Latin American Champion and First to Solve Problem F award at the World Finals of the International Collegiate Programming Contest (see press coverage in the front page of the largest newspaper in Argentina)
• Bronze Medal at the Ibero-American Olympiad in Mathematics (I got to meet the president because of this!)
• Silver Medal at the South American Olympiad in Mathematics
• National Champion at the Argentinian Mathematical Olympiad
• National Champion at the Argentinian Programming Tournament

I also won some awards in machine learning competitions at a national level:

• first prize at the 2017 University of Buenos Aires’ School of Informatics challenge (+150 teams competing)
• second prize in the 2018 University of Buenos Aires’ School of Informatics challenge

I’m very grateful for the scholarships I received throughout my studies:

• Scholarship - Award City of Buenos Aires, awarded by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires to the top 25 students in the city
• Bicentennial Scholarship, received from the National Argentinian Government

Besides Math and CS, I love languages and teaching. I speak Spanish, English, French and Portuguese, and was a teaching assistant at the University of Buenos Aires for over 3 years. I’ve also been a coach for mathematics olympiads, both in schools and as a private tutor.