About

My name is Raghav and I'm an aspiring data scientist and applied statistician. I majored in Philosophy (concentrating in Statistics within the Philosophy of Science) and Computer Science and minored in Math and Data Science at the University of Pennsylvania. People occasionally give me a quizzical expression when they see this combination of seemingly disparate topics. The best way I've come to address their confusion is with the acknowledgement that Math and Philosophy are two sides of the same coin -- both are disciplines based in deductive and abductive logic. While I don't have a strong preference for one over the other, I believe that statistics and machine learning are the perfect marriage of both.

At the risk of sounding reductionist, I also think that both provide us with the best set of tools for consistently and effectively answering questions (guided by data) and uncovering the proverbial "man behind the curtain" (the underlying process that creates the data that we see). They gives us the "what". The "why", in my mind, comes from our interpretation of the mathematical axioms acting upon this data that we use to determine the "what". The beauty of these axioms is that they provide us with an intuitive analogue between the numbers and what we observe in the real world. They also allow us to update our beliefs based on new information, in the same way that we are accustomed to doing on a day-to-day basis.

tl;dr I'm passionate about statistics, machine learning, and philosophy

Where am I right now?

I'm currently in Philadelphia, finishing up my final semester at Penn. For those looking for good places to eat, I highly recommend Honest Toms (44th and Spruce) and Sam's Morning Glory Diner (12th and Fitzwater). For those not looking for good places to eat, I highly recommend Honest Toms (44th and Spruce) and Sam's Morning Glory Diner (12th and Fitzwater)

What have I been (repeatedly) listening to these days?

Purpose of this Site

I want to start writing. Though this will likely be yet another unread blog on the Internet, I want to be able to coherently write about some of the things that I care about. I plan to write my thoughts on the NBA, on philosophy/ethics (e.g. the ethics of killing animals or the demarcation criteria for science/pseudoscience), and on statistics/machine learning (intuitive explanations/analogies + proofs of algorithms). My hope for the future is to expand the breadth of the topics that I write about and make my site responsive to people's thoughts/commentary.