From Brit & Co; http://www.brit.co/female-engineers-ge-goldieblox-glow/ 

And last, we’ll hear from Nancy Wang, a Data Scientist at Glow. At Brit + Co, we’ve been obsessed with Glow since the beginning. It’s an app that lets you sync up and track your cycle, whether you’re trying to conceive or just want to be more in tune with your period and health. Not only does it help you understand your bod, but it has already helped over 20,000 women get pregnant. Read on to learn about Nancy’s journey:

+Tell us your story +

I started graduate school at Stanford studying biochemistry when the Human Genome Project was nearly complete. My research involved running high-throughput experiments that generated massive amounts of data. It didn’t take long for me to realize that making sense of the data required some knowledge of statistics, so I started taking courses in the statistics department and gradually developed a passion for the subject. I loved the pure elegance of statistical theory. Statistics gave me a new perspective on things that are stochastic in nature and made me appreciate the existence of an orderly mechanism behind what might appear random. From there, conversations with my professors gave me the confidence I needed to take the risk and pursue a new career in statistics. So after completing my masters in biochemistry and statistics, I switched programs to pursue a PhD in biostatistics at Berkeley.

After graduate school, I took on a series of data science roles at companies including Paypal and Netflix. I’m now at Glow, which I was particularly drawn to because of the data science nature of the company, but also because I know the work we’re doing is relevant to women’s health and focused on improving people’s’ wellbeing. I’m thrilled to be working at a company that is making a meaningful contribution to people’s everyday lives. We have the potential to advance scientific discoveries in the field of women’s health and fertility – it’s a truly unique team to be a part of.

+ What inspires you? Why do you love to innovate and create? +

Curiosity. I find it so much fun when you’re trying to discover something, to understand the truth behind what you observe. And ultimately, I love trying to create something new out of whatever knowledge I’ve discovered. Working at Glow gives me the opportunity to be creative in how we tackle big problems and, ultimately, uncover new discoveries in women’s health.

+ What’s one piece of advice you’d share with other budding female engineers, innovators and makers? +

It is crucially important to find a good fit early on in your career. Once you have found it, everything else will follow naturally. While it was hard to decide to change my career focus from biology to statistics, it was the right decision since it was my true fit. And everything since then really has happened pretty naturally.

+ Do you have any other creative hobbies? +

I took a sewing class in high school and developed a hobby from it. Over the years I’ve found it to be not only a good way of expressing personal styles but also a very practical skill. When we bought our home a few years ago, I could not find any quality drapery that was long enough to cover the windows in our living room. I also did not want to pay ten thousand dollars for a custom drapery service. So I took out the sewing machine and made all the drapery in our home. When I have some time, I would love to make some costumes/dress-up clothes for my daughter!

+ Anything else you want to tell us?+

Personally, I love watching my daughter grow and develop. I’m amazed by how much she’s grown just over the first 1 1/2 years of her life; she’s always surprising me with how much she’s learning!