Life "after" math, or how I found everything I learned applied in industry too

In this talk I will take you through my journey from a Ph.D. in math at ASU to working in the tech, and later biotech industries. I'll talk about why math is one of the best ways you can prepare yourself academically and intellectually to succeed in industry, and how to convince other people of that fact. I'll go into some of the things I got wrong in trying to land my first job so that you don't make the same mistakes, and also highlight what I look for as someone who is now on the industry hiring side and has conducted hundreds of interviews. Finally I will address some of the differences, from my perspective, of how academia and industry operate and why ultimately I find myself to be happier outside academia.

Bio
Chris completed his Ph.D. in Mathematics at ASU (advised by Prof. Hélène Barcelo) in 2009 with focus areas in algebraic combinatorics and topological combinatorics. He had postdoctoral appointments at MSRI and Reykjavík University prior to leaving academia to join the tech industry. Chris worked on search engine quality and ranking for 10 years at eBay and Amazon before joining Benchling to work on a new set of problems in biotech. He currently leads multiple teams at Benchling focusing on the capture and analysis of experimental data for biotech researchers, including using statistics and machine learning to improve and optimize experimental processes.