Tamar Grey is a software engineer with five years of experience building data-driven products and developer tools, currently contributing at Benchling after a multi-year engineering role at Alteryx. She has strong Python and full-stack chops, having implemented production features like video APIs and offline mode for sports analytics at Second Spectrum and shipped AutoML and feature-engineering improvements in prominent open-source projects featuretools and EvalML. Tamar's open-source work highlights a practical focus on data preprocessing, feature selection, and performance optimization—skills that bridge research-grade data science and production reliability. She holds a BS in Computer Science and Molecular Biology from MIT, and early research work led to a published GWAS analysis, reflecting a knack for turning complex data into reproducible insights. Based in Cambridge, MA, she brings a mix of applied ML tooling, backend systems design, and a user-centered approach to shipping impactful software.
5 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science - BS Computer Science and Molecular Biology, Bachelor of Science - BS Computer Science and Molecular Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
An open source python library for automated feature engineering
Role in this project:
Data Scientist
Contributions:10 releases, 415 reviews, 101 commits in 2 years 3 months
Contributions summary:Tamar focused on improving the `featuretools` library, primarily by addressing issues related to feature engineering and data type handling. Their contributions included fixing boolean data type mismatches, ensuring consistent feature ordering, and improving test cases. They implemented feature selection functionalities like removing highly null and correlated features, demonstrating a focus on optimizing feature engineering pipelines. The user also added a feature selection guide.
Contributions:259 reviews, 26 commits, 43 PRs in 3 months
Contributions summary:Tamar primarily contributed to the development and enhancement of the EvalML library, focusing on AutoML functionality. Their work included implementing the OrdinalEncoder component, integrating it into the AutoML search process and time series featurization. They also worked on performance optimization by implementing a partial dependence fast mode and fixing related bugs, particularly when using DFS Transformers. These changes demonstrate a focus on improving data preprocessing, model interpretability, and AutoML capabilities within the project.
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