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Photo of Yiyue (Jessie)  Xu

Yiyue (Jessie) Xu

Graduate StudentEmail Yiyue (Jessie) Xu

Yiyue graduated from UC Berkeley in 2022 with dual degrees in Economics and Urban Studies. Yiyue first fell in love with data when completing a hypothetical post-COVID socio-economic analysis that revealed underlying and fundamental social inequalities through data. Her background in both Economics and Urban Studies exposed her to quantitative techniques such as theoretical statistics and programming languages as well as people-centric focuses such as social sustainability and well-being. Realizing the power of data, Yiyue decided to pursue a degree in data analytics in order to better contribute to solving problems that businesses and communities are actively facing. Yiyue had the opportunity to develop and hone her skills as an analyst at a consulting firm, KPMG, and Swire Properties. During her first internship for a consulting firm, Yiyue was able to gather, clean, and analyze data gathered from various online platforms to predict the growth of the medical beauty industry thereby making investment suggestions for a PE client. During her most recent internship at Swire Properties, she was able to utilize Excel VBA and Python to improve the efficiency of the budgeting process for the commercial real estate branch, which saves time and labor for the operating company. She also offered suggestions for the portfolio brand mix based on an in-depth analysis of current tenants which takes financial performances, market potential, and customer profiles into account. Making tangible changes and keeping on learning useful hard and soft skills throughout her internships, Yiyue further consolidated her passion for working with data and addressing vital problems for businesses and communities. As a part of the MSiA* program, Yiyue hopes to be equipped with the necessary tool kit that allows her to process and analyze data more efficiently and effectively while continuing to develop her communication and leadership skills by working with a like-minded cohort that shares her passion and supports her growth. After graduation, Yiyue hopes to work for organizations that are constantly contributing to making positive impacts by putting people first and actively combating challenges through wise strategic decisions based on data.

*later renamed MS in Machine Learning and Data Science