People / Students / Class of 2026
Leo McKenna graduated from Northwestern University in 2025 with a B.A. in Economics and Statistics. While an undergraduate, Leo worked with Professor Daniel Shanahan on projects in computational musicology, where he applied statistical and machine learning methods to large musical corpora. This work included building classifiers to distinguish between different jazz styles using audio feature extraction and analyzing intervallic and harmonic patterns across composers such as Bach, Mozart, Chopin, and Beethoven.
Leo has also contributed to consulting projects with IntuWork Consulting and the CPASS Foundation, where he worked on data-driven initiatives to support STEMM pathways for students in Chicago. These projects involved designing a medical school competitiveness score tool, developing data warehouse structures for tracking student outcomes, and working on survey platforms with complex branching logic and governance protocols.
Outside of academics, Leo enjoys drumming and was formerly a competitive Scrabble player. He looks forward to further developing his technical skills and getting hands-on experience through the Practicum and Capstone projects.
