Sarah Liu

Education

• Shandong University, BS Logistics Engineering, 2009
• University of Michigan, MS Industrial & Operations Engineering, 2013

Career summary

Sarah is a Data Engineer at Meta. she is the analytical go-to person in a cross-functional team with engineers, business, policy etc. Her team is targeting at protecting Meta products from un-intended or abusive behavior, actors or content. Before this job, Sarah worked on data analytics and modeling in the purchasing, logistics and supply chain areas at General Motors (GM) for seven years. Sarah was then promoted from researcher to senior researcher to data science and analytics lead. She developed herself in three aspects through projects: technical know-how on building data pipelines and models; business know-how on how to bridge the gap between IT, business, and modeling; and project management such as managing people without authority. Sarah also built a reputation and became the technical go-to person regarding complex issues over time. For example, when GM sponsored the 2019 INFORMS student competition, she convinced leadership to choose the topic she was most excited about: analyzing future vehicle delivery networks with autonomous vehicles. She was able to define, collect data, analyze and coach students on the existing problem.

Q&A

How does your master’s degree differentiate you from others?

My master’s degree from U-M IOE provided me with a lot of possibilities. Firstly, I took Ph.D.-level operations research courses such as Integer Programming, Linear Programming, Stochastic Process I, 2 and Queue Theory. Secondly, I was a research assistant with Professor Cong Shi on applying the Approximation Dynamic Programming policy in the Revenue Management area. Thirdly, in the simulation course, with the guidance of Professor Luiz Guzman, I read papers and technically led our final project to win the first prize in the national ProModel simulation competition. Finally, I networked and learned from my classmates through participating and organizing the department events, and working as the department peer advisor.

Can you reflect on your time spent at U-M?

Figure out what you want and focus on it. If you are interested in data science jobs, the master-level courses in operations research, simulation and statistics together with a programming course would help a lot. You could leverage free U-M Coursera courses and specialize during the winter/summer break and after graduation. Last but not least, you will meet a lot of smart people in your program, make friends and keep in touch!