Currently an Extern @Extern

Early-career maker exploring skills and opportunities

I am beginning my professional journey, learning, building foundational skills, and looking for the right first role or project.

Work samples

A collection of early projects, exercises, and learning work that show what I am practicing and where I am developing skills.

  • Startup Funding Intelligence & Market Dashboard — Repository
    Startup Funding Intelligence & Market Dashboard — Repository

    Built an NLP-based sector classification model on Databricks using Apache Spark, automating startup pattern recognition and reducing manual deal-triage time by an estimated 70%. Designed an end-to-end ML pipeline with dbt transformations and LLM-based feature extraction, generating a data-driven VC investment thesis that identified underserved market sectors. Enforced Pydantic schema validation on all LLM outputs before downstream consumption, ensuring model reliability and preventing corrupted predictions from propagating through the analytics pipeline.

    DatabricksSpark NLPdbt CoreMLflowHuggingFaceChromaDBLooker StudioFastAPIGCP
  • Patient Readmission Analytics & Prediction System — Repository
    Patient Readmission Analytics & Prediction System — Repository

    Built an ML pipeline to predict 30-day hospital readmission risk from 70K diabetic patient encounters, aiming to help flag high-risk patients before discharge. Handled severe 11:89 class imbalance using SMOTE and cost-sensitive threshold tuning rather than optimizing for accuracy. Benchmarked Logistic Regression, Random Forest, and XGBoost with MLflow experiment tracking; selected the final model using a custom clinical cost function, achieving 0.65 AUC-ROC and 99% recall on high-risk patients.

    PythonXGBoostSHAPMLflowStreamlitFastAPIDockerGCP Cloud RunGitHub Actions

About me

I am beginning my professional journey, learning, building foundational skills, and looking for the right first role or project.

I am Hari Etta. I am at the start of my career and have little formal work experience yet, exploring which areas I want to focus on.

Externships

Excel & AI Financial-Modeling Sprint

Extern

Experience

Data & Analytics Assistant

Chicago Public Schools at IIT Chicago · Sep 2025 – Apr 2026

Data Scientist & VC Analyst

UruQAI — Quantum Computing Startup · Jan 2026 – Apr 2026

Associate — Design Technology & Client Analytics

Total Environment · July 2021 – July 2024

Education

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago

MS — Data Science & Applied AI (Information Technology & Management) · GPA: 3.6 / 4.0 · Class of 2026

Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India

Bachelor of Engineering · GPA: 3.1 / 4.0 · Class of 2021

Skills

Career beginnerLearning projectsExploring skill sets

Startup Funding Intelligence & Market Dashboard — Repository

Built an NLP-based sector classification model on Databricks using Apache Spark, automating startup pattern recognition and reducing manual deal-triage time by an estimated 70%. Designed an end-to-end ML pipeline with dbt transformations and LLM-based feature extraction, generating a data-driven VC investment thesis that identified underserved market sectors. Enforced Pydantic schema validation on all LLM outputs before downstream consumption, ensuring model reliability and preventing corrupted predictions from propagating through the analytics pipeline.

DatabricksSpark NLPdbt CoreMLflowHuggingFaceChromaDBLooker StudioFastAPIGCP
View all work

Patient Readmission Analytics & Prediction System — Repository

Built an ML pipeline to predict 30-day hospital readmission risk from 70K diabetic patient encounters, aiming to help flag high-risk patients before discharge. Handled severe 11:89 class imbalance using SMOTE and cost-sensitive threshold tuning rather than optimizing for accuracy. Benchmarked Logistic Regression, Random Forest, and XGBoost with MLflow experiment tracking; selected the final model using a custom clinical cost function, achieving 0.65 AUC-ROC and 99% recall on high-risk patients.

PythonXGBoostSHAPMLflowStreamlitFastAPIDockerGCP Cloud RunGitHub Actions
View all work

IIT International Student Policy Chatbot — Repository

Achieved 90.4% accuracy on a 52-question benchmark, outperforming AutoRAG and NotebookLM baselines deployed live 24/7 with real IIT students in closed beta. Designed a Neon PostgreSQL feedback analytics layer capturing every user session and query, enabling continuous performance monitoring and iterative improvement post-launch. Built hybrid BM25 + vector search with RRF fusion across 328 policy document chunks, improving retrieval precision across both keyword and semantic query types.

PythonFastAPIAzure OpenAI GPT-4.1ElasticsearchRAGNext.jsNeon PostgreSQLNetlify
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✅ Verified by Extern · ⏱️ In progress

Excel & AI Financial-Modeling Sprint

Build a three-statement model, forecast with drivers, run a DCF, and pitch a company like a pro. In this 3-week sprint, GPT helps you work faster—so you can walk away with real valuation skills and a polished investor deck.

Overview

The externship focused on building a full three-statement financial model, forecasting with drivers, and performing a discounted cash flow valuation. The work used Excel and AI-assisted workflows to assemble forecasts, integrate the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow, and produce a DCF and investor-facing slide deck.

Excel & AI Financial-Modeling Sprint

What I've accomplished

I translated raw financial data into model inputs, constructed linked financial statements, ran a DCF valuation, and packaged the outputs into investor slides. The list below summarizes specific tasks I completed during the sprint.

Project breakdown

View all work