Group Leader
Dr. Luis Ospina-Forero is a researcher in Data Science in the Alliance Manchester Business school. Prior to his position at Manchester University, he was a Data Scientist at The Alan Turing Institute (London) working on the use and application of the Structure of Complex Systems. His research interests relate to Network Comparison, Network Inference, Forecasting, Causal Learning and the application of Network Analysis methodologies to practical and meaningful problems in finance and society. Dr. Ospina-Forero holds a PhD in Statistics from the University of Oxford and is a statistician by training from the National University of Colombia.
Core members – (Science, Steering and Management)
Thu Trang Dinh is a Ph.D student in Management Science and Marketing Division in the Alliance Manchester Business School. Her background is Economics with specialization in Money, Banking and Finance. She is interested in time series forecasting of financial markets with machine learning application and profitable investment strategies.
Maria Fernanda Ibarra Gutiérrez is a PhD student in Data Analytics and Society at the University of Manchester. Her research is focused on understanding pension accumulation using Data Analytics. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Actuarial Science from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She is interested on using statistics and data analysis to understand social problems.
Rui Zheng is currently a PhD student in Management Science and Marketing Division in the Alliance Manchester Business School. Her background is mathematics and statistics. Her research is mainly about decision science, statistical modelling, and social network analysis.
Guowei Huang is a Ph.D. student in the Management Science and Marketing Division at the Alliance Manchester Business School. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Management with First Class honors and a master’s degree in Computer Science (AI) with Distinction. He is interested in applying deep learning (mianly Natural Language Processing and Graph Neural Networks) in the field of business.
Summer Interns
Imogen Edwards is studying for a Masters in Physics from the University of Manchester, and is currently undertaking an internship with the Alliance Manchester Business School. She has a special interest in computer programming for the purpose of data visualization, and how this could be used to tackle social and political issues.
MSc students / Current and Past
Edouard Payne is a Master’s student in Data Science at the University of Manchester. His background is focused around data analytics and optimisation. He completed his undergrad at Aberystwyth University in Business Economics with Computer Science. A proficient programmer in Python, his interests include data exploration and mining, as well as network analysis. The labour market is of interest to Edouard; hoping to use data science to tackle issues like skill shortages and imperfect labour market knowledge.
George Gkekas graduated from University of Piraeus in 2018 with BSc in Informatics (1st class Hons). Currently, he is studying his MSc in Business Analytics: Operational Research and Risk Management in University of Manchester. His interest is Data Analytics and its applications to the Financial Market.
Phaidra Anastasiadou is undertaking a postgraduate course in Business Analytics at the Alliance Manchester Business School. She has an undergraduate degree in Mathematics at the University of Bath. Due to her mathematical background she has developed analytical skills and critical thinking which are vital assets in problem solving. During her bachelor she dealt intensively with data and multiple linear regression through software such as E-views, Stata and R.
Past Members
Dr. Lei Ni completed her PhD at the University of Manchester. Her research interests include decision science, social influence, and social network analysis. She is a daily R user and is passionate about data wrangling, data analytics and visualisation.
Kefan JIN – Kefan is currently a undergraduate student in the University of Manchester. She major in Pure Mathematics and she is passinate about statistics and data science. With her academic background in mathematics and experience in Python and R, she would like to contribute various perspectives and more ideas to the group.
Junzhe Wang is a BA Economic & Politics student at the University of Manchester. He is interested in data science. He started learning R at 2nd year and immediately he saw lots of potential of R. He is able to utilise R and other statistical tools like SPSS in problem-solving situations. He still on the path to expand his skill set and knowledge through learning and working experience.
Data and Methods Exploration Group 