Intuit's AI leader on swapping astrophysics for
data science
When Nhung Ho moved from Vietnam to the US, aged five,
she struggled with English. Then, in grade two, her universe expanded. "My
teacher opened up a big picture book about astronomy. And I don't remember what
it was, but it just clicked. It was like I was in love," she tells the
BBC. "And I actually learned English by reading astronomy books."
The moment eventually led her to a PhD in astrophysics
from Yale University, where she completed her doctoral thesis on the evolution
of dwarf galaxies. But after 20 years of chasing the stars, Ho decided to take
her career in a different direction: data science.
She knows her career journey isn't typical, but she
sees a strong parallel between the two disciplines. "My passion is for
solving non-obvious problems using simple techniques with vast amounts of
data," she says.
This approach is what landed her at American
multinational financial-software company Intuit, where she is the vice
president of artificial intelligence.