Alex Ramnarine ’22 Bridges Art, Data Science, and AI

When Alex Ramnarine ’22 isn’t exploring AI strategy and entrepreneurship, she might be developing her digital art gallery or charting her next move in AI. Her expanding career options come from a rare blend of artistic and STEM skills—Northwestern’s MS in Data Science (MSDS) helped bring them together and bridge the gap between her interests.

Early on, Ramnarine’s view of the future was much narrower. “I was always creative, and I also thought I wanted to be a surgeon, but I didn’t think of the world outside of medicine,” she says. So, she pursued that goal while maintaining her artistic side, earning a BS in biochemistry and studio art from Boston College, then working in the immunology lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. There, she encountered mentors like her supervisor, a computational biologist and geneticist who created compelling computer visualizations to extract deeper insights from lab data.

“I learned there was a world beyond the bench,” Ramnarine says. “There’s this data toolkit that enables problem-solving and creativity beyond hands-on medicine. I wondered if I was locking myself out of other career possibilities.”

Making the Change

But Ramnarine still followed her plan to become a surgeon. She was accepted to medical school and took classes in bioinformatics and nanotechnology at Harvard, which further enhanced her interest in data and technology. At the same time, the pandemic transformed medical school into a largely virtual experience. She made a big decision: pause her medical studies and enroll in Northwestern’s MS in Data Science program with a specialization in AI. She graduated in 2022, the same year OpenAI released ChatGPT.

“Since then, I haven’t looked back,” she says. “I loved being able to customize my program and put my own spin on it. I could branch out, such as a collaboration I did with Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine’s Critical Care Department. Northwestern Medicine surgeon Anne Stey, MD, was a final reader for my thesis. My adviser was MSDS professor Nathaniel Bastian.”

Ramnarine’s MSDS thesis, “Towards an Optimal Policy of Mass Casualty Trauma Triage,” features her research on reinforcement learning, data, and computational agents in optimizing trauma care. She presented her work at the American Medical Informatics Association Conference and the Northwestern Medicine annual Department of Surgery meeting. She also participated in the Women in Tech Global Conference and Northwestern’s Women in Tech Thought Leadership panel, alongside Northwestern SPS alumni and faculty from diverse graduate programs, including Data Science and Regulatory Compliance.

The Northwestern AI effect

When she selected the AI specialization, generative AI was still emerging. There was no such thing as “prompt engineering,” she explains. But the program prepared her for what was coming. Just one academic quarter into her studies, she landed a role at biopharma giant GlaxoSmithKline.

“Then, after I graduated, my career really grew like crazy,” she says. “Every year, I was promoted or getting a new offer.” She believes Northwestern’s MSDS program gave her more professional leverage and impact. She also credits the MSDS curriculum for helping her master machine learning, language models, AI architectures, and decision analytics. And, through business and leadership courses, she became “not just a great data scientist, but a great communicator as well.”

After graduation, Ramnarine moved into health tech startups and served as an adjunct professor of business intelligence at Touro University. She later became one of the first AI engineers at ed-tech company BrainPOP, where she developed a patented software platform, and then the founding head of AI at fintech startup Domify.

“The job market is challenging, but I’ve had continuous interviews and gained experience in diverse industries that are using AI—not just strictly data science roles. One company had a technical review I didn’t expect, but I was prepared thanks to the program’s project-based approach,” she says.

Coming Full Circle

When Ramnarine enrolled at Northwestern SPS, she didn’t realize yet how profoundly AI would reshape society and industry. Today, she’s positioned at the forefront of that transformation—while still honoring her creative roots.

Following a cross-country move, Ramnarine is now working at Brilliant Earth as the Lead Product Manager of AI Initiatives, while earning an MBA at Carnegie Mellon focused on AI, entrepreneurship, and strategy. She’s also building a digital art gallery she hopes to beta test within the next year, bringing her journey full circle by combining art and technology.

“Before Northwestern, I had honors, scholarships, and publications under my belt,” she says. “But I wasn’t honest with myself about what I wanted to do. The program helped me gain specific in-demand AI and data science skills, but also the confidence to close the gap and become a data strategist and creative technologist.”

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