Mathematician from MIT
Senior Director of the
Data Science and Analytics
Center of Excellence at iRobot
Angela Bassa is an expert in building and leading data teams. An MIT-trained and Edelman-award-winning mathematician, she has over 15 years of experience across industries—spanning finance, life sciences, agriculture, marketing, energy, and software. Angela leads the Analytics, Data Science, and Machine Learning teams at iRobot, where she helps bring intelligence to a global fleet of millions of consumer robots. She is also a renowned keynote speaker and author, with credits including the Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review.
"she provides an innovative approach"
"everyone I know says it's fun to collaborate with her, and I'm not surprised"
"[she] has built one of the best teams around here at iRobot."
"a genuine pleasure to work both for and with"
"she handles difficult tasks without hesitation"
"she's always on top of her game"
"she's smart, to the point, and hard-working"
"she brings that rare product of passion and smarts"
"a brilliant data scientist, an enthusiastic contributor, and an effective and compassionate leader"
"a creative and collaborative partner"
"she pitches in, puts in the hard work, and keeps smiling"
"she masters new knowledge and vocabulary with amazing speed"
"very funny, exceptionally quick-witted, and caring"
Professional Experience
Senior Director of the Data Science and Analytics Center of Excellence
Greater Boston Area, MA – Jan 2017-present
- Senior Director of the Data Science and Analytics Center of Excellence; Jan 2021-present
- Head of R&D Analytics, Data Science, and Machine Learning; Nov 2019-Oct 2020
- Director of Data Science and Data Engineering; Jan 2019-Nov 2019
- Director of Data Science; Jan 2017-Dec 2018
As the demand for data-driven insights and analytics is expanding across the company, iRobot continues to grow its data capabilities through the formation of a Customer Analytics Center of Excellence. Aligned with iRobot’s digital strategy, our team's strategy is centered around enhancing the user experience by personalizing engagement at key touchpoints along the customer journey.
Previously, I led data analytic, algorithmic, and scientific initiatives across iRobot's R&D organization, supporting about 50 professionals as the Head of Analytics, Data Science, and Machine Learning. From improving mission completion, to the introduction of customer capabilities like recommended keep out zones, these teams have demonstrated how data can be a differentiator for iRobot’s products. We help develop algorithms (recommender systems, predictive analytics, reinforcement learning, computer vision and object recognition, etc.) that run on-board our robotic fleet, as internal tooling to accelerate development and inform our technology strategy, and in our consumer-facing app. Our objectives are varied but ultimately focus on improving our customers' experience—always in a privacy-conscious and respectful way.Our teams work at the intersections of Cloud Operations, IoT and Data Engineering, Software Development, Testing and Automation, Digital Product Management, Security and Privacy. We provide a credible, single source of truth for analytics, experimentation, and insights for the enterprise.
- How iRobot used data science, cloud, and DevOps to design its next-gen smart home robots
- iRobot Ready to Unlock the Next Generation of Smart Homes Using the AWS Cloud
I came to iRobot with a vision—to build a world-class data intelligence team that helps bring innovation to a global fleet of consumer robots and injects data-informed decision making into the very fabric of the company. Pragmatically, my initial objective was two-fold: first we had to generate immediate analytical ROI on high value and high visibility projects to demonstrate the results of the substantial initial investments, but importantly we also needed to place audacious architectural and research-driven bets and enable the company to deliver on the promise of a truly smart home.
iRobot designs and builds robots that provide people with smarter ways to clean and accomplish more in their daily lives. iRobot's portfolio of solutions features proprietary technologies for the connected home and advanced concepts in navigation, mobility, manipulation and artificial intelligence. The company was founded in 1990 by MIT roboticists with the vision of making practical robots a reality; since then it has sold more than 20 million robots worldwide.
Technical Advisor
Washington, D.C. – Dec 2020-present
The Tech Talent Project was founded in 2017 by former technology leaders from previous White House administrations. It is a nonpartisan, nonprofit project dedicated to increasing the ability of the U.S. government to recruit modern technical leaders in order to achieve critical economic, policy, and human outcomes.
Technical Advisor
Greater Boston Area, MA – Jan 2016-present
Research shows that Measurement-Based Care improves outcomes, but is critically underused. By partnering with organizations to achieve successful implementation, Mirah makes MBC into a sustainable practice. Mirah helps behavioral health organization incorporate data into therapy and level-of-care decisions, with outcomes visible to clinicians and leadership. Clear, easily accessible data analytics help identify and proliferate best practices.
Senior Manager—Data Science, Big Data Analytics and Platform Engineering
Greater Boston Area, MA – Aug 2014-Jan 2017
Manager, Data Science; Aug 2014-Aug 2015
Senior Manager, Data Science; Aug 2015-Sept 2016
Senior Manager, Data Science, Big Data Analytics and Platform Engineering; Sept 2016-Jan 2017
Every day at EnerNOC I got to work with an amazing group of people and:
- Oversaw development and maintenance of our data and metadata stores, relational, graph, and "Big" databases, alerting systems, and serverless analytical frameworks (using HBase, Storm, AWS Lambda/Kinesis, DynamoDB, Redshift, Spark, TitanDB, Neo4J, Forge Rock Identity Management, Oracle);
- Reached employee engagement ranked in the 98th percentile as measured against all 2016 respondents (not just within EnerNOC) in the global Gallup Q12 Survey;
- Advanced outward facing thought-leadership through a mix of academic partnerships and facilitating participation in key industry and academic events;
- Delivered dozens of patent filings for novel data applications.
EnerNOC, a provider of demand response solutions and energy intelligence software is now part of Enel. With capabilities to better address budgets and procurement, utility bill management, facility analysis and optimization, sustainability and reporting, project tracking, and demand management, EnerNOC's SaaS platform helped enterprises control energy costs, mitigate risk, and streamline compliance and sustainability reporting.
Director, Analytics Consulting Group
Greater Boston Area, MA – Jul 2013-Jul 2014
During my tenure as Director of Analytics, our team:
- Introduced visualization techniques and tools (such as Tableau, R), predictive and data quality methods, as well as best-practices in version-control, reproducibility, and model development.
- Improved a predictive algorithm for a leading cosmetics campaign that yielded 3.5% incremental average basket value;
- Developed and implemented a novel approach to brand loyalty assessment, with 4.4x Return on Investment;
- Increased billability from 65% to 78%—we introduced formalized training, a mentorship program, and aligned the team on expectations, governance, and recruiting.
Harte Hanks is one of the world’s leading marketing service organizations, delivering millions of customer interactions every day for some of the best-loved brands in the world. The Analytics Consulting Group is brought in to deliver the most sophisticated projects, such as natural language processing, campaign analytics, and market segmentation.
Senior Consultant
Greater Boston Area, MA – Feb 2013-Jun 2013
My team analyzed longitudinal patient claims data to inform price and reimbursement strategies for industry clients.
The Amundsen Group is now a division of the IQVIA Market Access Strategy & Analytics organization. Their main focus is to help pharmaceutical companies with quantitative and data-driven commercialization consulting.
Senior Consultant, Engagement Manager
Greater Philadelphia Area, PA – Sep 2011-Jan 2013
It was my privilege to work directly with owner and Principal, Jack Kloeber, and apply decision sciences methods to complex strategic problems. During my tenure at Kromite, I got to:
- Design and write a stochastic model with over 10,000 lines of code to simulate and improve soybean research & development processes for a Top-3 seed company—and helped inform and optimize decisions on US$410Mn spend. This project was awarded INFORMS’ Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences;
- Build a Multiple-Objective Decision Analysis model for Top-3 pharma company to quantify benefit-risk information for publication and presentation to Federal Drug Administration advisory committee in Washington, D.C.;
- Represent Kromite at the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in San Francisco, the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Bio in Philadelphia, the Argyle Conference in New York City, and the Phacilitate Conference in Boston;
- Present Disease Burden Analysis findings at World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.
Kromite is led by Jack Kloeber, a retired US Army Lt. Colonel who taught mathematics at West Point and decision analysis at the Air Force Institute of Technology, who headed Portfolio Management for Bristol-Myers Squibb and J&J Pharma prior to Kromite.
Kerdan Group, now Human Care Systems
Consultant, Senior Consultant
Greater Boston Area, MA – May 2006-Jul 2011
Consultant; May 2006-Mar 2009
Senior Consultant; Mar 2009-Jul 2011
During my time with that exceptional team, I got to work on many projects across multiple therapeutic areas, business units, and markets. These included:
- Drafting a target product profile and Phase-3 development plan decision tree for top metabolic asset with estimated peak sales of US$500Mn to US$2Bn;
- Evaluating market research and clinical data (segment and market mapping, patient flows, forecasting models) to guide Research & Development and promotional spend for 3 Novel Chemical Entities;
- Designing Neurology therapeutic area strategy for mid-size company to guide US$80Mn in discovery and in-licensing efforts.
Kerdan was founded in 2001 by Matt Hall and Thom Doyle on an idea: instead of providing clinical abstractions and deductively analyzing pharmaceutical data, that we could get better results via abductive logic—an "Occam's Razor" approach to strategy. Our methodology was built on open-minded observation, inquiry, and prototyping.
Dive Master, Open Water Instructor
Christiansted, USVI – Jul 2004-Jun 2005
I spent almost a year there learning to dive, and eventually teaching others to dive as well. St. Croix Ultimate Bluewater Adventures is a PADI 5-Star Instructor Development Center and a PADI Tec Diving Center. As a dive-master here, I took up to 14 certified divers per dive on underwater tours and shared local animal and coral information back on deck.
The 4,000 year old St. Croix barrier reef is one of the best developed reef systems in the tropical Atlantic Caribbean and is the most extensive reef on the Puerto Rican shelf. The island is located on the boundary between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and has a wall that drops 13,000 feet (4km). There are 5 shipwrecks within 100 yards of each other off Butler Bay.
Investment Banking Analyst
Greater New York Area, NY – Jul 2003-Jun 2004
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational financial services corporation who provides securities products and services. As a Global Capital Markets analyst with the firm, I analyzed models and comparables on event-triggered credit financings for both investment-grade and high-yield assets.
- I kept a database of relevant market conditions and the expected price/yield impact of mock credit operations by monitoring the portfolio management and debt trading desks;
- I built the source-of-funds and capital restructuring models for a US$1.8Bn Initial Public Offering leveraged by US$1Bn credit issue;
- I developed a pricing model and worked with our legal counterparts at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom to help write a complex US$580Mn multi-lien credit offering, which ultimately drove 8-digit revenue for the firm.
Volunteering and Internships
Volunteer Pet Rescuer
Greater Boston Area, MA – 2010-Present
HomeAgain PetRescuers are part of a nationwide network of over 1 million volunteers who help reunite missing pets with their families. This network is alerted every time a lost cat or dog goes missing in a location, and provides training and resources to aid in the rescue.
Volunteer Translator
Greater Boston Area, MA – Spring 2003
For two afternoons every week I provided assistance in French, Portuguese, and Spanish to families and friends of patients in the waiting area. Many non-native English-speaking patients do not have a support network nearby, and I tried to help them feel a little more comfortable in the hospital.
Founded in 1811, the 820-bed world-renowned medical center offers sophisticated diagnostic and therapeutic care in virtually every specialty and subspecialty of medicine and surgery. Each year the MGH admits approximately 35,000 inpatients and handles more than 1 million visits.
Summer Research Associate
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Spring & Summer 2002
During this summer research internship, funded by the 2002 MIT Provost research grant, I performed a comparative study of the local presidential election media coverage, highlighting the disparity between the alleged objectivity and impartiality of newspapers, and their behavior as political agents during election campaigns.
The School of Electoral Studies, Political Communication, and Public Opinion, a department of the Institute for Social and Political Studies (IESP) of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), has acquired a significant database of journalistic coverage in Brazil.
Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
Cambridge, MA – Fall 2001
Under direct supervision of Mechanical Engineering Professor Seth Lloyd, I explored quantum information theory, computation, and communications in order to make progress toward a transfer control protocol for quantum data.
One of the earliest programs of its kind in the United States, MIT’s UROP allows students to participate in research as the junior colleagues of Institute faculty. The Research Lab of Electronics Quantum Information Group conducts investigations in two major areas: The first is in quantum information, with research in the design of quantum computer and quantum communication systems, as well as work in quantum algorithms, theory of quantum information, and quantum control theory. The second is in complex systems, including problems of complexity in engineering and in measures of complexity.
Summer Internship
Poços de Caldas, Brazil – Summer 2001
I was an intern here, so I assume that mostly I just slowed other people down while I learned a ton! This unit has about one thousand employees and four integrated production areas: mining, refining, smelting, and aluminum powder. Here, Alcoa produces calcined alumina and hydrated alumina, metal in liquid form, billets, ingots, and powdered aluminum. This is also where the company centralizes the services of the administrative and financial areas for Brazil operations.
Summer Internship
São Paulo, Brazil – Summer 2000
Itaú is the largest Latin American bank and one of the largest banks on the planet, with approximately 96,000 employees and operations in 20 countries; the bank provides services to individuals and companies of all sizes, from major transnational groups to local micro-entrepreneurs. I was an intern here too, so I know that mostly I just slowed other people down while I learned a ton!
Patents and Applications
37 granted global patents. A few selected awards:
USPTO 10,839,554
(2020-11-17)
Bassa, A.; Al-Mohssen, H.
USPTO 10,775,755
(2020-09-15)
Al-Mohssen, H.; Bassa, A.; Main, E.
USPTO 10,684,599
(2020-06-16)
Al-Mohssen, H.; Main, E.; Bassa, A.
USPTO 10,552,869
(2020-02-04)
Al-Mohssen, H.; Main, E.; Bassa, A.
USPTO 10,488,878
(2019-11-26)
Al-Mohssen, H.; Main, E.; Bassa, A.
USPTO 10,153,637
(2018-12-11)
Al-Mohssen, H.; Paradis, R.; Bassa, A.
USPTO 10,025,338
(2018-07-17)
Al-Mohssen, H.; Bassa, A.; Paradis, R.
USPTO 9,786,143
(2017-10-10)
Al-Mohssen, H.; Paradis, R.; Bassa, A.
EPO Application
EP3242256
Al-Mohssen, H.; Main, E.; Bassa, A.
AusPat 2015201773
Al-Mohssen, H.; Bassa, A.; Paradis, R.; Willig, R.
AusPat 2015201789
Al-Mohssen, H.; Bassa, A.; Paradis, R.
Honors, Awards & Publications
Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange
19th Annual MITX Awards, May 2015.
EnerNOC's energy intelligence software collects and analyzes millions of data points about how enterprises buy energy, how much they're using, and when they're using it, and marries that information with grid and market signals, such as real-time prices, weather, and overall system peak. As a result, enterprises get actionable insights into how they can save money and use energy more productively, and utilities and grid operators get firm, reliable demand-side resources.
INFORMS, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
2015 Analytics Conference. April 2015.
Syngenta partnered with KROMITE to jointly reevaluate crop research & development program operations, which resulted in improved crop output, reduced time-to-market, significant cost optimization, and increased portfolio value. Together, they developed new analytical tools that dramatically improved project lead training, decision-making and planning, and analytical thinking in the organization; and initiated a multi-year effort to customize and launch similar tools across all major crop areas.
Studies in Applied Mathematics, co-author
Volume 124, Issue 3, pages 213–228, April 2010.
Proof that any finite planar graph with girth at least ten can have its edges partitioned to form two graphs on the same vertices, one of which is a forest, and the other a matching. Several related results are also demonstrated.
Journal of Graph Theory, co-author
Volume 44, Issue 3, pages 215–230, November 2003.
The following conjecture of Brualdi and Shen is proven in this paper: let n be partitioned into natural numbers no one of which is greater than (n + 1) / 2. Then, given any sequence of wins for the players of some tournament among n players, there is a partition of the players into blocks with cardinalities given by those numbers, and a tournament with the given sequence of wins, that is transitive on the players within each block.
MIT Undergraduate Research Journal
Volume 8, pages 55-67, October 2002.
This paper discusses the Kyoto Protocol propositions for reducing global warming by financing appropriate projects in developing countries through the Clean Development Mechanism. This paper describes mathematical and game-theoretic strategies to avoid the global loss of social well-being.
