Hello —

I’m Wenli.

Data Scientist @ UCSF

I’m finishing an M.S. in Data Science at UCSF, where I work with the Vonk Lab on biomarker‑linked trajectories of cognitive decline.

Before grad school I spent three years at SSENSE in Montréal — first in localization, then as a data analyst building product analytics, KPI frameworks, and the dashboards teams use to decide. I write Python, SQL, and R, and I am most interested in problems where careful measurement changes a decision.

Portrait of Wenli Xie
UCSF, 2026
Based in
San Francisco
Studying
M.S. Data Science · UCSF
Working on
Experimentation · Longitudinal models
Writes
Python · SQL · R

About

I work at the seam between behavioural data and the decisions a product team has to make — instrumentation, KPI frameworks, A/B testing, root‑cause investigation. Three years inside SSENSE taught me that the metric that gets defined is the metric that gets improved; that taste and measurement aren’t opposites; and that the most useful dashboard is the one a tired stakeholder still understands at 5pm on a Friday.

Today I’m at UCSF, modelling longitudinal language data with mixed effects, and in parallel building merchandising signals that surface emerging styles four to six weeks earlier than a moving‑average baseline. Outside of work I read about experimentation methodology, longitudinal models, and the slow craft of turning data into decisions.

Projects

SSENSE

Brand‑Level Fashion Trend Analysis

A signal pipeline that watches forty‑plus brands week by week and flags emerging silhouettes before a moving average can.

  • Python + SQL pipeline (DuckDB) computing weekly traffic→ATC→conversion across category, gender, region.
  • Style‑level momentum and acceleration indices surfacing signals 4–6 weeks earlier than the baseline.
  • Tableau spec benchmarking sell‑through, discount dependency, return rate.
  • Python
  • SQL
  • DuckDB
  • Tableau
  • Time-series
Vonk Lab, UCSF

Longitudinal Semantic Fluency Modeling

A reproducible analysis stack that turns repeated‑measure language data into interpretable trajectories of cognitive decline.

  • End‑to‑end pipeline (data merging, QC, outcome engineering) quantifying biomarker‑linked decline patterns.
  • Linear mixed‑effects models in statsmodels.MixedLM producing slope and gap contrasts for AoA, lexFQ, word count.
  • Validation with bootstrap CIs (1,000×); publication‑ready figures.
  • statsmodels
  • scipy
  • Mixed-effects
  • Bootstrap
  • matplotlib

Experience

  1. SSENSE

    Montréal, Canada

    Data Analyst

    • Led content analytics instrumentation; built a Python+SQL funnel model (12 cohorts × 5 stages) — bounce rate down 6%.
    • Built and automated 14 Tableau dashboards, cutting analysis turnaround by 12 hours/week.
    • Evaluated three A/B tests (~5,000 sessions/variant); ran root‑cause investigations on CTR/bounce regressions.
  2. SSENSE

    Montréal, Canada

    Localization Specialist

    • Cohort and funnel analyses informing notification copy and timing for priority cohorts.
    • Weekly Tableau KPI dashboards and competitor benchmarks; supported initiatives associated with a 12% conversion lift.
    • Supported 200 product‑launch campaigns across four social channels — average engagement up 30%.

Education & skills

Education

  • University of California, San Francisco

    M.S. Data Science STEM

    Expected May 2026 · GPA 3.8/4.0

    Coursework: Python & R, Machine Learning, Bayesian Methods, Statistical Computing, Data Visualization, Computational Modeling.

  • McGill University

    B.Sc. Nutritional Science STEM

    Feb 2020

    Major Entrance Scholarship; Atlantic Provinces Scholarship.

Skills

Analytics & experimentation

  • A/B testing
  • Hypothesis testing
  • Regression
  • Funnel optimization
  • Cohort & segmentation
  • Time series
  • Diff‑in‑Diff
  • CUPED
  • PSM
  • Power / MDE

Programming

  • Python
  • SQL
  • R
  • Shell
  • pandas
  • scikit‑learn
  • PyTorch

BI & data

  • Tableau
  • Power BI
  • Mode
  • Excel
  • Snowflake
  • dbt
  • Databricks
  • PySpark

Workflow & cloud

  • Airflow
  • MLflow
  • Git
  • GCP
  • AWS