About

Sarah L. Howell is a highly skilled Data Engineer with over 8 years of relevant experience in the field. Currently, she is working at Facebook as a Data Engineer, where she is responsible for developing and implementing data pipelines using various technologies such as Spark, AWS, Scala, Cassandra, Hadoop, Kafka, and Flask. Prior to this, she worked as a Data Engineering Fellow at Insight Data Science, where she designed and developed streaming and batch data pipelines using AWS clusters, Kafka, Spark Streaming, Spark, Scala, Hadoop, Cassandra, and Flask. She also implemented a 300x more efficient range-join and a tractable distance-join using probabilistic Locality-Sensitive Hashing (LSH) and ingested, processed, and identified anomalous high-level radio signal data from SETI Breakthrough Listen with real-time notifications (within minutes) for same night re-measurement. Before transitioning into data engineering, Sarah worked as a Physics Research Fellow at Northwestern, Caltech, and Cornell. During her time there, she simulated and modeled (using FDTD and finite element physics simulations), analyzed, characterized, fabricated, and designed (full-stack) novel nanostructured optoelectronic devices using low-dimensional semiconductors for photovoltaics, LEDs, transistors, and thermoelectrics. She published four papers in top journals (three first author) and presented at five conferences. Sarah holds a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) with Honors in Applied Physics from Caltech and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University. She has a diverse range of skills, including data engineering, Spark, AWS, Scala, Cassandra, Hadoop, Kafka, Flask, and Research Scientist. She also earned certification from the Kellogg Management for Scientists and Engineers Program (2015), a condensed 8-week version of the Kellogg MBA curriculum, and led and/or was on the executive committees of the Materials Science Umbrella Society, the Northwestern Energy and Technology Group, and the NU MRSEC Student Leadership Council. Throughout her career, she has TA’ed for Process Design Statistics and Introductory Quantum Physics courses, mentored through the RET, MORE, SAS, BHGH, and Project EXCITE programs, and participated in numerous STEM outreach programs.