Wataru Ishihara
wataruishihara203@gmail.com | (669) 356-2340
Professional Experience
Data Science / Project Management Intern – Reazon Holdings (“menu” Food Delivery App)
Tokyo, Japan | July 2025 – Sept 2025
- Developed user segmentation pipeline using Word2Vec embeddings and neural clustering, increasing first-time user purchase rate by 15%.
- Analyzed first-session behavior with SQL/DuckDB and Python, discovering predictive paths that increased retention and influenced product design.
- Presented findings directly to CEO, AI/Data Science teams, and senior leadership, shaping company strategy.
- Led cross-functional coordination with engineers and designers to translate analysis into user-facing improvements.
Bilingual Interpreter – UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education
Davis, CA | Sept 2022 – June 2025
- Delivered real-time Japanese ⇄ English interpretation for lectures and materials in a mini MBA program, ensuring smooth communication between instructors and students.
Research Experience
Undergraduate Research Assistant – Computational Physics
University of California, Davis | Sept 2024 – June 2025
- Simulated phase transitions in Ising models using Monte Carlo methods and the Metropolis algorithm.
- Developed Python scripts for statistical sampling and spin configuration analysis.
- Analyzed temperature-dependent behavior, identifying critical points and phase transitions.
Projects
- User Segmentation via Word2Vec (Reazon Holdings, Internship) – Implemented embeddings + clustering to segment food delivery users; presented insights to CEO and data science teams.
- Transformer Language Model – Built a Transformer from scratch in PyTorch with multi-head attention, positional encodings, and feedforward blocks. Trained on Wikipedia text data to generate coherent sequences.
- Clothing Type Classification – Developed a CNN in PyTorch to classify Fashion-MNIST clothing images with high accuracy.
Education
University of California, Davis | Computational Physics Major B.S. | Sept 2021 – June 2025
Skills
Programming & Data: Python, PyTorch, SQL, Pandas, NumPy, SciPy, MATLAB, OpenCV
Machine Learning & AI: Deep Learning, Transformers, CNNs, Word2Vec, Model Training & Evaluation
Data Analysis & Visualization: Statistical Analysis, Monte Carlo Methods, Experiment Design, Seaborn, Matplotlib
Tools: Vercel, Git, Onshape (CAD), Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro
Languages: Japanese (Native), English (Native), Korean (Conversational)