As Chloe Dearman ’25 completes her master’s degree in Data Science at the Whiting School of Engineering, she is not just culminating an academic journey that has afforded her opportunities to learn firsthand about the power of data in decision-making, but she is also embracing her calling to leverage data science for impactful change. Whether it’s enhancing patient care or guiding audiences to their next favorite TV show, she’s asking herself the same question: how can data improve lives?
This past summer, Dearman worked behind the scenes on the HBO Max product analytics team at Warner Bros. Discovery, where she witnessed the transformative power of data in real time.
“We analyzed viewer behaviors—what shows were clicked, how far users scrolled, and where they lost interest,” she explains. “I wasn’t just observing data move—I was contributing to how the platform connected with its audience.”
As part of a team responsible for end-to-end reporting across HBO Max and Discovery+ apps, Dearman helped track and interpret user activity from the moment someone opened the app until they closed it. When a new feature launched that enabled users hover over a title to preview a show, her team analyzed how often people used it, how engagement varied among audiences, and whether it changed viewing patterns. Their insights informed stakeholders about which features to refine or expand.
Through this process, Dearman says she strengthened her understanding of how analytics drive business strategy. “It felt surreal to work on something so many people interact with daily,” she says. “Seeing how analytics guide real-world choices made me realize this is exactly what I want to do in my career.”
Her drive to make an impact continued during her time at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Center for Data Science in Emergency Medicine where she’s helping develop machine learning models that predict whether patients will need critical care, using real-time hospital data.
“I’d never conducted research before coming to Hopkins,” Dearman says. “Now our team is submitting manuscripts for publication. It’s been incredibly meaningful—and rewarding.
Getting to this point hasn’t been without its challenges, though. After spending two years in consulting, the technical coursework of a master’s program felt daunting.
“I had to rebuild my coding confidence,” she says. “But the classes at Hopkins pushed me in the best way.”
A deep learning course with Vishal M. Patel, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, proved pivotal. “We didn’t just learn the tools,” she says. “We learned how to think like researchers—how to keep learning beyond the classroom.”
Her upcoming capstone project brings those lessons together. Using natural language processing—a form of artificial intelligence that helps computers understand human language—Dearman built a custom web scraper to analyze publicly available customer reviews for the clothing brand Uniqlo. The independent project explores how different models interpret sentiment and how demographic data might reveal deeper insights into consumer behavior.
Building on those insights, Dearman applied state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) techniques, including the BERT—an advanced Google model that interprets language context—to refine for approach to sentiment analysis. In doing so, she developed a stronger grasp of how data preprocessing, model selection, and interpretation can reveal patterns in customer behaviors that inform both business and consumer decision-making.
Whether she’s parsing streaming data or analyzing hospital records, the common thread is clear: “It’s about people,” she says. “It’s about helping them find the right product, the right show, the right treatment, at the right time.”
She’s planning a career as a data scientist and credits the master’s program’s flexibility and mentorship for her growth and sense of direction.
Her advice to prospective students? “Do your research. Hopkins offers you so many opportunities to explore and the freedom to build your own path—and the tools to make it happen.”