Graduate student Uday Pandey was working so diligently on a model for the 2025 Travelers University Modeling Competition that he actually forgot to go to sleep one night.
“I was working on the model and was so engaged that I didn’t notice the time,’’ he said, laughing. “When I finally looked at the clock it was 5 a.m.!’’
For Pandey, who is studying Business Analytics and Project Management (MSBAPM), that diligence paid off. He was one of the winners of the competition, vying against approximately 50 teams for the honor. The competition was online and participants spent about two weeks revising their predictive models.
Their task was to use predictive modeling to identify potential subrogation opportunities in auto insurance claims using a subset of data. The students were given a vast amount of data from accident location to age of the driver to weight of the vehicle and had to describe their methods, the variables they thought were important and what other information would have been useful.
Although most teams had four members, Pandey was unable to create a larger team and decided to compete solo.
“It was fun to do everything from scratch,’’ he said. He focused on something that he’d learned in class: to look for hidden data.
“I refined my model 27 times,’’ he said. “I’m very excited about my performance and the chance to blend my classroom knowledge with practical experience. It has been a great opportunity for me. I would tell other students that they should enter these types of competitions and demonstrate the knowledge they’ve learned in class.’’
Jennifer Eigo, the academic director of the MSBAPM program, said she was happy for Pandey. “Uday is a hard worker, very enthusiastic and is always excited to build on what he is learning in the classroom,’’ she said. “Our BAPM students are learning relevant skills that all industries, and in particular the insurance industry, very much need. They graduate with the skills that make them very competitive and highly sought-after.’’
Pandey completed his bachelor’s degree at Awadesh Pratap Singh University and earned an MBA at Sri Balaji University, both in India. His portfolio includes internships with Bridgestone, Lonar Technologies, and Whirlpool Corporation in India. He has also worked for confectioner Ferrero in Luxembourg and at Amazon in the U.S. He came to UConn thinking he wanted to work in product development but now is more intrigued by data science.
He spent some of his winter break exploring Boston and, to his delight, experiencing snow for the first time. When he returns for the spring semester, he has an invitation from Travelers to participate in job-shadowing, as well as give a presentation of his findings to leadership and network with corporate data scientists.
