Sara Kay
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Applied AI engineer based in Boston, MA. CMU MSBA '26. AWS certified. Published across finance, survey methodology, and AI. Building production LLM systems, RAG pipelines, agentic workflows, and the data-governance layer that makes them trustworthy, plus whatever problem is most interesting right now.
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building anime databases (162k rows)
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learning japanese
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firing up the laser cutter
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presenting at conferences
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working on data pipelines
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writing Data Gremlin newsletter
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judging scholarships
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building anime databases (162k rows)
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learning japanese
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firing up the laser cutter
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presenting at conferences
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working on data pipelines
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writing Data Gremlin newsletter
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judging scholarships
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ABOUT ✦ ✦
Sara Kay is an applied AI engineer at IBM (HashiCorp unit), where she built and owns Keysensus's production service — context-aware data governance that decides what data is safe for downstream AI and analytics systems to use. Previously at Moody's Analytics she engineered LLM citation and RAG systems for financial analysts and shipped a $1.2M compliance product. She publishes research on survey methodology and measurement bias — the same rigor that high-fidelity AI training data demands — mentors students through building real AI projects, and runs a physical-digital fabrication lab for charity events. Her work spans applied AI engineering, data-quality research, applied-AI education, and creative technology.
Want the conventional version? Flip the toggle to pro mode, or here's my linkedin and resume.
AWS Data Engineer
AWS Cloud Practitioner
Dartmouth College
BA Computer Science + Quantitative Social Science
Graduated with Honors
Academic Citation of Merit
TuckLAB Finalist
First-Year Emerging Leader
graduated with honors and a very specific brain
Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper School)
MS Business Analytics, May 2026
University Honors
graduated with university honors (top QPA!)
the skill sky ✦
hover a constellation to light its skills + trace the threads
✦ click the stars to read the case studies
Key Achievements ✦ ✦
Featured Speaker
Presented live demo of natural language-to-SQL anime database system at Anime Boston 2026 to conference audience.
↗ talks
Academic Excellence
Graduated with honors from both Dartmouth College (BA) and Carnegie Mellon University (MS Business Analytics).
↗ about
Published Researcher
Seven peer-reviewed publications including features in the Journal of Financial Planning and the Journal of Family Theory and Review, plus Applied Finance Letters, NCFR Report, and other academic journals.
↗ press & research
AWS Certified
Earned AWS Certified Data Engineer and AWS Cloud Practitioner certifications.
↗ about
Revenue Impact
Developed zero-to-one compliance product generating $1.2M in revenue.
↗ work
Performance Optimization
Reduced ETL processing time by 54% through pipeline optimization.
↗ work
Maker & Fabrication
Handmade charity merchandise for Games Done Quick and Prevent Cancer Foundation.
↗ maker
Conference Speaker
Presented at AAFCS, BSPA (Harvard Kennedy School), Anime Boston, MAPOR, and other conferences.
↗ talks
NL-to-SQL System
Built natural language-to-SQL query system over a 162k-entry anime database (60,000+ titles) as graduate capstone project.
↗ projects
RAG Pipeline Improvement
Improved RAG citation accuracy by 92% using LangChain implementation.
↗ projects
Technical Writer
Launched Data Gremlin Go Brr newsletter covering data engineering and AI tooling.
↗ writing
Entrepreneurial Roots
Ran a booth in the Artist Alley at Kawaiikon at age 12, selling handmade laminated keychains as the show's only non-food vendor.
↗ maker
Hand-Built Dual-Mode Portfolio
Designed and built this dual-mode portfolio by hand in vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with no frameworks and no build step.
↗ case studies
Interactive Demonstrations
Built several self-contained, playable browser demos that visitors can interact with directly. Not screenshots, working prototypes.
↗ projects
Community Leadership
Named 2018 National Youth Advocate of the Year by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids after helping pass Hawaii legislation restricting youth tobacco access.
↗ volunteering