Student Spotlight: Miles Voenell

The image of a stereotypical data scientist might be someone locked behind their keyboard. But here at Rowan, our students break those stereotypes. Take Miles Voenell—he’s crushing calculations, and crushing competition on the track!

Miles Voenell is a data science master's student and Rowan track star. Originally hailing from California, he’s flown across the country to study data science at Rowan. “I’ve always liked crunching numbers, and found that data science is a good way to do that,” says Voenell. As for his love of running? “My mom used to do fun runs when I was a kid, which got me interested,” says Voenell. Voenell’s run with his childhood passion his whole life, all the way up to now–the final semester he’s eligible to run at the university level. He loves working with the Rowan track team, admiring the group’s ambitious, determined attitude. “I’m always running with teammates,” says Voenell. 

Voenell recently placed 8th in a regional competition at the New Jersey Athletics Conference (NJAC) Championships. “It was a lot of fun, especially since our team was heavily favored to win. It was like one big final celebratory race,” says Voenell. 

Voenell is interested in data mining. Right now, he’s focused on gaining practical experience to prepare for his post-graduate career. He’s particularly interested in modeling how end times from previous track seasons predict running performance for current, or future seasons. He performed the study as an undergraduate but found the regional-level data he was using wasn’t substantial enough. “I want to use national-level data,” says Voenell. “I found a bit of correlation, but there’s so many differences in the way people run. It’s hard to account for everything. One issue I found was that people run on different surfaces, like a dirt road versus a paved one. That affects the data.”

Wherever he goes next, Voenell is sure to bring his love of numbers and running with him. Data science is everywhere–including the great outdoors!