Student Profile: César Núñez Huamán, MSCAPP Class of 2026

After earning his bachelor’s degree in economics from University of the Pacific in Peru,  César Núñez Huamán, MSCAPP Class of 2026, worked in several consultancy roles adjacent to public policy. “Most recently, I was at Videnza Consultores, working with organizations such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and UNICEF. It was rewarding because it was connected to public policy, and we were able to draw on data from other countries and regional governments to improve the outcomes for our clients.” 

The constant in all his work, Núñez Huamán said, was working with data. “And that's why I'm doing the MSCAPP. The public policy aspect is my motivation, but I really enjoy the technical work with the data.” 

Currently a second-year Master of Science in Computational Analysis and Public Policy (MSCAPP) student, Núñez Huamán said the program has been providing a perfect mix of policy and data. “First, the computer science department teaches you to code and think as a computer scientist—it actually changes your mindset of how to code. Second, you have the space to work on personal projects that you can include in your portfolio. Finally, I appreciate that after two quarters of computer science courses, you're actually able to build an application. It’s one thing to be able to do some coding and build a data set in Excel or a CSV file, but it’s a completely different thing to be able to build a functional application dashboard that also looks nice and is easy to understand.” 

The experiential opportunities, Núñez Huamán added, also have been invaluable. “After my first year, I interned with DPIC [Data Policy and Innovation Centre] in India over the summer. Our main client was the government of Odisha, a state in India. The challenge we wanted to help resolve was that the government’s system for collecting and addressing constituent feedback on issues—ranging from health, social insurance, education, and roads—didn't have any analytics. 

“Our team built an ETL [Extract, Transform, Load] pipeline—extracting raw data from sources, transforming it through cleaning and structuring, and loading it into a system for analysis—to better understand the breadth of the data. To improve the government’s response capabilities, we then proposed automating feedback categorization using machine learning. The goal is to automate a summarization, categorization, and routing of constituent feedback—which is what we’re currently working on for them in the Data Science Clinic here at UChicago.” 

The DPIC internship, he said, has been incredibly rewarding. “Professionally, we’re tackling a real-world issue using data science and data engineer tools we’re learning in MSCAPP. Plus, the cultural experience was fantastic. The DPIC team in Odisha was so friendly and welcoming. They scheduled trips for the interns—not just to historical places in the state, but also to the University of Chicago Center in Delhi. And the food was amazing.” 

During his time as a student, Núñez Huamán has also served as a TA for the coding component of Math & Coding Camp and CAPP 30121, a Python course for MSCAPP first years. “I had been a teaching assistant during and after my undergrad experience, so when the opportunities presented themselves at Harris, I thought it would be a great way for me to learn more while helping others learn as well.” 

As for the future, Núñez Huamán said he’s primarily interested in backend data engineering roles—ideally with a large city. “I’m interested in issues revolving around transportation, since it impacts a lot of lives daily. I’d like any work that I'm doing to have a positive impact on people.”