Student Profile: May Likhacheva, MSCAPP Class of 2028

“When I came to America in 2019, Duolingo was my best friend,” said May Likhacheva, MSCAPP Class of 2028. “I had just moved from Moscow to Texas, and less than one year later, COVID happened. My high school went remote, and I was not understanding any of the words being spoken to me over Zoom.”  

Undeterred, Likhacheva took advantage of COVID isolation to further absorb English-language media. “Ironically, I picked up quite a bit of English during COVID.” 

Likhacheva subsequently pursued her BS in business analytics and artificial intelligence at the University of Texas at Dallas. While an undergraduate, she also began working for Apple in tech support. “Apple has been great for two reasons. First, my whole job is talking people through tech issues, so that continued to help my English. Second, I had the opportunity to rotate into a role as an Analytics and Reporting Engineer, where I supported Data Center Operations and Finance teams with analysis and reporting of infrastructure performance and capacity. That role also allowed me to further hone my technical skills working with Snowflake SQL and Tableau.”  

Likhacheva also explored more “human-focused” applications of her technical skills during a capstone project at the University of Texas at Dallas.  

“My capstone team worked with My Possibilities, a nonprofit serving people with intellectual developmental disabilities. While gathering and analyzing two years of surveys, I saw firsthand how data could be used to help people—not just improve profits.”  

Likhacheva’s interest in helping people also inspired her policy interest in addiction recovery, although she noted that her pathway was somewhat unconventional. “When I was a little kid, a friend and I decided to write a book. While deciding on a conflict, we just happened to land on writing a drama about drugs. I began immersing myself in research and stumbled across the memoir Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F., and that had a profound and lasting influence on me—it's honestly the reason I became so deeply invested in the topic of addiction. I wanted to understand how some people can take drugs and remain functional, while for others their life goes awry. I wanted to understand the reason behind that. 

“Now,” she said, “since my background is mostly in technology, my goal is to help bridge the gap between technological advancements and addiction treatment to reduce relapse rates and expand equitable access to care by introducing AI-driven tools to public sector organizations.” 

How to find and implement those solutions, Likhacheva said, is what she hopes to learn in the MS in Computational Analysis & Public Policy (MSCAPP) program. “MSCAPP is the perfect blend of using and improving the technology skills I have and combining them with public policy. Using technology to more effectively explore data is critical—it's one of the key reasons UChicago has been finding solutions to problems that have been considered unsolvable. I'm excited to join other people interested in tackling problems who can show me where my ideas are flawed—and how I can improve them. No one fixes anything alone, and I can't wait to be a part of a community of learners and begin building relationships with peers, classmates, and professors.”