Samuel W. Utzinger
I am a Swiss-American with a B.S. in Data Science from Northern Arizona University.
Education
Universität Bern | Bern, Switzerland Sep 2026 – Jan 2028
Masters of Computer Science – Data Science
- Research Assistant at Software Engineer Group
Northern Arizona University | Flagstaff, Arizona Aug 2022 – ( Bachelor Anticipated May 2026)
Bachelor of Science Data Science – Minor in German
GPA: 3.42, Dean’s list 2024 – 2025 – 2026
- Data Science Club President (2026) – Officer (2025)
- Undergraduate Research at RESHAPE Lab & Software Development
- Study Abroad at University of Zurich, International Internship & Study Abroad Assistant
Work Experience
Institute of Computer Science | Bern, Switzerland Sep 2026 – Current
Research Assistant | Software Engineer Group
- Coming soon
- Link
School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems | Flagstaff Dec 2025 – Jan 2026
Software Developer | Academic Event Attendance Platform
- Implemented an application for 1,500 NAU students in SICCS to track their attendance at university events. Vue 3, Vite, TypeScript, front end with a FastAPI and a PostgreSQL database backend.
- HTML and Python front end with a policy-aware SQL backend to enforce institutional constraints.
- Documentation | Link: currently managing post-deployment testing, bug and issues via GitHub
RESHAPE Lab | Flagstaff, AZ. Paid: May 2025 – August 2025 (Unpaid: Jan 2025 – May 2025)
Undergrad Research
- Developed DisTrac and published 2 papers. 2nd place at ICSE 2026 SRC (Rio De Janeiro, Brazil). (https://conf.researchr.org/profile/samuelwalterutzinger)
- Replication package and Hugging Face Spaces deployment for predicting open-source schedules (https://github.com/RESHAPELab/Distrack-DisengagementTrackingToolInOSS)
- This work was supported by the TRIF Faculty Research and Creative Activity Support Grants (FSG).
Brickfort Associate | London, UK. June 2025 – August 2025
Research Associate Internship
- Assist in designing and developing algorithmic trading systems using Python.
- Interact with financial APIs to extract, clean, and process raw market data.
- Analyze trading results and performance metrics to refine and improve strategy effectiveness.
Center Of International Education| Flagstaff, Az. Jan 2025 – Jan 2026
Study Abroad Assistant
- Created and edited videos totaling 120,000 views and reaching 4,000 unique users. Portfolio
- Coordinated students through email, public speaking and administrative tasks.
Publications and Academic Projects
Data Science Club (President) Sep 2025 – May 2026
- Elected President in 2026 after helping co-found in fall semester 2025.
- Led ~20 members in applied analytics projects & organized and hosted NAU DataFest 2026 (8 teams, 30 participants) w/ Dr. Buscaglia.
International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2026) – Student Research Competition April 2026
- 2nd Place in the Undergraduate Student Research Competition 300$ prize
- “Early Forecasting of Developer Inactivity in Open Source Projects”
Animal Hack 2024 Aug 2024
- Awarded “Excellence in Research” and published here.
- A project on endangered animal trade ethics and data analysis finding the primary purposes of legal trade
Datathon ETH Spring 2024
- Placed Top 10 in UBS challenge using Instagram API and machine learning models to predict ad traffic.
Speaking Opportunities
- Undergraduate Research Symposium (URS) Mar 2025
- 3rd at Engineering Fest “External Research Category” Nov 2025
Capstone Thesis | Data Science Jan 2026- May 2026
- ASA Datafest participation and Thesis title: “Disparities of Death in the United States: Extending the Standardized Mortality Ratio”
Citizenships / Languages
United States
Born in Tucson Arizona
English - Native
Passport - Active
British
Mother born in Oxford.
English - Native
Passport - Active
Swiss
Father born in Bülach
German - Beginner A2-B1
Passport- Active
Work Experience
After my study aboard at the University of Zurich I became a volunteer for a semester then a paid assistant for the next year with the Center of International Education. I answered emails, gave talks and had long term filming projects.
Developed and set up an algorithmic trading systems using QuantConnect for a startup invesment company. Using financial APIs to extract live finacal data I devloped a simple trend based python trading stratagie.
Letters of Recommendation
“Sam is mature great learner that really applies himself to the problem. I hope he has a great legacy.”
Director for Graduate Programs in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems
“His insights reflected a mature understanding of both quantitative finance principles and the computational frameworks underlying algorithmic systems. Moreover, his ability to articulate complex technical ideas with clarity and precision was awe-inspiring for someone at the internship level”
Brickfort Ltd London, United Kingdom
“Mr Utzinger is a strong and ambitious student. He actively participated in the lecture and the exercise sessions, and proactively prepared for the covered topics. He completed the course with an excellent final grade of 5.5, placing him in the top 10% among his peers.”
My Portfolio and Awards
My Portfolio and Awards
Conferance Presentation
I won 2nd in the Undergraduate Student Research Competition with ACM and got 300$. This competition had a 3 phase approach were 25 students submitted papers, 5 undergraduates went to Rio for a poster, then 3 of them present and then winners were chosen.
Award and Publication
Publication on Amazon: Advancing Sustainable Human-Animal Relationships: Tales from AnimalHack 2024 (Binnovative Innovation Book Series)
3rd at NAU Engineering Fest
I submitted a poster to a presentation our lab was helping with for capstone students and happend to win 3rd at the external research category due to low participation.
Data Science Club
I have increased participation in the club from 6 students to occasionally over 20. We worked on a fun project with the math department to get students real data spring 2026 semester.
Switzerland and Internship
I traveled for 8 months staying with my mom and studying in zurich. I also did a remote internship with a startup company in the UK helping with algorithmic trading.