Hello, I'm Neharika.
Engineer by nature, Product Thinker by practice, Entrepreneur at core.
Graduate Student at Carnegie Mellon University.
About Me
I’ve always been curious about how things work, whether it’s debugging code, untangling messy data, or figuring out why users drop off after two clicks. That curiosity turned into a habit of digging deeper until I find patterns that actually explain the “why.”
Engineering gave me the foundation, but what really stuck with me was systems thinking and learning how to turn raw ideas into products people actually want to use. I realized I enjoy being at the intersection of tech, design, and strategy—where decisions ripple out into real user impact.
Right now, I’m pursuing my Master’s in Information Systems Management at Carnegie Mellon University. This summer, I worked at Optum as a Product Manager Intern, building data-driven solutions in healthcare. Before that, I spent time across multiple early-stage AI startups, wearing many hats to build, test, and launch new products from scratch.
Outside of work, you’ll usually find me at a pilates class, geeking out over a new type of matcha, or scribbling ideas for the next thing I want to build. For me, the thrill has always been taking something from 0 → 1.
Projects & Research
Robotics Intelligence Platform
Scraped market data on robotics and applied semantic scoring, and delivered dashboards for strategic insights.
Consumer Complaints Analysis Using NLP + LLMs
Analyzed 3M+ consumer complaint records using transformers and topic modeling; built LLM-powered classification pipeline with insights dashboard.
Distributed Systems Project: Cat Breed Application
Built an Android + Java servlet app with Docker and MongoDB that fetches breed data from TheCatAPI and visualizes usage trends in dashboards.
Optimizing Customer Retention with Churn Prediction & Clustering
Built churn prediction models and applied clustering on Knet Flicks customer data to identify at-risk segments. Delivered data-driven retention strategies that highlighted revenue impact.
Hybrid Deep Learning for Alzheimer’s Diagnosis
IEEE, 2022Proposed a hybrid framework combining CNN transfer learning (DenseNet, MobileNet) with Decision Trees for MRI classification. Improved accuracy and sensitivity for early-stage Alzheimer’s detection.
MRI Feature Engineering for Alzheimer’s Prediction
IEEE, 2021Built feature extraction + Random Forest pipeline on ADNI MRI data using GLCM features. Achieved 96.4% accuracy, outperforming baseline ML models in dementia stage prediction.
Experience
Product Manager Intern
Optum (UnitedHealth Group) • May – Aug 2025
Worked on data-driven healthcare solutions, helping build scalable AI tools and improving provider engagement workflows.
Product Manager
Fanory Technology (0→1 startup) • 2023 – 2024
Shipped creator economy features, built analytics dashboards, and led product growth experiments.POC; CTO + CPO to Board of Director.
Associate Product Manager
TELUS (previous Playment, YC’17) • 2021 – 2023
Built products for ML annotation, designed features that improved labeling accuracy, and shipped tools that supported autonomous vehicle and computer vision clients.
Software Developer
TEKsystems • Sep – Dec 2021
Built data pipelines and analytics solutions in Azure; worked on automation for large-scale data processing.
Salesforce Developer Intern
MTX Group • May – Sep 2021
Automated workflows in Salesforce with Apex + Lightning; improved shift tracking and recruitment efficiency.
Data Engineer Intern
TEKsystems • Feb – May 2021
Built data pipelines and analytics solutions in Azure; worked on automation for large-scale data processing.
AI Engineer Intern
Robokalam (0→1 startup) • May – Aug 2020
Developed an AI-powered chatbot for edtech, integrating NLP models to improve student interaction and engagement.
Data Analyst Intern
GetBoarded • Apr – Jun 2020
Scraped COVID-19 datasets, applied AI/ML + NLP for insights, and built dashboards to track real-time data trends.
Software Engineer Intern
NTPC Limited (NSPCL) • Jun – Jul 2019
Built a data migration model between Oracle & MySQL using PHP.
AI Engineer Intern
Sopra Steria • May – Jul 2019
Worked on NLP models for text processing, applying AI to enterprise automation workflows.
Achievements
Hack-a-Startup Winner – Patient Safety Challenge 🏆
2024
Won 1st place out of 50+ teams at CMU’s Hack-a-Startup competition for building Relayd, an AI-powered nursing handoff automation tool that reduces communication gaps in patient transitions. Recognized under the Patient Safety Technology Challenge.
Founder – Menova.ai 🏆
2023–2024
Founded an AI startup tackling menopause care for 1.3M+ women annually. Spearheaded platform design integrating LLM-driven symptom analysis with clinically validated care pathways for personalization. Pitched to investors & healthcare leaders, secured pilot interest, and shaped GTM strategy via stakeholder validation.
CMU Swartz Fellow 🏆
2025
Selected as a Carnegie Mellon Swartz Fellow, a prestigious fellowship supporting entrepreneurial leaders driving innovation at the intersection of technology and business.
Product Management Case Study Publication 🏆
2024
Work as a Product Manager was featured in a MoEngage case study highlighting CelebPrime’s 30% revenue growth. Contributed to product-led growth strategy, creator analytics, and engagement optimization.
Gold Medalist – DPS RKP 🏆
2009–2017
Awarded the Gold Medal for being a scholar badge holder for 8 consecutive years at Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram.
Teaching Assistant – AI Foundations (CMU Online) 🏆
2025
Served as a TA for CMU’s AI Foundations program, mentoring students in core machine learning concepts, applied projects, and LLM-based systems.