Featured Galante Fellow: Jonathan Harris

Jonathan (Jon) Harris is a fifth-year Northeastern student who has been part of the Galante Engineering Business Program since 2018. He is pursuing a Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering and his Master’s in Operations Research. In deciding what to pursue at college, he was torn between business and engineering. Once at Northeastern, he was drawn to the Galante program as the ideal combination for an interdisciplinary education. Harris started the BS/MS program as an Engineering Management student; however, he soon realized his interests in applied math, data analytics and data science, leading him to transition his Masters studies to Operations Research. He has completed co-ops at Depuy Synthes, Wayfair, and Morgan Stanley and an internship at Unqork.

At Depuy Synthes, Harris worked as a Manufacturing Engineering co-op on the New Product Introduction team to improve machining processes for knee replacement parts. He also worked on a project to incorporate a new Machine Vision system into production for product-dimension verification and laser-etched text identification. This experience offered him valuable insight into manufacturing; however, Harris’s interests transitioned to data analytics. This led him to his second co-op as an Analyst on Wayfair’s Competitive Intelligence team. There, he analyzed large datasets on competitor services to extract insights for cross-functional teams. These projects helped him improve his technical skills and ability to convey complex data to less-technical, business stakeholders. For his final co-op, Harris worked at Morgan Stanley in their Prime Brokerage department. At Morgan Stanley, he performed data-oriented research on hedge fund activity to report on the hedge fund landscape for clients and internal teams. Thereafter, Harris began an internship at Unqork, an enterprise software company, on their Analytics team. As an intern, he worked collaboratively with other teams to further analytical capabilities within and surrounding the company’s no-code platform.

Harris will be graduating in May 2021 and will be joining Unqork as a Data Analyst. His favorite moments as a Galante Fellow have been meeting Ed Galante; Harris appreciates how engaged Ed was during his visits and found the insights he shared to be motivational. Harris’ time in the Galante Program has helped him clarify his academic and professional goals. He’s enjoyed getting to know peers and underclassmen to help them make the most of their time at Northeastern. Jon’s advice for other students is, “My most valuable experiences at Northeastern have been challenging and not traditional for an Industrial Engineer path. My advice is to consider opportunities that push you out of your comfort zone when looking at potential courses, extracurriculars, or research focuses. You might be surprised what you can learn from these, so go in with an open mind!”

By: Renuka Kannan ’22, Galante Storyboard Coordinator