Chisoo Lyons, MS IEOR ’88

Chisoo Lyons

Chisoo Lyons, MS IEOR ‘88, began her career at Fair, Isaac—the credit scoring company now known as FICO—which was then headquartered just across the Bay in San Rafael. She has maintained a strong connection to her Berkeley roots in several ways. She married fellow Berkeley graduate Norm Lyons, who earned his MS in Operations Research a few years before she did. The two even worked together at Fair, Isaac for a decade.

Chisoo credits the IEOR department for providing the academic foundation that launched her career. “Professor Barlow’s Bayesian Decision Analysis and Professor Leachman’s Linear Programming were especially formative,” she shares. “Fair, Isaac itself felt like an extension of the IEOR department. Our board chair was Professor Bob Oliver, and we hired many Berkeley
alumni, creating a strong sense of continuity with the academic community.”

After a long and fulfilling career at Fair, Isaac—during which she introduced and led transformative solutions in the global credit risk industry—Chisoo now serves as Executive Director and CEO of Women in Data Science (WiDS).

Originally launched as a Stanford initiative, WiDS is now a global nonprofit that supports and inspires women and underrepresented minorities to pursue careers  in data science and AI. The organization’s mission is to cultivate the next generation of leaders committed to building an AI-powered society that serves the common good—not just commercial interests.  Learn more or at widsworldwide.org.