Knox College Trio Win DataFest Contest

A group of Knox College data science students brought home top honors, winning the American Statistical Association’s DataFest competition held at Western Illinois University. The team reaped the rewards of their teamwork and camaraderie, bringing home first-place medals. 

Isaac Freeman ’26, Adithya Asokan ’26, and Vansh Chugh ’27 represented Knox College in the contest of analyzing data to solve real-world problems.

“We were given spreadsheets from a real estate company that sponsored DataFest and were tasked to analyze them,” Freeman said. “It was very open-ended, so we had to present our data.”

“It was basically: ‘Here's the data, go for it,’” Chugh added.

Chugh and Asokan had participated in the 2024 DataFest, earning an honorable mention. Building on their experience, the team entered this year’s competition with greater knowledge, a refined strategy, and a goal of surpassing their previous performance.

Reflecting on their improvement, Asoka said, “This year, we had a better general idea to approach the problem. We did not make the same mistakes we made previously. This time, we had a different approach. We worked separately on separate tasks, then came together to see what was good and what was bad.”

The group made better use of their time, letting each member of the team do what they do best, then combine their findings.

“People code differently; people are more comfortable in different environments,” Chugh said. “All of us are data science majors, all of us have had internships and classes at different levels, so we each have different skills and tools. We polished them throughout the years and used them in that 24-hour time.”

On the first day of work, the group went their separate ways solving problems individually, only to reunite the next day to put the finishing touches on their project.

“(The second day), we set the narrative for our findings and made something of the data that we could present as a team,” Freeman said. “(The last day), we spent making our presentation and making it accessible to an audience.”

After a successful experience, the students hope for more opportunities in data science, whether it be at conferences, internships, or in competitions. 

Published on October 20, 2025

- Scott Holland, Knox College Office of Communications