Helena Belloff of Levels: Women In Tech New York

Being a woman in tech isn’t easy. But while working in a male-dominated field can be a challenge, it’s important to advocate for yourself. And once you learn how to thrive in your chosen field, you can inspire others to follow in your footsteps. In this episode of the Women in Tech show, Espree Devora interviewed Helena Belloff, a data scientist at Levels Health. Helena shared the relevance of personalized data in health, the difficulties of being a woman in tech, and why advocating for yourself is so important.

07:34 – What drew Helena to Levels

The reason Helena wanted to start working at Levels was because she loved how the personalized data empowered people to live healthier.

I think what really drew me to Levels also as a consumer was the fact that we provide these CGMs, or we give access to these CGMs and empower people to have a real-time inside look at what’s actually going on in their body. When you go to the doctor, let’s say you get your annual checkup, that’s just a snapshot of what’s going on in your body at that point in time. They say, “Don’t get your cholesterol checked around the holidays because you might not like what you see.” But if you had access to that data every day, all year round, that’s part of the experience. It could be, your levels could spike one time with oatmeal and then maybe the next time you eat it, they don’t spike and Levels gives you the tools to figure out why and to discover okay, why am I getting this 3:00 p.m. crash? Why do I feel terrible after lunch all the time? And how is my sleep affecting my mood or my energy levels?

11:40 – Everyone’s health needs are different

Health is becoming more and more personalized. Individual data can help people make more effective decisions about their health.

Health is becoming so personalized now and I think that’s the right direction that we need to move in because everyone is different. Everyone’s body is different, everyone’s genetics are different. Even your genetics are directly affected by things like lifestyle and where you live and even environment in the womb and stuff like that. So there are just so many factors now that make it impossible to just have standardized, here’s a standardized diet. It’s not going to work for everyone because everyone’s different.

14:09 – Pair your foods to optimize absorption

Helena recommended pairing foods like high starches with either protein or fat to lessen the glucose spike in your body.

What I’ve discovered looking through the data is if you’re going to have a super starch in your meal, something like that, it’s always best to pair it with a protein or a fat. Some people do really well with peanut butter, for example. And they do well with it when they pair it with oatmeal and maybe pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds and maybe some berries and that’s like a very balanced meal, but maybe if they just have peanut butter on its own, they don’t do well or they have peanut butter on apples, they don’t do as well.

16:51 – The difficulty of being a woman in tech

Helena said being a woman in tech has been discouraging at times, but those challenges also taught her how to advocate for herself.

Being a woman in tech is hard. I’ve certainly, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve maybe felt like I’m not good enough to be here or maybe I’ve been discriminated against because of my gender. And there was a specific instance in college when I was singled out because I’m a woman and I was made to feel like I did something wrong, even though I didn’t. And I ultimately decided not only to not file a complaint with the university, but I switched my major so that I wouldn’t have to cross paths with that person as often. And years later, I was speaking with some of the younger students and I found out that they all had a similar experience and I regret not sticking up for myself, because if I would have said something, maybe they wouldn’t have had to go through that. Maybe I could have helped initiate a positive change where that type of discrimination is diminished. So I would say that a huge obstacle for me was just advocating for myself and telling myself you belong here. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel like you didn’t work hard to get here. And if they do, that’s their problem. You do you, and I promise people will notice.

19:14 – Let go of perfectionism

Perfectionism can drive you to do better work, but it can also paralyze you. Sometimes you have to let go of perfectionism in order to move forward with a project.

I actually had a candidate say this to me during our interview. I was interviewing him, but he’s a lot older than me and has a ton of experience. And he was telling me about his personal experience founding a company, coding the software, and trying to get investors. And like me, he seemed like a little bit of a perfectionist, and he kept delaying the release of his software because he wasn’t getting high enough accuracy with his models. And he finally had an investor say to him, “Why don’t you just release this? It’s not like it won’t work. Just put it out there and see what happens.” And he did. And it enabled him to not only fund his startup, but iterate on the models and take into account user feedback. And he’s had a lot of success ever since. And so he told me, “If you’re not sure, or if you think it’s bad, release it anyway.” And ever since then, I’m not afraid to post code on GitHub that’s maybe not the most efficient because I know someone will look at it and say, “Hey, you can improve this this way. Or actually, this data is a little more nuanced. Here’s something you didn’t know before.” So I would say the best piece of advice I’ve gotten is really, don’t be afraid to try. And if you end up, even if you end up in a situation where someone tries to judge you or make you feel really bad about a mistake, use it as an opportunity to grow it as a person.

20:57 – Looking to the future

Helena hopes to someday be an inspiration to other women in tech. She loves connecting with other women in the tech community and encouraging them.

I think at the end of the day, what I want to be let, let’s say 10 years from now, I’m talking like way out in the future, but I want to be a woman in tech that other younger women in tech can look up to, can use as a resource, and can feel comfortable coming to, and if I can be that, regardless of my successes and failures, I’ll be happy. But I think, I guess the more immediate next step for me would be, I want to build a team. I want to connect with other women in tech who have run data teams, started companies and just really get further into this community. I think since the pandemic, I used to attend all these networking events in the city. And since the pandemic, I feel a little bit more disconnected and I would love to just get back into the community.

27:13 – Data is becoming more relevant

Because of the sheer amount of data being collected and distributed today, data overall is becoming more and more relevant.

I think data science is becoming even more relevant now because of the amount of data we have. If there’s just too much data, you cannot get away with old school stats that these equations have been around for hundreds of years and yeah, we need computers and we need people who understand math and data. And so I think that’s really one of the reasons why this sort of field has been propelled.

Helena Belloff (00:00):

I would say that a huge obstacle for me was just advocating for myself and telling myself you belong here. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel like you didn’t work hard to get here. And if they do, that’s their problem. You do you, and I promise people will notice.

Espree Devora (00:28):

My name is Espree Devora, host of the Women in Tech Show. The show means a lot to me. The reason why I wanted to create the Women in Tech Show is I wanted to create a positive piece of content, something where people can listen and say, “If she can do it, so can I.”

Adam Marks (00:44):

Hey, this is Adam Marks. I’m a tech founder, writer and consultant, and I’ve been listening to the Women in Tech podcast for about three and a half years now. Espree does a phenomenal job spotlighting female entrepreneurs from all over the world. And one thing I love about the show is listening to their stories and how they’ve built their companies and organizations. We should always be pushing for representation and equality every time we go into the boardroom, every time we look for co-founders, every time we look to hire employees for our companies. So support representation and equality, support the Women in Tech podcast. Follow me at AdamMarks13 on Twitter and on LinkedIn, and remember to always look for the orange sunglasses.

Espree Devora (01:31):

Today’s personal spot is about our own self-limiting beliefs. So I created, it’s actually one of my teammates suggested it, a self critic trash. And so what it is, I got myself a little notebook. I just found it in my cupboard. The notebook title says You are Epic. And I have this little old fishbowl from actually my first startup that I put next to me, next to my desk. And whenever I have a negative self limiting belief, I write it down. I put a big like error, the zero with the slash and I throw it into the trash. I think our mind is real estate. And if any of the capacity of my mind is going towards thoughts that don’t serve, empower energize both me and the people around me, then what’s the point of that? That does nothing for anyone. So it’s a little experiment for myself. I’m curious to see how it works out, but so far, I mean sadly and also awesome, I have I think three or four things in there and it’s only day one. So we’ll see how it goes, but it definitely feels empowering. So I suggest it. Enjoy the next episode.

Espree Devora (02:51):

Welcome back to the Women in Tech podcast, celebrating women in tech around the world. So excited for our next guest coming at us from New York. Welcome, Helena.

Helena Belloff (03:03):

Thanks for having me.

Espree Devora (03:05):

Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to have you. Ever since I became exposed to the magic of Levels and your talent in assessing data, I’m like, please let me have Helena on the show. Helena, go ahead. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Helena Belloff (03:22):

Yeah, so I’m a data scientist at Levels Health. I’ve always been interested in math and statistics and computer science, and I’m also really passionate about health. And so it’s no surprise I ended up being a data scientist at a health tech startup.

Espree Devora (03:39):

Tell us what Levels does.

Helena Belloff (03:41):

Levels has a mission to solve the metabolic health crisis by showing members how food and lifestyle affects their health through continuous glucose monitoring. And we leverage this real time feedback to help members discover their optimal diet, control their weight and reduce long term health risk.

Espree Devora (04:00):

And how did you discover the opportunity at Levels?

Helena Belloff (04:03):

So I was finishing up my masters at Mount Sinai and I was doing Alzheimer’s research and I always knew that Alzheimer’s had a direct connection to diabetes, but I sort of just kind of ignored this point and it just wasn’t really like the main focus of my research. And then I had one conversation with Sam Corcos, who’s the CEO of Levels. And he said something so interesting to me. He said, “Well, Alzheimer’s is type three diabetes.” And I was like, “I’ve never heard that before. Please elaborate.” And after about 15 minutes, I was like, “Okay, I need to work for you immediately.”

Espree Devora (04:50):

Wow. What does the journey becoming a data scientist even look like? When did that first begin?

Helena Belloff (04:56):

Yeah, so it’s such a new field and honestly, when I was in college, data science wasn’t even a major. And so it’s a very, very new field. I think my journey sort of began more in math and statistics. I always had a childhood obsession with puzzles and I realized that if I went into something like math, it’s all puzzles and I would never run out of things to solve. And so that’s really where my journey sort of started. And then as I got deeper into it, I realized okay, you can’t even do these complex math problems without the tech side. And so I started to get into computer science after college, and then I sort of also landed in health because it’s something I’m really passionate about, and hence, data scientist in health. That’s kind of how it happened. It’s not really like a linear process.

Espree Devora (05:56):

Let’s visually walk through. I know we’ve had another teammate from Levels on the show as well, but for those of you who haven’t caught that episode yet, what Levels is, and this is me describing it as a consumer or a user, consumer, whatever, a human that has a patch on me. I’m not coming from a med tech knowledge whatsoever. So I got this patch, I stuck it on my arm. And in sticking it on my arm in a very specific way, I was able to track my glucose/insulin and how food and activity or inactivity is affecting me day to day so that I can make better choices in a more optimized living. So for example, even from the Levels blog, I learned this, that if I eat something and then I go for a walk, it’s way better on my insulin than if I just eat the thing or I could eat pizza and be fine, but my friend can eat pizza and it could affect them for two days.

Espree Devora (06:56):

So food affects each one of us differently. Activity affects each one of us differently, but without us truly knowing what’s going on in our specific bodies, we’re just playing a guessing game. So somebody can say, “Yes, this food is bad for you.” But what does that really mean to your body? And somebody can say, “This food is good for you like a banana.” But maybe your banana, a banana for your body really spikes you. And for the next person, it wouldn’t. And I think we could all agree that banana is perceived as an incredibly healthy food. Do I have it right, Helena?

Helena Belloff (07:32):

Yeah, exactly. I think what really drew me to Levels also as a consumer was the fact that we provide these CGMs, or we give access to these CGMs and empower people to have a real time inside look at what’s actually going on in their body. When you go to the doctor, let’s say you get your annual checkup, that’s just a snapshot what’s going on in your body at that point in time. They say, “Don’t get your cholesterol checked around the holidays because you might not like what you see.” But if you had access to that data every day, all year round, that’s part of the experience. It could be, your levels could spike one time with oatmeal and then maybe the next time you eat it, they don’t spike and Levels kind of gives you the tools to figure out why and to discover okay, why am I getting this 3:00 p.m. crash? Why do I feel terrible after lunch all the time? And how is my sleep affecting my mood or my energy levels?

Espree Devora (08:42):

Yeah, sleep is the newest superpower. I’ve become obsessed with that I’m terrible at.

Helena Belloff (08:47):

Yeah, yeah. I’m terrible at it too. So it’s really, really cool to see. And it’s really empowering to be able to sort of see inside your own body without having to go to the doctor and having them tell you, “Oh yeah, you’re in the normal range.” What does that even mean?

Espree Devora (09:04):

100%. Now, for what you’re allowed to share, what discoveries have you made like the one where if you take a walk after, what are some other discoveries that were really interesting that you found based on the data that you’ve seen?

Helena Belloff (09:21):

Yeah. Well, speaking of oatmeal, so oatmeal is kind of like a sneaky spiker, we like to call them. Some people do really, really poorly with oatmeal and it really depends. So that was an interesting one. Another one that people often overlook is ketchup. Ketchup actually has yeah, so if you buy like the Heinz or whatever the standard brand of ketchup, a lot of times, if you actually look at the back, there’s a lot of sugar in there. And so unless you’re sort of making it yourself, it has the potential to spike you, depending on how much you use and obviously what you eat it with and stuff. But ketchup was an interesting one. Soy sauce also can contain a lot of sugar.

Espree Devora (10:09):

So it doesn’t matter even if we have low sodium soy sauce?

Helena Belloff (10:14):

Yeah, it doesn’t matter. I would say one thing I’ve learned just through looking at the data at Levels is okay, maybe I should start reading the back of food labels just to see what’s actually in these items, because they really sneak sugar in there and it doesn’t always leave you feeling the best and then you’re wondering why.

Espree Devora (10:37):

When is the culprit of sugar okay, or how do we not, it’s never okay on an ongoing basis, but how do we make it a little bit more okay the norm in the sense like, okay, so we have sushi with soy sauce. What kind of, should we have it with, pair it with a certain food or should we be doing a certain activity before or after? Or are there any kind of hacks of how to make it not as bad?

Helena Belloff (11:04):

Yeah. Yeah, there are tons. So actually with sushi, a lot of our members tend to fare better when they go for sashimi and they eliminate the rice.

Espree Devora (11:14):

The rice-

Helena Belloff (11:16):

Versus when, because rice is kind of that sneaky spiker or you can instead replace the sort of sticky white rice with some people do better with brown rice. Some people don’t, but some people do and cauliflower rice.

Espree Devora (11:32):

And that’s the point by the way, some people don’t, some people do. And how can you know, unless you know what’s going on inside your body?

Helena Belloff (11:37):

Exactly, exactly. I mean, health is becoming so personalized now and I think that’s the right direction that we need to move in because everyone is different. Everyone’s body is different, everyone’s genetics are different. Even your genetics are directly affected by things like lifestyle and where you live and even environment in the womb and stuff like that. So there are just so many factors now that make it impossible to just have standardized, here’s a standardized diet. It’s not going to work for everyone because everyone’s different.

Espree Devora (12:11):

And what’s your day to day look like at Levels? What’s it look like to be a data scientist?

Helena Belloff (12:17):

Yeah, so it can vary for sure. I could be doing something like implementing a machine learning model to predict someone’s glycemic variability to eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So let’s say-

Espree Devora (12:35):

What a great job.

Helena Belloff (12:36):

Eat this sandwich. It’s very cool. I’m so fortunate that I work here and I got to do these things all day or I could be working on a project to sort of get some of those guided insights that I was just talking about. If you eat pasta five nights in a row and let’s say you do not so well every night, I might make a suggestion and surface the suggestion to you in the app that says, “Hey, this isn’t going very well. Our members have typically fared better when they swap pasta with kelp noodles or zucchini noodles.” Or I know that those aren’t, that’s not real pasta, or I might suggest, okay, maybe eat pasta with a protein or maybe go for a walk after you eat pasta or something like that. So it could be that, or I could be working on more internal projects like streamlining operations. I touch a few different things. I work really closely with product, research, operations, front end, backend, everyone really, content.

Espree Devora (13:49):

In the Levels meeting that I got to be a part of, I was really excited to discover about your meal pairing or food pairing. Are you able to talk a little bit about your food pairing findings?

Helena Belloff (14:02):

Food pairing in terms-

Espree Devora (14:04):

Like what to eat together?

Helena Belloff (14:06):

Yeah, I mean I think sort of what I’ve discovered looking through the data is if you’re going to have a super starch in your meal, something like that, it’s always best to pair it with a protein or a fat. Some people do really well with peanut butter, for example. And they do well with it when they pair it with oatmeal and maybe pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds and maybe some berries and that’s like a very balanced meal, but maybe if they just have peanut butter on its own, they don’t do well or they have peanut butter on apples, they don’t do as well.

Espree Devora (14:48):

Really?

Helena Belloff (14:49):

Yeah.

Espree Devora (14:50):

How can you, okay, wait, hold, what’s the difference?

Helena Belloff (14:53):

Fruit can make you spike. That’s like a common thing that we see and it shocks a lot of people because fruit is good for you. And it really depends on what you pair it with. I would suggest if you have strawberries, maybe eat it with a handful of almonds because the fat will sort of offset the sugar spike that you’re going to get.

Espree Devora (15:19):

So interesting. Before you got into Levels, did you have any kind of interest in the science behind food? Because this is so cool.

Helena Belloff (15:33):

Yeah. I mean I’ve learned a ton. I’m definitely not the expert on this stuff, but I feel like I always, so for context, I’ve been a vegetarian my entire life. And I realized, especially when I got to Levels, that I’m not doing vegetarianism correctly. I was always sluggish. I tried even to go fully raw vegan at one point in college. And I was so tired, hungry all the time, just so low energy, not making the best choices. And I learned a lot about nutrition and I started getting really, really into it during grad school because I was doing Alzheimer’s research and Alzheimer’s is also directly linked to a lot of metabolic conditions. And so this started to sort of become a bigger focus in my life, I guess I would say, but I didn’t know anything about nutrition before I joined Levels.

Espree Devora (16:41):

So cool. In your career as you’ve been growing, what’s a huge obstacle that you’ve successfully overcome and how did you overcome it?

Helena Belloff (16:49):

So I think that being a woman in tech is hard. I’ve certainly, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve maybe felt like I’m not good enough to be here or maybe I’ve been discriminated against because of my gender. And there was a specific instance in college when I was singled out because I’m a woman and I was made you feel like I did something wrong, even though I didn’t. And I ultimately decided not only to not file a complaint with the university, but I switched my major so that I wouldn’t have to cross paths with that person as often. And years later, I was speaking with some of the younger students and I found out that they all had a similar experience and I regret not sticking up for myself, because if I would have said something, maybe they wouldn’t have had to go through that. Maybe I could have helped initiate a positive change where that type of discrimination is diminished. So I would say that a huge obstacle for me was just advocating for myself and telling myself you belong here. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel like you didn’t work hard to get here. And if they do, that’s their problem. You do you, and I promise people will notice.

Espree Devora (18:04):

100%. Right now, I’m in a chapter of my life where I am teaching myself how to set boundaries. And when you come across people that don’t like your boundaries, they’re going to get upset or have reactions that aren’t so comfortable, but it doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong. I’m just saying that’s not okay with me. And it is extremely uncomfortable to say, “That’s not okay with me.”, because if it’s the wrong person that does have mal intent, they’re not going to be too pleased. So yeah, it takes a lot of courage to speak up for ourselves, to set boundaries and we’re all enough. We’re all enough. And I know the struggle. So often in my career, I have felt like I’m not enough. And so I too understand that struggle. I really appreciate your vulnerability in sharing that. Has there been a piece of guidance or advice you’ve gotten maybe from a mentor that’s helped propel you in your career?

Helena Belloff (19:14):

Yeah. I actually had a candidate say this to me during our interview. I was interviewing him, but he’s a lot older than me and has a ton of experience. And he was telling me about his personal experience founding a company, coding the software and trying to get investors. And like me, he seemed like a little bit of a perfectionist and he kept delaying the release of his software because he wasn’t getting high enough accuracy with his models. And he finally had an investor say to him, “Why don’t you just release this? It’s not like it won’t work. Just put it out there and see what happens.” And he did. And it enabled him to not only fund his startup, but iterate on the models and take into account user feedback. And he’s had a lot of success ever since. And so he told me, “If you’re not sure, or if you think it’s bad, release it anyway.”

Helena Belloff (20:06):

And ever since then, I’m not afraid to post code on GitHub that’s maybe not the most efficient because I know someone will look at it and say, “Hey, you can improve this this way. Or actually, this data is a little more nuanced. Here’s something you didn’t know before.” So I would say the best piece of advice I’ve gotten is really, don’t be afraid to try. And if you end up, even if you end up in a situation where someone tries to judge you or make you feel really bad about a mistake, use it as an opportunity to grow it as a person and say to yourself, “Did I try? Yes. Did I fail? Sure. Am I going to let myself feel bad for a minute and then keep going? Hell yeah.”

Espree Devora (20:43):

Yeah, progress not perfection, always so tough, so tough. What would you say is the future that you look forward to? What are your goals? What are next steps and what can we do to help propel you there?

Helena Belloff (20:57):

Yeah. I think at the end of the day, what I want to be let, let’s say 10 years from now, I’m talking like way out in the future, but I want to be a woman in tech that other younger women in tech can look up to, can use as a resource and can feel comfortable coming to, and if I can be that, regardless of my successes and failures, I’ll be happy, but I think, I guess the more immediate next step for me would be, I want to build a team. I want to connect with other women in tech who have run data teams, started companies and just really get further into this community. I think since the pandemic, I used to attend all these networking events in the city. And since the pandemic, I feel a little bit more disconnected and I would love to just sort of get back into the community.

Espree Devora (21:59):

You know, I’ve been thinking, I was reading Arlan Hamilton’s book, It’s About Damn Time. And in Arlan Hamilton’s book, she talks about how of times women don’t have the opportunities others do because we don’t have the network. And I was thinking, how could I utilize the network and the resource of this podcast to help empower our listeners beyond just listening to an interview? Do you have any things that come to mind about something related to the relationships I have with the guests and the listeners and just that the whole ecosystem exists, that the podcast itself can create a mentorship culture? Anything kind of pop in your head of what that could look like?

Helena Belloff (22:40):

Yeah. I mean I think that would be amazing to just have access to, I mean, I’ve been listening to your podcast and you have a lot of female founders on there. You have other really impressive women who just work in tech, and I think just creating a community where we can all email each other or share ideas, or maybe get some sort of like mentorship buddy. Right now, my undergrad alma mater is I went to Barnard College, which is the women’s college of Columbia University. And I mentor a few students there now. And it feels really good to be able to sort of guide young women who are not sure if they want to get into tech or not sure where they fit in in the tech world. And I think I’m actually probably one of the oldest, I’m saying “data science” students there, because data science didn’t exist when I went there and it would just be so nice to both have that for myself and be able to contribute to something like that. And I’ve just had people cold email me and I’m like more than happy to speak with them.

Espree Devora (24:04):

What’s a fruitful mentorship relationship look like for you? Like as a mentor, how long would you want to give of your time? Or what’s the format? What’s that look like that’s a fruitful, energizing experience for you?

Helena Belloff (24:22):

Yeah, I’ve had people just cold reach out to me and be like, “Hey, I saw you work in health tech. I’m sort of interested in it, but I don’t really know where I fit in.” And I’m like, “Here’s a link to my calendar, put something on there, let’s chat.” And just honestly, listening to young women talk about tech is what energizes me. I want to pull people into this industry. Honestly, I never had that because I feel like there were even less women in tech when I started out. And so that’s at its core really what makes it all worth it to me.

Espree Devora (25:12):

Do you remember, because data science wasn’t formally at your school when you went there, do you remember when that started to change and shift when it started to become a thing? Do you happen to recognize that time period and why? What was going on?

Helena Belloff (25:32):

Yeah, I think, so I feel like data science started to sort of emerge, at least for me, at least where I was noticing, okay, this is like an entirely different type of field, probably the year after I graduated. So that was 2014, so probably 2014, I’m not that old, 2018. So probably around 2019, honestly more recently than you would think math and stats and comps have been around, but they’ve sort of been treated as these separate entities, even though a lot of the stats students I knew undergrad also knew how to code and yeah, I feel like it didn’t really become a more formal thing until a few years ago.

Espree Devora (26:26):

It’s interesting even becoming a podcaster when I first started podcasting in 2013, I mean no one really cared about podcasting, other than people who were in the underground world of podcasting that were super hardcore technologists that knew how to move audio files from hardware to hardware. It wasn’t what it is now. It was ludicrous to start a podcast at the time. And so I remember that kind of transformation in 2014 and why, and I think that the things that sparked that transformation are so interesting. What happens in the world to start to create a shift that ends up taking mass adoption and going mainstream, it’s just really fascinating how it all starts.

Helena Belloff (27:13):

Yeah. And I think data science is becoming even more relevant now because of the amount of data we have. If there’s just too much data, you cannot get away with old school stats that these equations have been around for hundreds of years and yeah, we need computers and we need people who understand math and data. And so I think that’s really one of the reasons why this sort of field has been propelled.

Espree Devora (27:44):

If someone wanted to follow in your footsteps and get into data science now, what would you recommend? What blog should they follow? What groups should they be paying attention to? What’s the accessible thing that they could do to start on the right path?

Helena Belloff (28:01):

So I started out actually just doing some Kaggle challenges. So there’s a website called Kaggle where companies or people-

Espree Devora (28:11):

Can you spell it for us?

Helena Belloff (28:12):

K-A-G-G-L-E, Kaggle. And you create accounts for it, and there are companies or people who will post data sets and propose questions to solve. And actually for some of them, you can even win money, which is really cool. But you can download these data sets, play around with the data. See what’s interesting to you. There’s a million different types too. There’s like every industry on there, and you can submit them and publish them and get sort of a grade back, or you could not. I rarely submitted any and yeah, I would say that’s like a really good first step just to see if solving these types of problems would be interesting to you. And then I think the next step would be pick a coding language to learn. The first language I learned was R. I taught it to myself, but there are a lot of online guides these days. Data Camp is probably one of my favorites. You can do a lot of the lessons for free. You can learn how to code in R or in Python and just sort of get a feel for it. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s just English with different grammar, every coding language.

Espree Devora (29:34):

I think Kaggle is a great resource to recommend. Who are the must follows in your world, just in general? It could be a must follow podcast or a YouTuber or a blogger. Who’s a must follow creator for you?

Helena Belloff (29:49):

I actually follow Yann LeCun pretty closely on Twitter. I’m not a big social media, but Yann LeCun is one of the fathers of artificial intelligence. And I believe he’s currently the head of AI at Facebook, but he’s always posting really interesting things about what’s going on in sort of the deep learning field. I have a bunch of textbooks written by a few of the other guys that sort of worked on deep learning because that’s what I’m interested in. But yeah, I would say there are different sort of experts in the field, so it really depends on where you sort of, what facet you sort of see yourself in.

Espree Devora (30:37):

And can you spell Yann LeCun’s Twitter handle for us?

Helena Belloff (30:41):

It’s YLeCun, Y-L-E-C-U-N.

Espree Devora (30:46):

Perfect, and we’ll include it in the show notes as well. We’ve had the show for several years, and the one thing that we don’t have is a community name. And I just can’t picture myself saying Women in Techers or on our team meeting, I was like Fire Starters. What do you think our community name should be?

Helena Belloff (31:06):

These are really challenging questions.

Espree Devora (31:11):

Tell me about it, because it’s like we have the Women in Tech global community, but how do you start on us? The Women in Techers, hey, Women in Techers. Sounds so cheap. I’m cringing saying it.

Helena Belloff (31:28):

That’s really hard. I’m not sure.

Espree Devora (31:34):

I have to think of some and like throw them out there. How’d Fire Starters land with you? Somebody was like, try again.

Helena Belloff (31:42):

Yeah. Do you have any more?

Espree Devora (31:44):

No, that’s the only one. It’s such a hard thing,

Helena Belloff (31:47):

I guess that’s why no one’s really come up with it yet.

Espree Devora (31:50):

I don’t know, the ambitiousers, the doers.

Helena Belloff (31:56):

Cyber women, I don’t know

Espree Devora (31:58):

The cyber women, cyber women of the world. Speaking of all this like crazy names to call a community, I’m very fascinated that you don’t utilize social media that much. Can you talk a little bit more about that choice and if you ever feel left out or if you just feel more energized than the rest of us?

Helena Belloff (32:23):

Yeah, I feel like I’m just not good at it. I don’t know what it is. I think maybe I just haven’t spent enough time really figuring out okay, what’s the right way to do it. I don’t really know how, and I have friends who really are so good at using their Instagram or their Twitter to have these really meaningful connections and inspire people and get inspired. And I’m definitely inspired when I see other people’s social media. I just feel like I don’t know where to start doing that for myself.

Espree Devora (33:05):

Do you even want to start? Because I think life is better without it, just to be honest.

Helena Belloff (33:10):

You know, it’s funny. I was saying to my mother literally yesterday, if I could just pay someone to do this for me, that would be really nice, so I could just reap all the benefits and not do any of the work.

Espree Devora (33:22):

100%. Those people exist, but what I find in like, I do them all myself, versus when I see companies just kind of like posting to post, the authenticity is so obviously not there, and I think more than posting the thing that is really, the traction that really moves you forward is having conversations with as many people as possible, not actually the posting. So you could set up the posting on autopilot, but if you’re not having, even though they may suck, you could still technically do that. But it still wouldn’t matter because you’re not engaging at all. And that’s the part that really matters.

Helena Belloff (34:07):

Yeah, yeah. I definitely see that as well. And so maybe one day I’ll-

Espree Devora (34:14):

Stay off it.

Helena Belloff (34:15):

To get into it, but maybe not. Like I say, I have a Twitter and I follow some of these tech people on Twitter, but I’ve never tweeted before ever. It’s just there.

Espree Devora (34:26):

I just took two months off of social media. I just got back on a day and a half ago. And so trust me, your life is better without it.

Helena Belloff (34:35):

Yeah.

Espree Devora (34:36):

What attracts you to the culture of Levels? Why are you so passionate about not just what Levels does and this extraordinary med tech company that we could see the inside of our bodies and how we function, but the culture itself? What makes it an extraordinary work experience for you?

Helena Belloff (34:55):

The people really. I mean even though we’re a remote company, I get to work with some of the smartest, brightest, just most humble people, collection of people ever. We always joke, Levels should just be like one of those dating apps because they do such a good job of just curating a group of just like-minded people who are passionate, who really want to solve this problem, who are really bright, really nice and just overall great, amazing people to work with. That’s really what does it for me.

Espree Devora (35:34):

And let’s give a shout out to Ben because he is such a champion of women in tech. And I really appreciate it. Can you talk a little bit about Ben, how we connected?

Helena Belloff (35:44):

Ben is amazing, first of all. Hi, Ben, if you’re listening to this. Ben is the one that connected us and he does amazing work on the Levels podcast, which I suggest everyone go check out. And yeah, he’s also just a really interesting guy on top of it all. So I would say, definitely go and listen to him talk about a million different topics.

Espree Devora (36:13):

So I met Ben through actually the Acquired podcast. They have this community called the LLP community and I’m in that community. And I met Ben on the monthly meetup and he’s just always been such an evangelist of women in tech. I just couldn’t believe how consistently empowering he’s been. And so he introduced me to this world of Levels. And when he connected me to Helena, I was like, oh my gosh. I was just like so obsessed with how intelligent and thoughtful she was. I’m like, oh, I have to have her on the show. And I’m so excited that Ben hosts the Levels podcast. Helena, can you tell us a little bit about the Levels podcast?

Helena Belloff (36:55):

Yeah. So there’s actually two Levels podcasts. There’s Levels Metabolic Insights, and then there’s a whole new level, which is more Ben talking with different Levels employees or sometimes we’ll have physicians on or advisors on, or just interesting people on to talk about literally anything. He actually recorded a podcast with another female software engineer at Levels to just talk about her years being a digital nomad, which was really interesting. And so they’re really great. I listen to them all the time and yeah.

Espree Devora (37:43):

So to listen to the Levels podcast, go to levelshealth.com/podcast. We’ll be sure to include it in the show notes, and a book that you recommend that we read, it could be personal or professional.

Helena Belloff (37:56):

I really like, and this is not tech related. This is more like fun related, but I do think it’s-

Espree Devora (38:02):

Totally okay. We’re allowed to have fun.

Helena Belloff (38:04):

It’s related to math, Louis Armstrong’s In his Own Words. It’s his autobiography basically. And it’s just so entertaining and he’s an amazing writer and I’m very into jazz. So yeah, that’s one of my favorites.

Espree Devora (38:24):

Awesome. What is your favorite website or mobile app, your go-to that you are so elated to share with all of us?

Helena Belloff (38:33):

The Levels app is my first go-to, but you know what? This is actually kind of embarrassing, but I have this app called Fi, F-I, because my dog likes to run off the property and I have a tracking collar on him. And that’s actually my most commonly used app.

Espree Devora (38:54):

That counts. So F-I, how can people connect with you? Are you on LinkedIn?

Helena Belloff (38:59):

Yes, I am on LinkedIn. That’s probably the best way. It’s H-E-L-E-N-A. It’s my first name. And then my last name is Belloff, B-E-L-L-O-F-F as in Frank.

Espree Devora (39:11):

Helena, thank you so much for hanging out with the Women in Tech podcast. To connect and collaborate with more extraordinary women in tech around the world, remember, go to the community at womenintech,vip.com. That’s womenintechvip.com. Say hello on social at Women in Tech show on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook. I will see you, talk to you all the things in the next episode. Bye.

Helena Belloff (39:35):

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a blast. Hey, this is Helena, Belloff a data scientist at Levels Health, which has a mission to solve the metabolic health crisis by showing members how food affects their health through continuous glucose monitoring. I’m based in New York and you are listening to Women in Tech.

Espree Devora (39:59):

The women in tech podcast is hosted and produced by me, Espree Devora.

Speaker 5 (40:03):

With help from Janice Geronimo.

Speaker 6 (40:05):

Edited by Cory Jennings.

Speaker 7 (40:07):

Production and voiceover by Adam Carroll.

Espree Devora (40:09):

And music from Jay Huffman Live and Epidemic Sound. The Women in Tech podcast is a wearetech.fm production.