Maureen Teyssier, director, data science and data engineering, at Reonomy
NEW YORK CITY—There's a Big Bang Theory at Reonomy. It's that understanding space of the galaxies in the universe is similar to understanding space on the surface of the earth—at least in terms of creating models to rapidly compare, analyze and reconcile massive amounts of data. (See slideshow at the bottom of the article.)
Maureen Teyssier is the director, data science and data engineering, at Reonomy, a tech company that analyzes commercial real estate data. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in both physics and astrophysics from the University of California, Berkeley. Teyssier then received her PhD in computational astrophysics from Columbia University. Afterwards, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher in computational astrophysics at Rutgers University, where she received the Hubble Space Telescope Cycle 22 research grant.
As an astrophysicist Teyssier would create simulations of the universe on supercomputers. She would perform data transformations to flatten them, take subsections and compare them with other data about the universe. With Hubble Space Telescope images, the scientist would create simulations of what's out in the universe.
"I would look at how galaxies interact, how they behave, what happens when they collide. How do you grow a galaxy? How do you destroy one? So, I did a lot of coding," says Teyssier. "I generated a lot of data and that's what I'm still doing, a lot of coding and complicated math."
Teyssier brings her work with the stars down to earth. She explains Reonomy has information about a property's physical attributes, the building's floors, the number of units, the size of the lot and building, the sales, mortgages and tax histories.
She calls Reonomy's property ownership information a gem which allows clients to make business decisions. Users can see not only the current owner, but signatories on the mortgage and the various levels of stakeholders and ownership with contact information including phone numbers and email addresses.
Teyssier explains that Reonomy has partnerships with several providers. For example, CoreLogic provides tax assessor, deed, mortgage and sales records, and other data assets. But in records, company names and addresses can be entered by humans and be messy, with errors or entered in multiple ways such as with differing abbreviated names. Plus with, for example, their Dun & Bradstreet partnership, Reonomy receives a wealth of additional company information.
The astrophysicist writes machine learning algorithms and creates statistical techniques "that stitch the data together" from multiple sources. Records are compared against other records and a volume of information to accurately link facts to each specific piece of property.
Companies including CoStar, CompStak, Real Capital Analytics and PropertyShark also provide online commercial real estate information. In a February 2019 GlobeSt.com interview, Reonomy co-founder and CEO Rich Sarkis highlighted Reonomy's Data-as-a-Service component that allows users to build their own applications to use the Reonomy information. Plus, the company has been backed by $68 million in venture capital according to its marketing materials.
Teyssier points out that both astrophysics and commercial real estate now require utilizing massive amounts of data. She has analyzed interactions with dark matter, gas and stars, researched new particle types found in black holes, and worked on one of the world's most accurate cosmological simulations of the Milky Way. She ties this all to real estate by underscoring it's all about understanding space.
"Commercial real estate is a smaller scale. But it's the surface of the Earth, then understanding the effect on the market, different trends, changing situations and data." And both involve getting a grasp on big data. Really, really big data.
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Betsy Kim
Betsy Kim was the bureau chief, East Coast, and New York City reporter for Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. As a lawyer and journalist, Betsy has worked as the director of editorial and content for LexisNexis Lawyers.com, a TV/multi-media journalist for NBC and CBS affiliated TV stations in the Midwest, and an associate producer at Court TV.
