Suraj Thapa is The Texas Tribune's machine learning engineer. He was born and raised in Nepal and is currently based in Idaho. He completed an undergraduate degree in economics at the University of Idaho and a master's in global economic affairs from the University of Denver. Suraj, who joined the Tribune in November 2022, has worked as a data engineer and a developer in the past, and he's passionate about computational social science and using technology in the civic and nonprofit sectors. He's an avid soccer fan and likes to spend his free time working on personal projects and being active. Suraj is fluent in Nepali and Hindi, as well as English.