Art and algorithms at Sotheby’s
Kelly Shen, an MIT alumna, works at Sotheby’s auction house using data science and algorithms to predict art prices and manage high-traffic digital bidding systems. Her role highlights the intersection of traditional fine art markets and modern computational technology.
Why it matters
The integration of AI and predictive analytics into the art world demonstrates the expanding influence of data science in non-traditional industries.
Do fine art and high tech ever converge? At Sotheby’s they do, thanks to Kelly Shen ’17. Shen works in the growing field of art intelligence for the New York auction house.
Shen builds algorithms to predict prices, using factors like buying trends and artists’ popularity. She has also worked on such efforts as cataloguing and ensuring that real-time systems can handle thousands of potential bidders visiting the house’s website. At the same time, she serves MIT as a class officer, vice president of the Association of MIT Alumnae, and a volunteer for the MIT Club of New York.
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