I joined RTI as a Data Scientist in the summer of 2018 after finishing a Master of Science in Analytics at North Carolina State University. I use my data science skills on projects in a wide variety of areas, including education, health and criminal justice. I work with a variety of open-source and machine learning tools and spend the majority of my workday programming.

My work today is a fusion of my passion for data and for projects that impact others, and both of the Bass Connections projects I participated in were early opportunities where I recognized this passion. With the Education, Poverty and Economic Inequality in Rural Appalachia team, I got to design, implement and analyze my first survey for a group of middle school students participating in a summer program. I learned a tremendous amount about survey development from this experience. With the Learning from Shotgun Marriages team, I learned about the research process and the challenges of real-world data. I credit both of these teams with fueling my interest in developing my data science skills and using them for social impact.

Bass Connections was also my first experience working in research teams. I learned the immense value that both subject matter and technical experts can bring to a team. Today, nearly all the projects I work on are in a team setting. I typically serve in a technical role and collaborate with subject matter experts. I’m grateful for the teamwork, communication and management skills I learned through Bass Connections and which I use on a daily basis.

I’m grateful to Bass Connections for introducing me to the research process and guiding me on my path to becoming a data scientist.