Data Journeys

Eric Weber is a Senior Data Scientist at LinkedIn, online educator, and epitome of a lifelong learner who’s created quite the following for himself through posts on LinkedIn’s platform. He holds a Bachelors degree in Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, two Masters degrees in Math and Business Analytics at Arizona State University and the University of Minnesota, and a PhD from ASU. And as if that’s all not enough, he’s obtained 31 course certificates in MOOCs from Coursera and DataCamp… nearly all which in the realm of Data Science. Naturally, this conversation was primarily focused on Data Science education through the lens of Eric’s experience as both a teacher & student. Some topics we covered include… Eric’c childhood obsessions, what he wanted to be growing up what attracted Eric to LinkedIn and how he landed the job the skills & aptitudes best suited for in-class vs. online learning strategies for approaching online & self-directed learning the best and worst advice Eric has heard

Kirk Borne is the Principal Data Scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton, PhD Astrophysicist, and world-renowned Big Data Influencer. In 2007 he launched the first-ever data science bachelors degree program as a Professor of Computational Science at George Mason University and in 2009 co-created the field of Astroinformatics to support his research. Since Kirk has been around long-before the field was even called Data Science, we start this conversation by taking a 50-foot helicopter view of the field: where we’ve been over the past decade, where we are now, and how aspiring Data Scientists can prepare for what’s coming next. Other topics covered include… what it means to be “data literate” how organizations can promote a “culture of experimentation” the data science skills, talents, & aptitudes that have stood the test of time Kirk’s thought process behind creating the first data science bachelors degree program at GMU changes he would make to the program if he re-created it today …. and perhaps most notably:

Kale Temple is a Data Scientist, Startup Advisor, & Guest Speaker at the University of Sydney, down-under in Australia. Most recently, he became the Founder & CEO of Intellify — an Artificial Intelligence consulting company based in Australia, where he and his team help companies grow exponentially, operate efficiently, and all-in-all become more data-driven in their decision making. In this conversation we spend a lot of time focusing on Data Science through the lens of consulting, covering topics like: how Kale has been able to master Machine Learning without a degree in Computer Science or Statistics the pros/cons of different data science career paths Kale’s strategies for landing consulting clients and building relationships that last his thought process behind starting companies how he packages up his technical skills into consulting projects tactics for identifying business pain-points where data science can have the biggest impact how to build a personal brand for yourself as a Data Scientist

In this episode of the Data Journeys podcast, I'm joined by Kate Strachnyi. Kate is a data visualization specialist at Deloitte consulting, author the book “Journey to Data Scientist”, and creator of the Story by Data blog and YouTube channel. This conversation with Kate was a really special treat because her book, “Journey to Data Scientist” is a essentially compilation of interviews that Kate herself conducted with 20 amazing Data Scientists. When she wanted to learn more about Data Science, as she says, she went “straight to the source”. So what we really have here is a meta-interview with Kate serving as the umbrella over 20 other people & stories — with backgrounds ranging from LinkedIn and Pinterest to Bloomberg and IBM. The focus of the conversation lies on the overarching themes and patterns she found throughout her own 20 interviews. In terms of topics — we covered so much — but some my personal favorites included advice for building a project portfolio, use-cases for Data Science across industr

In this pilot episode of the Data Journeys podcast, I'm joined by Andrew Cassidy. Andrew is a freelance Data Scientist, Software Engineer, & Online Educator. We originally met this past September, when he was my virtual mentor for Springboard’s Data Science Intensive bootcamp. In 2011 Andrew graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelors degree in Systems Engineering, and afterwards, went to work as a Data Scientist for a company called Commonwealth Computer Research in Charlottesville, VA. While there, he was heavily involved in contracting work with the US military, and for one project used logistic regression to predict the likelihood of bombs in Afghanistan (which he talks about in detail in the interview here). After 4 years at Commonwealth, he decided to go back to school for a Masters degree in Computer Science at Georgia Tech (which he interestingly enough completed almost entirely online while rock climbing and camping as a “digital nomad” throughout the United States). Finally, just

Some background about the host, why he started this podcast, and what you can expect from the show.