Institute for Families in Society

While in graduate school I worked with large datasets, classification schemes, and multiple statistical/programming platforms to model the effect of current processes on future systems. My work focused to predict and visualize tidal vegetation in the context of sea-level rise. Giving numerous presentations on these products, I became aware that there exists a gap between data producers and data consumers and that data visualization is more powerful than data itself. This observation lead to a passion to display the most meaningful information in context of the audience.

I joined IFS in May 2016 and provide data analysis expertise alongside a remarkable group of fellow researchers. Using multiple programming techniques and languages, I provide IFS colleagues clean, efficient, and powerful data that is used to visually tell the human story driving the patterns in the data. Each day at IFS provides the opportunity to learn new skills and improve those existing. I am routinely encouraged to challenge methods and introduce new, innovative techniques and products, based on research, to improve data-driven policy and decision.

South Carolina is a gem in disguise and I enjoy either discovering something new or relishing previous experiences. Mountain adventures, coastal excursions, big-city life, and off-the-beaten path pastimes are all possibilities within a normal weekend. Add in the college football experience and ‘good ole’ southern cuisine, there is no place like it.

Data are just summaries of thousands of stories — tell a few of those stories to help make the data meaningful. - Chip & Dan Heath; Authors of Made to Stick, Switch