Courses

Advanced Programming for Data Science

The primary aim of Advanced Programming for Data Science (SDS 270) is to teach how to use R to do things. The course will build programming competencies, culminating in students creating their own code packages for R in a group. We will start by creating single functions, learning to debug them, then incrementally add more elements of the programming life cycle such as project management, automatic code testing, and building proper documentation. Supplemental skills useful for advanced programming such as using remote servers, as well as various methods for creating your own data sets will be explored in support of creating the final R packages.

Click here to see the course website.

Intro to Data Science

Introduction to Data Science (SDS 192) aims to equip students with the knowledge and tools to understand, critically evaluate, manipulate, and explain data. This is an introductory course, and no prior experience is necessary. Students will learn how to read and write code, but also how to create, organize, and collaborate on coding projects while critically examining the projects goals and data sources. We will be primarily using the R language, along with supplemental tools.

Click here to see the course website.

Workshops

Intro to Social Network Analysis in R with Statnet

I created a workshop to introduce the basics of social network analysis within R using the Statnet package. It assumed a working knowlage of the R environment. It started with an explanation of what network data was, and the basics of network theory, drawing examples from sociology, neuroscience, chemistry, and engineering. It then explained basic network level and node level analyses, and provided an interactive graph that participants could change node counts and network density to observe changes in real time. It closed with a porting on plotting networks.

Intro to Application Programing Interfaces (APIs)

I gave an introductory talk on APIs. This was presented as part of the kickoff for the 2020 Hack4CA research cluster. In it I explain what APIs are, how you can use them, and the advantages they provide over manual data retrieval and scrapers. I provide some interactive examples along the way and summarize with software and tool recommendations.

Civic Data for Complex Problems

I shared an example of my work work using civic data for research. I give advice on the benefits and challenges of working with civic data, and show how I overcame those challenges in my project on asset forfeiture.

Peer Advising

University of California, Davis DataLab Affiliate Office Hours

I host weekly office hours at the Data Science Initiative for social scientists. These office hours are open for anyone on campus to attend. Previously I have helped students establish version control systems for their projects using Git, advised students on social network analysis methods, and helped troubleshoot coding issues with R. Other topics include:

Peer Tutor

I serve as a peer computational methods tutor for other graduate students in disciplines ranging from Sociology to Music. Prior to arriving at Davis I had never coded before, and taught myself with the generous help of people at the Data Science Initiative. I understand the challenge of picking up coding for the first time, and thus try to give back to student like myself who had not had the opportunity or a reason to learn coding before.