About Me

I am an educator, researcher, data scientist, and writer. I am currently an Education Data Specialist for Chesterfield County Public Schools, where I use data to help guide decisions and improve students’ educational experiences. In my free time, I enjoy reading, writing, data visualization/analysis, going to the gym, and spending time with friends & family (including my pup, Nala).

I earned my PhD in educational psychology from the VCU School of Education in July 2019, where I worked in the Motivation in Context Lab and in the Discourse and Learning Lab to study students’ motivation, behaviors, and achievement. In my dissertation, I studied how writers’ daily emotional states (think: anxiety, enjoyment, boredom) influenced their productivity as well as the day-to-day inertia of these emotional states.

During grad school, I discovered a love for working with data – exploring, visualizing, modeling, and communicating. I mostly work (and blog) in R, but I’m always learning new languages and technologies. Well, as much as I can with a toddler and an infant in the house.

Projects and Publications

I’ve published some stuff – both academic and not – which you can find on my publications page.

Consulting and Contracted Work

Time permitting, I occasionally do some consulting and contract work. Although I specialize in educational research, I’m generally proficient with a wide range of statistical modeling frameworks as well as data visualization and dashboard design (via {shiny}), among other things. If you’re interested in working with me, send me an email.