A Challenge to Data Scientists

As data scientists, we are aware that bias exists in the world. We read up on stories about how cognitive biases can affect decision-making. We know that, for instance, a resume with a white-sounding name will receive a different response than the same resume with a black-sounding name, and that writers of performance reviews use different language to describe contributions by women and men in the workplace. We read stories in the news about ageism in healthcare and racism in mortgage lending.
Data scientists are problem solvers at heart, and we love our data and our algorithms that sometimes seem to work like magic, so we may be inclined to try to solve these problems stemming from human bias by turning the decisions over to machines. Most people seem to believe that machines are less biased and more pure in their decision-making – that the data tells the truth, that the machines won’t discriminate.

“Becoming a Data Scientist” Learning Club?

I have been thinking about doing a “Becoming a Data Scientist” podcast for a long time, at least since April. The podcast would include interviews focused on how people working in various data-science-related jobs got to where they are today (how did they “become a data scientist”?). I’m getting closer to taking the dive and getting it started.

I had an idea today that would take it a step further. Imagine how book clubs work where you pick a book, go off and read it, then gather occasionally to discuss and record your thoughts. Except instead of a book club, it’s a data science learning club!

BPDM’s interview with….. me!

An organization based in Puerto Rico called “Broadening Participation in Data Mining” (BPDM) interviewed me over the weekend, and it’s online now! Without further ado…. Thanks to Orlando and Herbierto for having me on! (P.S. I did put up the post about Data Sources on DataSciGuide)

Books for Data Science Beginners, and Data Sources

I just wanted to note here on Becoming A Data Scientist that I recently wrote two posts over on Data Sci Guide that are getting some attention Books to Read if You Might Be Interested in Data Science and Data Sources & APIs for Data Science Projects Enjoy!

Data Science Tutorials Flipboard Magazine

I have been getting great feedback on my “Becoming a Data Scientist” Flipboard magazine, and I had this other set of articles bookmarked that didn’t quite fit into it. I want the Becoming a Data Scientist one to be the “best of the best” of articles I find on Twitter about data science, and to focus on understanding data science and related topics without getting too into the “nitty gritty”. However, I often come across great data science related tutorials on very specific topics that may not have broad appeal (and might look scary to beginners) but I also wanted to share. So I started the “Data Science Related Tutorials” Flipboard magazine....