TLDR: Former boss left, new boss took team in a different direction, I moved back to New York.

First, I’m posting this as a general update. I don’t want this website to become a place where I talk about office politics, change management, or anything like that. I have no expertise in these areas, and personal weblogs != diaries. But these changes have been impactful for me, and I hope that by describing them here I will accomplish two things:

1. Enforce a habit upon myself of more regularly updating this site.
2. Submit some evidence to the world that my professional life is dynamic and interesting and I’m learning new stuff, despite my minimal online presence 😀

First, a brief of history on my role in my company. When I was asked to join Renaissance Learning full-time in December 2017, my function was as Data Scientist I in the Learning Sciences team. I’ve always thought both the title and team name are misnomers, though; it would have been more technically correct to call me a Learning Analyst for an Educational Data Science team. My work for the first year and a half or so largely consisted of implementing psychometric-y research studies (test equating, norming, reliability, etc.) and generally building a mountain of research to validate and improve a few modern day psychometric models implemented for student mastery estimates and instructional recommendations.

A couple of months ago, in October, the original director of the Learning Sciences team left Renaissance, and a new director was hired and given a different initiative: to help the business “innovate.” Incidentally, we are now known as the Learning Sciences & Innovation Team. To me it reads as a vague mission, but we got to work seeking out areas of the company that could be served by a more rigorous and consistent use of data science. As it turns out, there are many, many areas. In the last two months, our team has spoken extensively with content developers, product owners, data ops teams, researchers, and more. It has been eye-opening to learn about how each team thinks differently about the role of data as it intersects with the development process.

This transition has definitely challenged me in unexpected ways. Since entering the field, I’ve had strong thoughts about my own niche in the world of data science. This probably deserves its own post, but the crux of it is that I maintain that there are generalist data scientists and domain expert data scientists, and that too many of the grave sins of data science have been committed by the generalists. Without expertise in a domain, it is much more likely that an algorithm will have unintended consequences (see Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction). This role has asked me to step outside of the educational domain expert data scientist paradigm that I’ve occupied, and that has required me to dig deeper and apply my skills and knowledge to other areas. At the same time, I’ve had to take on much more responsibility for whole projects and think a lot more about change management. I’m still adjusting to these new norms, but so far my work (and my mistakes) have been well received, and I am excited to develop these skills that empower me to have greater impact across Renaissance, in both breadth and depth.

Finally, in the midst of this change, I asked to move back to Brooklyn (from Portland, OR). That decision was mostly personal, but I think there are clear ways that working in a different office will help me to do my job more effectively. Our NYC office is predominantly technical, with engineers, architects, and product owners. Working in NYC makes it easier to work with parts of the organization I previously knew little about – MyOn, Freckle, and Renaissance International. And the culture change of working in New York City can be felt immediately. I really enjoy the bustle of New York, and I love the relentless pressure to excel and grow.

Going into 2020, I’m looking forward to settling into my new home, finding my stride in this role, and celebrating a few big “innovation” accomplishments. Happy New Year!