About

  “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants”
                                 - Louis Brandeis

This blog was developed to utilise innovative data analytics tools from the R Project for Statistical Computing to dig through publicly available data to illuminate issues in the public interest.

My background

I am a data scientist and policy professional with more than ten years experience working across government, health and university sectors. I hold a Master of Applied Econometrics from Monash University and a Bachelor or Arts and Laws (Honours) from The University of Melbourne.

Data ethics and privacy commitment

I have a strong commitment to ethical data practice, and embed measures to ensure informed consent, data integrity, avoidance of bias and privacy in analysis are embedded in all of my projects.

I believe that data scientists have a responsibilty to the individuals whose experiences comprise the data that is their bread and butter. This responsibility extends beyond just legislative and privacy obligations, but extends to enacting data sovereignty rights. In practice, this may look like consultation with groups before conclusions are made about them that will affect their wellbeing, agency or other rights.

On the flip side to bias risk, data analytics can provide an insight into the needs and preferences of cohorts that are traditionally marginalised. As such ethical data analytics is an indispensable tool to support the designing policies and programs that are cohesive, inclusive and effective.

Experience

During my time Senior Intelligence and Data Analyst at the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission I developed a range of tools that improved the organisation’s ability to leverage corruption and misconduct data to better identify priority areas for investigation. I also developed multiple Power BI dashboards that brought together internal data, external crime statistics and census data to produce to display key metrics for decision makers.

In my recent contract for Women’s Health Victoria I undertook an analysis of sexual and reproductive health referral data along with service access data to shine a light on the state of SRH service provision across the state. This project also included developing a statistical model that quantified the impact of listed services on access, demonstrating the value of the Not-For-Profit’s contribution to health in the community.

I have spent six years working in various data science roles in the higher education sector, including as Strategic Insights Analyst in Strategic Insights Unit of the Vice-Chancellor’s office at Monash University. I have undertaken multiple program evaluations, developed metrics for tracking performance and brought together datasets from the student enrolment database, qualitative surveys and learning systems to support decision making.