Samuel Crane, PhD
Data Scientist, Amplify Inc.
It might be but one way to think of 'data science' is as a job that combines statistics, programming, and business intelligence, such that what was several distinct roles (statistician/modeler, engineer, and business analyst) is now a single role, with new responsibilities that arise by combination.
Three core skills
1. Mathematics (especially statistics and linear algebra)
2. Computer science (especially programming and infrastructure)
3. Communication (asking questions, visualization, writing)
I was hired 7 months after defending.
My job entails:
Research & Prototyping:
Deployment and Production:
You bring this to the table:
\[ J(\theta) = \frac{1}{2m} \sum_{i=1}^m (h_\theta (x^i) - y^i)^2 \]
If you're doing quantitative comparative biology, you're well suited to a career as a data scientist.
Niamh O'Hara Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook
James Meadow Ecology at University of Oregon
Karthik Ram Ecology at UC Berkeley
Andrew Hill Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of Colorado
For scientists:
http://software-carpentry.org/
http://rosalind.info/
General (not necessarily an endorsement):
http://www.codecademy.com/
https://www.udacity.com/
https://onemonth.com/
https://teamtreehouse.com
http://www.thinkful.com/
Courses:
https://www.coursera.org/
https://www.edx.org/
Around NYC:
http://tech.cornell.edu/programs/startup-postdocs
http://insightdatascience.com/
http://www.thedataincubator.com/
https://www.recurse.com/
http://hackny.org/a/
http://betanyc.us/
http://idse.columbia.edu/
http://datascience.nyu.edu/
Internets:
https://www.coursera.org/specialization/jhudatascience/
https://www.kaggle.com/
NYC Meet-ups:
http://www.meetup.com/NYC-Data-Science/
http://www.meetup.com/NYC-Machine-Learning/
http://www.meetup.com/NYC-Data-Business-Meetup/
http://www.meetup.com/nyhackr/
http://www.meetup.com/nycpython/
http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/
http://www.meetup.com/NYEdTech/
http://www.meetup.com/Maptime-NYC/
http://www.meetup.com/geonyc/ ...and so many more.
Hack days and other projects:
Science Hack Day
CodeAcross
Hack For Change
Public Lab
Jessica Kirkpatrick on the transition from academia to industry:
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/01/datascience.html
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/01/astroVdatascience.html
http://www.astrobetter.com/nailing-the-tech-interview/
Trey Causey on getting started in data science
http://treycausey.com/getting_started.html
Philip Guo compares 6 months in industry vs 6 months as assistant professor
http://pgbovine.net/academia-industry-junior-employee.htm
Shelby Sturgis on Developing Skillset
http://insightdatascience.com/blog/fellow_spotlight_shelby_sturgis.html
Should I Get a PhD?
http://shouldigetaphd.com/
Twitter: @samuelcrane
LinkedIn: /samuelcrane
Blog: samuelcrane.com
This deck: http://rpubs.com/snc/compbio