As a graduate student in Biostatistics, I applied to CRELS to consider the ways in which statistical application to public health data is analogous and complementary to the ways we can consider data regarding criminal justice. For instance, one way I find statistics to be a powerful tool is how it can elucidate and ways that assumptions have been systematically built and enforced through erroneous, manipulative, and/or insidious ways of interpreting and communicating data.
As I enter the 4th year of my program, I've been studying methods to observe and describe data that don't require or impose any assumptions, instead relying on collaboration with domain experts to create unique and valid insights. Currently, my main project involves the development of unsupervised clustering methods to build efficient surveys to understand distribution of SES in trauma care across sub-Saharan African countries. Another project involves building a visualization tool to summarize non-Euclidean data, which can be useful when describing tree-like data structures. Combining my experiences with the help of criminal justice experts and community leaders, I hope to develop tools that provide useful and critical insights that make a difference in improving public policy and legislation efforts.
Outside of this work, you can often find me roaming around Oakland, looking for hiking trails, or vintage stores and local venues to hang out in. I also host a biweekly show on KALX 90.7fm, where you can hear me play some of my favorite experimental, jazz, and ambient tunes!
