As a social scientist by training, researcher by profession and data nerd by accident, I'm facinated by complex socio-technical systems, the techniques we can use to understand them and the people who cooperate to build them.

This fascination has led me on a rather non-traditional educational and professional route towards data science. I began my journey as an Aeronautics and Astronautics undergraduate enamoured with space exploration, before making the decision to switch to Politics and International Relations in order to study the complex and emergent systems of human organisation. In pursuit of this degree, I discovered a (suprising) interest in statistics, a passion for complex systems approaches and an appreciation for anarchist political philosophy (of all things).

Following my undergrad, I fell into the world of data through working at the Open Data Institute. It was here that I not only developed a keen passion for the 'open movement' but also uncovered an unreasonable level of excitement around seemingly dry data topics (data standards, yay!). I spent four years at the ODI doing research, giving talks and advising businesses and governments about how (carefully) increasing access to data can bring significant benefits to both organisations and wider society.

Inspired by the many ways data is being used in society for good and frustrated by the seeming lack of appropriate methods to study these uses, I resolved to return to university. I enrolled in Oxford University's MSc Social Science of the Internet program, based in the world-leading, multidisciplinary Oxford Internet Institute. Here, I was given the opportunity to explore cutting-edge computational social science methodologies and actively apply them to complex internet-based phenomena, including courses in social network analysis, agent-based modelling and big data analytics. Following an interest I developed at the ODI, throughout the degree I focused my attention on the practices of peer-production, and in particular the OpenStreetMap project. My thesis and several papers I wrote on the topic can be found on this site.

In my spare time I like to ski and hike (mandatory for BC residents), play boardgames (mandatory for millennial nerds) and drink overly pricey craft beers (madatory for ex-East London cultural hipsters). On occassion I also like to travel, dabble in photography and play around with wire sculptures.