Overview of Qualifications

I am a Senior Data Scientist with more than 15 years of experience in the research industry. I have a proven track record of leading teams conducting innovative research and communicating complex technical issues to both technical and non-technical audiences. I currently am a senior Data Scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago and lead our Social Media Analysis Group. I have significant technical knowledge as well as experience leading, training, and mentoring junior staff. I have experience using both legacy statistical platforms and modern data science systems. I am committed to conducting high-quality, methodologically rigorous, and scientifically grounded research.

Experience

Senior Data Scientist and Director of Social Media Analysis, Senior Data Scientist and Director of Social Media Analysis, NORC at the University of Chicago

As Senior Data Scientist and Director of Social Media Analysis, I lead a research team focused on exploring social media analysis, machine learning, natural language processing, and other emerging data science and methodologies. I am responsible for ensuring that NORC stays abreast of the latest developments in these areas and for advising executive leadership on these developments. I manage a portfolio of internally funded projects designed to explore new methods and build experience and capacity in new methods. I support business development across our research areas through proposal writing, bid evaluation, and client outreach.

Key accomplishments:

  • Lead data scientist on a Provider Network IQ. This project ingests ~100gb of provider network data, performs substantial cleaning and harmonization, and then produces summary reports and visualizations.
  • Conceived and led development of STOP (Sex Trafficking Operations Portal), a National Institute of Justice-funded grant to build an Internet surveillance application designed to combat sex trafficking.
  • Led companywide initiative to raise awareness and understanding of data science methods with outreach and trainings to clients, staff, and executives.
  • Technical lead, writer, or consultant on four to six proposals each year.

Survey Director/Research Scientist, NORC at the University of ChicagoAs Survey Director and Research Scientist,

I led the National Immunization Survey’s Analytic Group. I was responsible for daily oversight of sample management, design and efficiency analysis of CATI scheduling rules, quantitative analysis of ongoing analysis of production, and design of data collection enhancement experiments. I directed companywide research groups tasked with addressing the growth of wireless-only households and integrating cellular dialing into ongoing telephone surveys.

Key accomplishments:

  • Inaugurated paradata system to monitor and continuously improve operational efficiency on the National Immunization Survey.
  • Co-designed complex systems to unify household and medical provider data.
  • Led work to explore the impact of wireless-only households and to integrate cellular dialing into ongoing telephone projects.
  • Led task forces charged with improving National Immunization Survey response rates and developing an improved calling rules framework.

Survey Analyst, Abt Associates

As a Survey Analyst at Abt Associates, I provided analytic support on the National Immunization Survey, including monitoring production, creating reports on interviewer performance, and automating sample management tasks.

Key accomplishments:

  • Conducted research to use survey paradata to increase survey efficiency.
  • Supervised staff of four in verification and deduplication of medical provider database.

Relevant Programming/Technical Expertise

  • Advanced: R, SAS,
  • Intermediate: Python, SQL, AWS
  • Novice: C, Objective-C, Hadoop

Education

  • PhD State University of New York at Stony Brook, Sociology/Certificate in Women’s Studies
  • BA University of Maryland, College Park, Sociology

Teaching/Communication Experience

Led outreach to introduce NORC executives, staff, and clients to our data science capabilities.

Taught corporate trainings in SAS, Introduction to Modern Visualization Software, Using Gephi for Social Network Analysis, Introduction to Data Science, and Introduction to Social Media Analysis.

Publications

  • Barron, Davern, Montgomery, Tao, Wolter, Zewng, Dorell, and Black. 2015. “Using Auxiliary Sample Frame Information for Optimum Sampling of Rare Populations.” Journal of Official Statistics, volume 31, number 4.
  • Barron, Leclere, Montgomery, Greby, and Kennedy. 2015. “Research Note: The Accuracy of Small Area Sampling of Wireless Telephone Numbers.” Survey Practice, volume 8, number 2.
  • Molinari, Wolter, Skalland, Montgomery, Khare, Smith, Barron, Copeland, Santos, Singleton. 2011. “Quantifying Bias in a Health Survey: Modeling Total Survey Error in the National Immunization Survey.” Statistics in Medicine, volume 30, number 5.
  • Barron, Kelly, Montgomery, Singleton Shin, Skalland, Tao, and Wolter. 2010. “More on the Extent of Undercoverage in RDD Telephone Surveys Due to the Omission of 0-Banks.” Survey Practice, April 2010.
  • Barron. 2004. “Review of Net Loss: Internet Prophets, Private Profits, and the Cost to Community by Nathan Newman” Contemporary Sociology, volume 33, number 1.
  • Barron and Kimmel. 2000. “Sexual Violence in Three Pornographic Media: Towards a Sociological Explanation” Journal of Sex Research, volume 37, number 2.

Presentations (previous five years)

  • Augmenting Traditional Estimates with Non-Designed Data: Modeled Estimates of Consumer Confidence. 2016. Presented at the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Austin, TX.
  • Multi-Client Household Panel Quality: The Case of AmeriSpeak. 2016. Presented at the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Austin, TX.
  • Innovations in Nonresponse Bias Measurement and Reporting for Probability-Based Web Surveys. 2015. Presented at the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Hollywood, FL.
  • Something Old, Something New: Melding Survey and Social Media Data to Make Each Stronger. 2014. Presented at the Joint Statistical Meeting, Facebook, Menlo Park, CA.
  • Social Media: Its Promise and Peril for Social Science Research. 2014. Presented at the Joint Statistical Meeting, Boston, MA.
  • Locating Rare Populations Using Social Media: Twitter and Persons Displaced by Hurricane Sandy. 2014. Presented at the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Anaheim, CA.
  • Extracting Social Science Insights from Social Media. 2013. Roundtable Moderation at the Joint Statistical Meeting, Montreal, Canada.
  • Latent Characteristic Extraction from Twitter Data: Toward Weighting Social Media Data to Make Inferences to the General Public. 2013. Presented at the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Boston, MA.