Small Data, Big Findings

I am a Data Scientist

I’m Phoebe Wong, a data scientist with a research background and interest in Social Psychology and Marketing. Unlike many other data scientists, I came from a Social Science background (Psychology) and am interested in the intersection of the two fields, which includes the field of Data Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Consumer Psychology and Decision-making.

I am currently a master student in Data Science at Harvard University. Prior to joining Harvard, I worked at Legendary Entertainment/WarnerMedia Applied Analytics where my work focused on consumer psychology and marketing strategy recommendation. Before joining Legendary, I graduated from UC Berkeley in Psychology. My senior thesis focuses on studying the phenomenon of loss aversion in the context of lottery decision making.

Resume

Why small data?

“Big Data” is a recent buzzword that is used (and often misused) in the world of Data Science. The title of my blog is mostly a joke that goes against the idea. The serious reason that I focus on small data here is because most data posts on this blog will be based on “small enough” data that it fits into my laptop memory.

Don’t get me wrong, knowing how to work with big data (e.g.,high-performance computing) is definitely important for a Data Scientist. However, I think a lot of the times, the fundamental skills (statistics, visualizations/communcations and efficient programming) are overlooked.

Therefore, we will go small for now.

If you are interested in learning more about flaws of big data, you should check out this talk on Statistical paradises and paradoxies in Big Data by Professor Xiao-Li Meng, Dean of Graduate School of Arts and Science at Harvard.

R-Ladies

I serve as a co-organizer for R-Ladies Boston. R-Ladies is a worldwide organization whose mission is to promote gender diversity in the R community.

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