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What Makes A Good Data Analyst?

If you’ve ever interviewed for an industry job in data science, data analytics, quantitative social science, or any other job where analyzing data is central, you’ve probably been quizzed on your fluency as an analyst. The interviewer probably couldn’t tell you why some answers were better than others, besides “that’s just what I’m looking for”, or “you know it when you see it”. And many experienced scientists in academia can smell when an analysis seems fishy or that the analyses were not handled well.

This skill is considered to be the mark of an experienced analyst. Many say it can’t be taught — there is no substitute for experience.

I disagree. My research seeks to inductively generate a grounded theory of analytic fluency. Its goal is to make these “soft skills” of data analysis explicitly identifiable, measurable, and eventually, formally teachable at scale.

What is Morality?

How do people decide between right and wrong? Why is it immoral to eat dog in the United States, but desirable to eat cow? Why do people see harm in harmless behaviors? Where are the boundaries of morality, and what does its underlying structure look like in the mind?

My work seeks to answer questions like these. I am particularly interested in how people’s perceptions of what is personal, practical, or perverse changes over time.

Media Coverage

Recent Talks

Vanaman, M. E. (2024, September 13). Data analysis from the zoo to the wild and back. [Invited talk]. The University of Texas at Austin Statistics and Data Sciences Departmental Seminar Series. Austin, Texas, United States. View Slides (takes a moment to load)

Vanaman, M. E. (2024, August 8). Analytic fluency: What it is, who has it, and how it is learned. [Conference presentation]. In R. D. Peng (Chair), Building Better Data Analyses: Theory, Methods, and Lessons Learned. Symposium conducted at the annual Joint Statistical Meetings of the American Statistical Association. Portland, Oregon, United States. View Slides

Vanaman, M. E. (2023, February 16). Purity: Immoral acts or immoral actors? [Conference poster]. Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention (Virtual).