Airline Pilot turned Data Scientist

How I hung up the "Scarf and Goggles" to help make the skies safer

When I was a kid, I loved three things: fishing, sports, and aviation. I wanted to be an airline pilot and learned to fly a plane before I learned to drive a car! After high school, I went on to Purdue University where I continued to study aviation and march down the path of becoming an airline pilot. In my junior year, I got an internship with JetBlue Airlines in their flight safety department. This was my first exposure to the world of data analysis (specifically FOQA analysis) and how it was used to ensure that flights were completed safely.

I graduated from Purdue University in 2011 with a B.S. in Aviation Technology and started my career as an airline pilot flying the Dash 8. After three years of the pilot lifestyle, I grew tired of life on the road and stress involved with "flying the line." With my prior experience in analyzing digital flight data and my exprience as an airline pilot, I was able to land a job at the MITRE Corporation as an analyst working on the ASIAS program.

As a Lead Computer Scientist at MITRE, I combine my pilot training and experience with my data analysis skills to help the FAA, airlines, and aircraft manufacturers identify and mitigate safety risks.

This site serves as a repository for my thoughts and work towards improving my own analysis, machine learning, and data visualization skills. The posts will be a combination of machine learning, data analysis, and visualization projects on publicly available data. I'm hoping that this site will not be a place to only showcase polished work, but rather will be a way to look back and measure my own progress towards developing my skills as a data scientist.