Half Stack Data Science

S03E05 - Code quality for data science - with Laszlo Sragner

In this episode, we continued our season of talking to data educators and spoke to Laszlo Sragner. Laszlo runs Hypergolic, a boutique consultancy in London specialising in Machine Learning Product Management. Formerly, he was Head of Data Science at Arkera, a fintech startup in London, where he built market intelligence products with Natural Language Processing for Tier 1 investment banks and hedge funds. Before that, Laszlo worked in mobile gaming for King Digital (makers of Candy Crush), specialising in player behaviour and monetisation. He started his career as a quant researcher implementing trading strategies at multiple investment managers. We talked to Laszlo about consulting in the area of machine learning, what data scientists can learn from software engineers, how to upskill data scientists to be better programmers and make programming their craft, and of course how AI tools will impact all of this. You can find Laszlo online: On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laszlosragner In the Code Quality 4 Data Science community: https://cq4ds.com Laszlo's company, Hypergolic: https://hypergolic.co.uk Laszlo's newsletter, "Deliberate Machine Learning": https://laszlo.substack.com

S03E04 - The language of data literacy - with Valerie Logan

Continuing our series of conversations with data educators, in this episode we spoke to Valerie Logan. Founding The Data Lodge in 2019, Valerie is as committed to data literacy as it gets.  She believes that in today's digital society, data literacy is not just a work skill- it's a life skill.  With advisory services, train-the-trainer bootcamps, an extensive resource library and community services at The Data Lodge, Valerie is certifying the world’s first Data Literacy Program Leads across commercial, nonprofit and public sectors. In 2022, The Data Lodge was recognized by CDO Magazine as one of the "Top 25 Data Startups to Watch in 2022".  Valerie has more than 28 years of experience, including two decades of global consulting across industries, and five years of applied experience in the telecommunications industry at both field and enterprise levels. She holds a B.S. in Math from SUNY College at Buffalo and an M.S. in Applied Math with a concentration in Operations Research from New Mexico State. We talked to Valerie about how literacy in data is like literacy in any language, how to spread data literacy effectively in a business, what are some obstacles to doing this, how you measure the success of a data literacy program, and of course the effect of the emergence of AI on all of the above. Valerie even made a custom Scrabble board just for this episode, you can see that on our website halfstackdatascience.com If you enjoy our podcast, please consider rating and reviewing it on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

S03E03 - Effective Python teaching - with Matt Harrison

In this episode of Half Stack Data Science we continue our season 3 all about data science education, with a conversation with Matt Harrison. Matt stands as a prominent figure in the Python and data science community. A Stanford Computer Science alumnus, he's made significant contributions through his best-selling books, which include titles like "Effective Pandas", "Effective XGBoost", "Machine Learning Pocket Reference", and "Illustrated Guide to Learning Python 3." Beyond authorship, Matt has shared his expertise at major corporations such as Netflix and NASA, as well as academic institutions like Stanford, the University of Utah, and BYU. With a Python journey beginning in 2000, he's equipped thousands with vital skills, both online and in-person. He runs MetaSnake, a Python and Data training company. We talked to Matt about the pushback he gets whenever he posts code online, what we all think of Excel’s newly announced Python integration, how ChatGPT has affected our work, and whether cooking is a good metaphor for programming.

S03E02 - The joy of teaching Python - with Reuven Lerner

In this episode of Half Stack Data Science we continue our season 3, all about data science education, with a conversation with Reuven Lerner. Reuven is a full-time Python trainer with a bachelor's degree in computer science and engineering from MIT, and a PhD in learning sciences from Northwestern University. In 2020, Reuven published "Python Workout" a collection of Python exercises with extensive explanations, published by Manning. He's currently working on "Pandas workout" a similar collection of exercises using the "pandas" library for data analytics. Reuven's free, weekly "Better developers" newsletter, about Python and software engineering, is read by more than 30,000 developers around the globe. Reuven's most recent venture is Bamboo Weekly: Every Wednesday, he presents a problem based on current events, using a public data set. And every Thursday, he shared detailed solutions to those problems using Pandas. We spoke to Reuven about his love of teaching Python to beginners, what he thinks of notebooks and ChatGPT as educational tools, and how he got banned for life from advertising on Facebook.

S03E01 - Preparing analysts for the real world - with Lisa Carpenter

In this episode, David & Shaun talk to Lisa Carpenter. Lisa is the lead data science instructor at Digital Futures, with responsibility for the design and delivery of the Data Science programme. Prior to transitioning to teaching, Lisa gained over 10 years of experience in the data industry. Lisa is passionate about empowering people through digital skills and thoroughly enjoys seeing students grow their data careers. Among many topics, we discussed how chefs are retraining to be data scientists, why Lisa doesn't like the "let me Google that for you" website, and the present and future of data education.