Hey!
My name is Caryn Johansen. Thanks for being here!
I am a computational biologist and a data scientist.
Over my career, I’ve developed a very particular set of skills. These skills allow me to be either question driven or exploratory when working with large data sets. I am a data acquirer, wrangler, analyzer, and visualizer. I build analysis pipelines and I have a specific passion for writing scripts and documenting my results. In terms of data analysis (especially for biology), I am super excited about integrating data from different molecules to find new things (and perhaps inform new projects or products). I am constantly working to improve what I know and to acquire more skills and expertise.
What really excites me is the sheer abundance of data being generated, both biological data and data about anything else. This presents exciting opportunities to understand and improve the world we live in. I’m interested in data as a product, data integration and how that can improve our lives, and in the fast-paced environment of working at a company.
I’m invested in continual learning. I pursue personal projects on the side that advance my knowledge and skills in data analysis and constructing that analysis. During my PhD work at UC Davis, I pursued coursework and projects that allowed me to learn about machine learning techniques.
Other areas where I enjoy investing my time are community involvement at all levels, and science comunication. I am an instructor at Data Carpentry and I enjoy teaching others basic and advanced programming and data analysis skills. I also have been a contributor to Science Says, which aims to clarify incorrect science reporting in the media.
I’ve recently relocated to the Bay Area and I am looking to put my skills, interests, and energy to good use.
Quick links below:
Personal Projects
Cabinet of Curiosities is a data science project started by Ciera Martinez and I with the goal of recognizing orphaned or overlooked publicly available datasets that deal with biodiversity data, and explain how to access these datasets. We also emphasize data cleaning, data organization, and highlight different R packages for analysis.
Data sketches - quick one hour sessions where I analyze and visualize public data with the purpose to learn something new.
Personal Quantification project is in the works. This entails scraping my computer daily to gather data on how I spend my time, on and off the internet, and integrating my biometric data.
Personal notes
I’m a runner, skier, and climber. I work hard in order to spend my weekends out of doors and in the mountains. Very few things bring me as much joy as trails through the woods, fresh mountain air, and new snow.
I am also always seeking to improve, and to learn new analysis techniques and new knowledge. Learning from those around me, and sharing what I know and enjoy is truly exciting to me. I will bring critical thinking, a sharing and outgoing character, and a willingness to try hard and try new things to your team.
