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Nathan Lovin

Analytics Engineer

Pluralsight

Biography

I am an Analytics Engineer at Pluralsight. I left academy in late 2020, sadly leaving my dissertation only half finished. The project covered the political development of the US South during the 20th Century and the impact of these developments on present day politics. That said, it was one of the best decisions of my adult life. I’m so much happier working in the data world and have more time to spend with family and friends. I have extensive training and experience in data modeling (SQL, database design, etc), spatial analysis, and stats.

A (possibly outdated) version of my resume is available here.

Interests

  • Data modeling & viz (yes, I’m serious!)
  • Magic the Gathering
  • Baseball (Go Cubbies!)
  • Cycling
  • Brewing

Education

  • Ph.D. in Political Science (no longer pursuing), 2020

    University of Maryland

  • MA in Political Science, 2017

    University of Maryland

  • BA in Political Science and History, 2011

    Virginia Tech

Skills

R

90%

Statistics/ML

95%

Wizard

50%

Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Analytics Engineer

Pluralsight

Oct 2021 – Present Charlotte, NC

o Build and maintain data models using dbt and SQL to provide downstream users curated datasets to conduct their analyses

o Support sales and finance teams with ad hoc requests to fill short term gaps in our reporting infrastructure

o Perform regular code reviews and refactoring to ensure our data models are both accurate and performant

 
 
 
 
 

Data Analyst

Universal Service Administrative Company

Aug 2019 – Oct 2021 Washington, D.C.

o Analyze large sets of data using R and Python to identify opportunities to improve the efficiency, integrity, and stakeholder experience of Universal Service program participants

o Communicate findings and metrics via well-maintained Tableau and R-Shiny tools

o Develop curated datasets in our Tableau environment using custom SQL for various stakeholders around the company

 
 
 
 
 

Instructor

Georgetown University

Jan 2019 – May 2020 Washington, D.C.

o Taught courses on data science tailored to public policy students, using R and Python to explore topics such as data wrangling, version control, reproducible examples, machine learning, and text analysis

o Guided students in collecting real-world datasets, designing models, and conducting analyses to determine and articulate policy proposals

o Oversaw the development of machine learning models to evaluate and propose solutions for topics such as improving the efficiency of the New York City public transit system

 
 
 
 
 

Data Analyst: Departmental Trends and Metrics

University of Maryland

Jan 2016 – Jun 2019 Maryland

o Collected and analyzed publication and citation data on major political science departments to evaluate the university’s academic performance relative to other institutions

o Built a multi-decade data warehouse and evaluated the university’s Ph.D. retention rate as well as the success rate of individual faculty members

o Collaborated with faculty on the collection and analysis of datasets to support research, data visualization, academic writing, and statistical modeling using R, STATA, and ArcGIS

o Managed the data collection process — including overseeing 3 undergraduate researchers — for a precinct-level primary election project, gathering data from 14 states, organizing them in a data warehouse for associated scholars to use in their research

 
 
 
 
 

Teaching Assistant

University of Maryland

Aug 2014 – May 2019 Maryland

o Designed course materials, planned lessons, provided constructive feedback to students, and led sections in a range of courses, such as American Government and Politics, Introduction to GIS for Social Science Research, and Advanced Statistical Methods for Social Science

o Developed a remote lab process to increase access and efficiency for students and faculty using ArcGIS

o Created dummy and real datasets to demonstrate complex models and mapping processes in R, STATA, and ArcGIS

Recent Posts

A Breakdown of r/EDH's 7/10 Decks

Introduction A couple of weeks ago, there was a post about 7/10 decks on the r/EDH subreddit. I was curious to see what the general …

r/EDH 7/10 Appendix

Projects

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Census Map Tinkering

Just some map tinkering I did a few months ago in R.

r/EDH 7/10 Deck Data

Repo to hold public facing data for the breakdown of r/EDH’s 7/10 decks.

Recent Publications

Quickly discover relevant content by filtering publications.

The Urban-Rural Gulf in American Political Behavior

Urban-rural differences in partisan loyalty are as familiar in the United States as they are in other countries. In this paper, we …

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