Dr Ingrid Aulike, a University of Queensland statistician, won the “Women in Big Data” data challenge for 2019. Her presentation was a masterclass in exploratory data analysis and the importance of not making assumptions about data. Participants were given a dataset with a series of numbers with no apparent meaning. By challenging typical assumptions about data e.g. columns are variables or features, and using different visualisation techniques to summarize the data, Dr Aulike uncovered the hidden figure in this dataset of numbers, an image with a message, “Data Should Be Seen”. In her interview, Dr Aulike highlighted the need for statisticians with strong technical background and consultancy skills to meet the challenges in Big Data. She  credits online courses such as Statistical Learning with Hastie and Tibshirani, Andrew Ng’s Deep Learning and Bill Howe’s Data Science at Scale courses on Coursera as professional development opportunities for statisticians to upskill to address the needs and challenges of Big Data. Congratulations to Dr Aulike!

   

Jeeva Kanesarajah, PhD Candidate
SSA-QLD Newsletter correspondent
The University of Queensland, School of Public Health
raven17786@gmail.com