Jennifer Brussow, Ph.D.
Data Leader | Data Scientist | Researcher
Contact Info
Description
Committed to empowering data-driven thinking in product development. Communicates clearly with stakeholders to build consensus around well-founded models. Demonstrated success in identifying relationships and building solutions to business problems.
Skills
- Process development
- Stakeholder communication
- Facilitation of data-driven decisions
- Research design
- Team building
- Statistical modeling
- Machine Learning
- NLP/LLMs
- Data cleaning
- Data visualization
Technical skills
- R (both Tidyverse and Base R)
- Python
- Snowflake & Snowpark
- AWS: Lambda, SageMaker, API Gateway, S3, EC2
- R Shiny
- Streamlit
- SQL
- Markdown
- Git
- SSRS
- SPSS
- Tableau
- PowerBI
- Excel
Relevant work experience
Director of Data Science
Mar 2023 - present
Terakeet | Remote
- Built team of data scientists from the ground up
- Collaborated with other department heads to prioritize work and manage the department’s roadmap
- Presented data science updates and progress to executive leadership
- Trained, evaluated, and deployed a growth projections model (LSTM), URL classifiers (fine-tuned LLMs), and a content simulation model (quantile-informed stochastic algorithm)
Senior Data Scientist
Dec 2021 - Mar 2023
Terakeet | Remote
- Created departmental standards for model documentation, deployment, and maintenance.
- Developed proprietary algorithms for classification, prediction, and projection, including fine-tuned NLP models, multilayer perceptron models, XGBoost models, regression models, and time series models
- Deployed models and other endpoints using Snowflake, Snowpark, and AWS tooling (SageMaker, Lambda, API Gateway, ECR, IAM, S3)
- Established a cross-platform roadmap for data science work and collaborated with project managers to prioritize efforts.
Manager of Learning Analytics and Research
Apr 2021 - Dec 2021
Ascend Learning | New York, NY
- Led simulation team’s data collection, analysis, and reporting efforts throughout development and implementation cycle for over 10 projects.
- Developed machine learning and NLP models for application in in interactive learning environments.
- Originated A/B testing program to explore product features’ statistical impacts on users’ learning and perceptions.
- Developed polished visualizations and reporting dashboard to support client-facing reporting.
- Managed team of two employees, overseeing hiring, training, and professional growth.
Lead Data Scientist
Jun 2019 - Apr 2021
Ascend Learning | New York, NY
- Led the simulation unit’s research and data analysis efforts from R&D to stakeholder reporting on over 20 projects.
- Created and implemented two research protocols to collect data on users’ cognitive processes to inform product improvements during development.
- Instated team processes to bring reliability and validity to scoring algorithms for branching adaptive scenarios.
- Created internal reporting on simulations’ usage and efficacy using R Shiny, SSRS, and Power BI.
Research Scientist
May 2017 - Jun 2019
Ascend Learning | Leawood, KS
- Developed statistical models to predict student success on Allied Health and nursing certification exams with >= 90% accuracy.
- Conducted outcomes research to assemble and publish validity evidence for ATI’s flagship assessments in whitepapers and peer-reviewed journals.
- Developed scoring QA procedures to ensure reporting accuracy.
- Developed R, SQL, and SAS code to leverage machine learning and traditional statistical approaches, including boosted linear and logistic regressions, k-NN, decision trees, random forests, and IRT.
Psychometrician Assistant
Jan 2016 - May 2017
University of Kansas | Lawrence, KS
Assistant Researcher
Feb 2013 - Jan 2016
University of Kansas | Lawrence, KS
Education
Ph.D.: Research, Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics
University of Kansas | Lawrence, KS
Graduated with honors
Dissertation: Finding Item-Level Causes of Differential Item Functioning: A Hierarchical IRT Model for Explaining DIF
Activities and societies: Graduate Organization of Educational Psychology & Research Students (Co-President for two of four years)
MA: English Language Studies
University of Kansas | Lawrence, KS
Thesis: Wundorlice hit hæleþ: Organization and Metatextual Markers in Old English Recipes
Activities and societies: Student Association of Graduates in English (Graduate Committee Representative, Lecturers/Readers Committee member, Webmaster)
BAs: English; Germanic Languages and Literature
University of Kansas | Lawrence, KS
National Merit Scholar.
Graduated summa cum laude with Honors Program completion and Departmental Honors in English.
Activities and societies: German Club (President two of four years), Marching Band, Honors Program, College Bowl, Phi Beta Kappa.
Certifications
- Pragmatic Institute Certified: Foundations
- Pragmatic Institute Certified: Build
- LinkedIn R Skill Certification