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 company logo   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 company logo   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 company logo   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 company logo   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 company logo   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 logo   University of Kansas | Lawrence, KS

Assistant Researcher

Feb 2013 - Jan 2016
University of Kansas logo   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