Choens (Nullius in verba)

About

This is the blog of Andy Choens. This is my little place on the 'Net. I mostly talk about my family, technology, statistics, politics, and my adventures in the great outdoors. These words are mine and do not necessarily represent the opinion of my employer or organizations I work with.

Professional Personal

Professional

Today, data is everywhere in human services. Data science is the practice of extracting knowledge from data. It sits at the intersection of domain expertise, traditional research and statistics skills, and software development skills. I am equal parts social worker, business consultant, program evaluator, and computer programmer. I help clients convert their data into knowledge.

Areas of Interest:

  • Health Care / Care Management (Health Homes)
  • Mental Health
  • Child Welfare (Child Abuse, Foster Care, ICWA)
  • Homelessness
  • Criminal Justice / Juvenile Justice
  • Reproducible Research
  • Educating the next generation of data scientists

Research Expertise:

  • Program Evaluation ( Process, Outcomes, Workload, Cost Effectiveness )
  • Data Management / Analysis
  • Training

Favorite Tools:

  • Databases: Postgres, Oracle, Vertica, SQL Server
  • Analytics: R, Python, SAS, SPSS, Excel
  • Reproducible Research: LaTeX / Sweave, Rmarkdown, Git

I am an experienced program evaluator with experience in child welfare, elder-care, health care, housing, and juvenile justice. I earned my MSW at SUNY Albany's School of Social Welfare . I currently work for IPRO and work on the Health Homes evalution for the New York State Department of Health. I have a strong background in direct clinical practice, program evaluation, and data analysis. See my projects page for example analyses and training materials I have written.

I maintain my resume on GitHub, because I'm a geek. Alternatively, you can get it from my LinkedIn page, but I sometimes forget to update it. You can always download my current resume (PDF) and a list of example projects (PDF). Feel free to contact me at my personal email address if you would like to discuss a job opportunity or professional collaboration.

Personal

I live in Albany, NY with my (lovely) wife and our (even lovelier) daughter. I am a board member of the Upstate Artists Guild(UAG) . In my free time I build and ride trails with the Saratoga Mountain Biking Association . During the winter, I like to disappear into the North Country to enjoy back-country skiing.

Contact

There are several ways to reach me. Email is generally the best / fastest way to get a response. I check my LinkedIn page infrequently and I hate voice mail.