About Me: Overview
Hello! I’m Ben White, and I work at the intersection of data and computers! That’s obviously a massive category, so let me break it down a bit.
My first passion was math and economics, and my undergrad background was in statistical inference and experimental design. I’m motivated by a curiosity about the world, and the rigor and precision of statistical modeling are often the best tools for getting at the truth of how things work.
I also grew up surrounded by programming, and fell in love with algorithmic automation and standardization. And my work with stats showed me just how important it can be: disparate sources, ad hoc processes, and poor validation are by far the easiest way to get bad results. After going through it enough times, I found that I love building the pipelines to avoid getting bogged down in the processing steps.
And, no surprise, someone who loves programming and statistics eventually found their way to machine learning! It’s a great combination of algorithmic elegance, predictive power, and the breadth of their potential applications. After a few years exploring the field in my free time, and eventually my curiosity got the better of me: I spent a few years working through graduate computer science classes to better understand all the papers I’d been reading.
I’m not sure one term fits my whole background: it’s a hodgepodge, with stats, data engineering, and machine learning all mixed together. I think they are particularly powerful in combination. Working on inference, I know my input data has been processed rigorously and I have a wealth of predictive models to borrow from. Working on pipelines, I have a strong intuition for validating and debugging data issues through statistics and I understand the nuts and bolts of the predictive engines often at the end. And working with machine learning algorithms, I am statistically rigorous and have strong input data infrastucture.
If you have an interesting project or job and are looking for someone working on one of these three (and especially if you’re looking for someone who can do all of these three!) let me know! I’m always looking for opportunities where I can learn more about techniques, tools, or how the world works.