About Me

Welcome!

My name is Nick Kinnaird. I am a physics PhD turned data scientist. I recently completed the Metis data science boot camp, which is a 12-week immersive course with a project-based curriculum and a focus on problem-solving, data-wrangling, statistical modeling, machine learning, and result communication. Check out my portfolio for projects I’ve completed, as well as my blog. I’m currently applying to data scientist positions in the Chicago area, where I live with my fiancée and funny cat.

Before Metis, I worked as a graduate student and then postdoctoral researcher at Boston University. I did my PhD research on the Fermilab Muon g − 2 physics experiment, which is a high-profile, on-going, international experiment. During my time as a researcher I executed a wide variety of tasks including extensive software development and data analysis, iterating constantly with engineering, production, and other analysis teams. I gained a wealth of experience in project design, working with interdisciplinary teams, data processing and analysis on PB-size datasets, presenting, and technical writing. My dissertation includes the results of much of my work. (I also had a ton of fun and made some amazing friends along the way.)

After a year of working as a postdoc to tie off loose ends in my graduate work, I decided that the academia lifestyle wasn’t the best fit for me, and to make the transition to data science. The data science industry is a great fit for the skill-set I developed as a physics researcher, and I decided to attend Metis in order to round out that skill-set with modern tools and technologies. Now that I’ve completed the Metis boot camp, I’m ready and excited to make the transition into industry and get analyzing interesting data for real-world applications.

Please feel free to reach out to me for any reason, whether that’s to chat about my PhD work, my experiences in making the transition from academia to industry, or the data science projects I’ve worked on while at Metis.