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Anthony Schmidt

Data Scientist

About Me

I am a data scientist, researcher, teacher, designer, and tinkerer. I hold a PhD from the University of Tennessee’s Evaluation, Statistics, and Methodology program and I am currently employed as a senior data scientist at Amplify. I work at the intersection of education and data science. My mission is to work across the data lifecycle to help improve learning.

Note: This website is sporadically maintained. My apologies!

Interests

  • Statistics and quantitative research methods
  • Data visualization
  • Data science
  • Machine learning
  • Education
  • Climate change
  • Electric vehicles
  • 3D printing

Education

  • PhD in Evaluation, Statistics, and Methodology, 2022

    University of Tennessee-Knoxville

  • MSEd in Language Education/TESOL, 2011

    Indiana University-Bloomington

  • BA in Anthropology, 2006

    University of South Florida

Blog Posts

Make an Easy-to-Maintain CV or Resume using R

The vitae package makes it easy to create a reproducible and dare I say quite sexy looking CV or résumé using R Markdown. Essentially, …
Last updated on Apr 21, 2022

Creating a New R Project from the Windows Context Menu

Here is something I have wanted to do for a while: create a new folder and then simply be able to right-click and create a new R …
Last updated on Nov 19, 2021

A Zotero Workflow for R

In terms of citation management systems, there are not many options: EndNote, Excel, Mendeley, and Zotero. I was a big fan of Mendeley, …
Last updated on Oct 25, 2021

How do you pronounce that? Twitter Polls, Academic Language, and Data Science

Over the years, I have asked a fair amount of questions on Twitter in the form of polls. Many of these have to do with pronunciation, …
Apr 27, 2021

Making a Correlation Table with Highlighted Values

This blog post is inspired by a structural equation modeling class I am currently taking. Part of assessing model fit is examining …
Feb 21, 2021
See all posts

Projects & Publications

Projects I’ve Been Involved In

.js-id-Project
All Publications R Packages Other Research Other Work

Science Education to the Rescue? Assessing The Relationship Between Scientific Literacy and Carbon Emissions

A summary and link to my dissertation.
PDF Code Slides

mlmhelpr: Multilevel/Mixed Model Helper Functions

A description of the mlmhelpr R package.
Code

Higher Education Salary and Representation Publications

A list of publications I was involved in at CUPA-HR

footprint: Calculate carbon footprints from air travel in R

The goal of footprint is to calculate carbon footprints from air travel based on IATA airport codes or latitude and longitude.

STARS and Stripes: Political and Institutional Factors that Affect Higher Education Sustainability Ratings

A summary of the research paper, STARS and Stripes: Political and Institutional Factors that Affect Higher Education Sustainability …
PDF Code DOI

University air travel and greenhouse gas mitigation: an analysis of higher education climate policies

This project utilize qualitative document analysis to examine the role of flying less as a Scope 3 emissions reduction strategy in …
PDF Code Dataset DOI

R Handbook for ESM Students

This project entailed development of a R resource guide relevant to students in our evaluation, statistics, and measurement PhD …
Code

Becoming Tidyr over Time

Understanding the development of data visualization skills in an online community of practice.
PDF Poster Related Post

Book Review - International Students in First-Year Writing: A Journey Through Socio-Academic Space

A review of International Students in First-Year Writing: A Journey Through Socio-Academic Space by Megan M. Siczek
PDF DOI

Comparing Intensive English Program (IEP) and Directly-Admitted International Students’ Academic Achievement

A comparison of IEP and directly-admitted students.
PDF DOI

Presentations

From Click to Code: Insights from Instructors and Students on Moving from SPSS to R in a Graduate-Level Applied Statistics Course

This presentation will discuss the switch from SPSS to R in an advanced graduate-level applied statistics course in an educational …
Aug 11, 2021 1:00 AM — 3:00 AM
Slides

University Air Travel and GHG Mitigation: Examining Institutional Policies through the Lens of #flyingless

Preliminary results from a document analysis of institutional policies regarding mitigation of GHG emissions from university air …
Nov 25, 2020 9:00 AM — 10:00 AM
PDF

Becoming “TidyR” over Time- Data Visualization Development in an Online Community of Practice

Initial analysis of one year’s worth of TidyTuesday tweets.
Mar 11, 2020 12:00 PM — 5:00 PM
PDF Project

A survey of teachers and administrators regarding the implementation of new K-8 computing education standards in Tennessee

Preliminary results of needs analysis surveys of administrators and teachers on TN state computer science standards.
Jan 16, 2020 1:00 PM — 3:00 PM
Slides

A Comparison of Direct Admit and IEP Student Academic Achievement

An example talk using Academic’s Markdown slides feature.
Mar 1, 2019 1:00 PM — 3:00 PM
Project Slides

Data Viz Portfolio

Past Visualization Work

.js-id-Portfolio
All Interactive Static Print Reports

Member Poll Results

Visualizations of CUPA-HR poll results.

Racial/Ethnic Diversity in the Higher Education Workforce

This interactive graphic explores the racial diversity in the four key higher ed workforce areas. It allows country-wide, …

Reports with Interactive Visualizations

Example reports that include interactive visualizations.

Reports with Static Visualizations

Example reports that include static visualizations.

The Black and White Higher Education Workforce

This interactive graphic explores the representation and pay of Black employees across the higher education workforce.

Financial Wellness in Higher Education

This infographic summarizes key takeaways from a TIAA Institute/CUPA-HR survey on financial wellness in Higher Education.

The Looming Enrollment Cliff

The purpose of this dashboard is to understand and explore forecasted enrollments in Higher Education.

Multilingual “Welcome” Logo

The image below was designed for a t-shirt marketing campaign at the English Language Institute. It depicts the phrase “welcome” in …

Professional Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Senior Data Scientist

Amplify

Nov 2021 – Present Remote / Brooklyn, NY

Notable Achievements:

  • Productionizing knowlegde tracing machine learning models to predict student proficiency
  • Quarterly psychometric report for math content improvement

Responsibilities include

  • Collaborated in data specification, ingestion, and transformation
  • Conducted descriptive, inferential, and psychometric analyses
  • Contributed data access, wrangling, and visualization functions to internal R package
  • Built and maintained product-specific dashboards
  • Worked cross-functionally with research, product, engineering, and design teams

Tools used include

  • SQL, R, Python
  • Snowflake
  • Looker
  • dbt
  • docker
 
 
 
 
 

Data Visualization Researcher

CUPA-HR

Aug 2019 – Nov 2021 Knoxville, Tennessee

Notable Achievements:

  • Published first report examining representation and salary at minority-serving institutions
  • Published just-in-time reports related to FLSA overtime changes, minimum wage, COVID and remote-work
  • Introduced interactive graphics to publications

Responsibilities include

  • Analyzed and wrangled large data sets
  • Created data visualizations for general audiences
  • Created data visualizations and infographics for print media
  • Created interactive visualizations and dashboards
  • Desiged and analyzed online surveys

Tools used include

  • R, SPSS, Excel
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Tableau
  • Infogram
 
 
 
 
 

Teaching Associate

English Language Instittue (University of Tennessee)

Jul 2014 – Aug 2019 Knoxville, Tennessee
  • Taught beginner to advanced classes of English for general and academic purposes to international students.
  • Several courses included content-based instruction through history, cultural geography, and climate science.
  • Organzed, analyzed, and reported on course evaluations.
  • Co-wrote proposal for, coordinated academics, and taught in 2019 Summer EducationUSA Academy. This academy has a focus on business and entrepeurship and was taught in conjunction with the Haslam College of Business.
 
 
 
 
 

English Language Instructor

Pukyong National University

Jan 2012 – Jul 2014 Busan, South Korea
Taught English for general and academic purposes to international students
 
 
 
 
 

English Language Teacher

Various (see below)

Jul 2007 – Jul 2014
  • Southeast University, Nanjing, China (June, 2018)
  • Samsung Electronics/Pukyong National University, Busan, South Korea (2012-2014)
  • Yangun Middle School (양운중학교), Busan, South Korea (2010-2012)
  • Tsukuno Junior High School (津久野中学校), Osaka, Japan, 2009
  • Daicheong Middle School (대청중학교), Busan, South Korea (2007-2009)

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