Kelly McConville

Biography

I am the inaugural Director for the Dominguez Center for Data Science at Bucknell University. Before that, I was a Senior Lecturer and the Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Statistics at Harvard University. I have also taught at Reed College, Swarthmore College, and Whitman College. As I begin my new position at Bucknell, I look forward to creating a data science center that is for the whole Bucknell community, from the data savvy to the data curious.

I am a strong believer in the transformative power of undergraduate research experiences, and to date, I have supervised over 50 undergraduate research students. In several recent summers, I have run an undergraduate forestry data science program where undergraduate students tackle forestry data science research projects that are directly motivated by work at the US Forest Inventory and Analysis Program.

I am also a survey statistician who develops estimation techniques that combine complex survey data with big data sources. Whether it’s to estimate official statistics, canopy cover or occupational statistics or to assess the impact of voter ID laws, I enjoy creating methods to learn from data. I am a big fan of the statistical software, R, and have written two R packages: mase for model-assisted survey estimation and pdxTrees for exploring the trees of Portland, OR.

Education

Colorado State University | Fort Collins, CO

Ph.D. in Statistics | 2011

Masters in Statistics | 2008

St. Olaf College | Northfield, MN

B.A. in Mathematics | 2006

Interests

  • Statistics and data science education
  • Survey statistics
  • Machine learning

Kelly McConville

Biography

I am the inaugural Director for the Dominguez Center for Data Science at Bucknell University. Before that, I was a Senior Lecturer and the Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Statistics at Harvard University. I have also taught at Reed College, Swarthmore College, and Whitman College. As I begin my new position at Bucknell, I look forward to creating a data science center that is for the whole Bucknell community, from the data savvy to the data curious.

I am a strong believer in the transformative power of undergraduate research experiences, and to date, I have supervised over 50 undergraduate research students. In several recent summers, I have run an undergraduate forestry data science program where undergraduate students tackle forestry data science research projects that are directly motivated by work at the US Forest Inventory and Analysis Program.

I am also a survey statistician who develops estimation techniques that combine complex survey data with big data sources. Whether it’s to estimate official statistics, canopy cover or occupational statistics or to assess the impact of voter ID laws, I enjoy creating methods to learn from data. I am a big fan of the statistical software, R, and have written two R packages: mase for model-assisted survey estimation and pdxTrees for exploring the trees of Portland, OR.

Education

Colorado State University | Fort Collins, CO

Ph.D. in Statistics | 2011

Masters in Statistics | 2008

St. Olaf College | Northfield, MN

B.A. in Mathematics | 2006

Interests

  • Statistics and data science education
  • Survey statistics
  • Machine learning