Faces of Data Science: LILLIAN PIERSON

Lillian Pierson

Where should I start? There is a lot to say about Lillian, as indicated by the vast number of hits you get when entering her name into Google. Lillian is one of the big players in the field of data science. Having authored the book “Data Science for Dummies” she has not only made undeniably clear that she is a skilled data scientist, but she is also one of the first faces you encounter when getting into the field of data science and start building a network.

I first read about Lillian some years ago, when my passion for psychology turned into a passion for statistics and later into data science. Lillian was one of the first people I found when doing some google research on “data science”. I was stunned by Lillian, not only because she is extremely charismatic and beautiful, but hell, this woman has a lot going for her. I studied her CV and checked out her posts, publications and media mentions. I was impressed. It didn’t take too long before I decided I had to get in touch with her. When I first wrote to her, Lillian was as nice and sweet as one could be. She is a real inspiration to me, an important “face of data science” and her story deserves being shared as much as possible.

To put it into a nutshell: Lillian has done much during her life (like working as an environmental engineering consultant, or doing analytics in the humanitarian field), so at one point she decided to leave it all behind, quit her government job, move to a small town in Thailand, and focus on running her side business as a full-time venture. 2 years before doing this, she had started working building up her this data science business from scratch. For this dream, she turned down a chance to test and interview for Facebook in Menlo Park. 

Lillian - Big Data’s Girl 

Looking at Lillian, there is no reason to wonder whether she had to struggle with being a woman in data science – the question doesn’t even arise with all that confidence and innovation connected to her. Lillian is one of my favorite types of feminists; the one that sets an example by simply living her life as success- and colorful as she does, not ever giving you a second thought about her gender. This makes it even more surprising that in fact, Lillian was raised to follow a more traditional role for a woman (such as the one of a caregiver), getting the impression that “women don’t do arithmetic”. Being her, she taught herself to code at age 7 (God, I wish I had done the same), found calculus to be “pretty easy” and studied engineering but then – good for the data science community - wasn’t too passionate about built system designs. She loved the “data modeling portion of engineering design and planning work” so that naturally led her into the data science field, which she describes as “just an expansion of [her] natural bent”. 

Lillian’s Skillset

The summary of Lillian’s skills is a bit intimidating in the most positive way, I must say. For the past several years, she’s been focusing on data science training, and now – more recently – coaching. She has over 10 years of experience with spatial data analysis and mapping (making use of R, CrowdMap, QGIS, ArcMap and many more). She has experience with business intelligence, data analytics, crisis mapping and digital humanitarian response. Of course she’s a crack in data visualization and analysis (SQL, Python, R, SAP, ArcGIS, GeoDa, CrimeStatIII, and, and, and...) and she’s produced analytics dashboards and spatial data analysis. She also has solid statistics knowledge and has an impressive collection of engineering licensures and training certificates.

Lillian and Data Science

Lillian loves being a data scientist, not only because she thinks it’s fun, fascinating and full of opportunities, but it also gives her the flexibility and freedom she needs to be happy. Lillian is the right person to be asked for tips on how to become a data scientist. Her main advice for future data scientists is… “Trust your gut”. Her years of math, science, and engineering experience helped her get a start working in the field of data science even though she was always following her passion. However, Lillian is convinced that, despite all the prerequisites, the most important part of being a data scientist is to love what you do, so that you never end up a) doing a bad job or b) more importantly, being unhappy and wasting your precious life. Her company Data-Mania offers training and coaching on how to become a data scientist, under the motto (“Data-Mania, where learning from data is a piece of cake”). I can only recommend everyone to look up her site, take the courses that are missing in your skill set (to not be a “real” but a comfortable data scientist).

Lillian has inspired me in many ways. I’m sure that, if she wasn’t living on the other side of the world, we would hang out and not only talk data science and statistics. ;) Lillian is a power-woman, and needless to say, I like that. She also manages to combine her private with her professional dream, living with her family on paradise island Ko Samui and successfully running her own company.

It is a pleasure, Lillian, to watch you succeeding in different areas and setting an example to show what one person can be capable of!