about.qmd

---
title: "About"
image: "images/me.png"
about:
  template: jolla
  links:
    - icon: github
      text: Github
      href: https://github.com
    - icon: mastodon
      text: Mastodon
      href: https://hachyderm.io/@robertmitchellv
    - icon: twitter
      text: Twitter
      href: https://twitter.com
    - icon: linkedin
      text: LinkedIn
      href: https://linkedin.com
---

### `tl;dr`

> dad of two young autistic boys {{< fa child-reaching >}} {{< fa child >}} husband to a wonderfully caring and patient partner {{< fa ring >}} I'm pretty lucky {{< fa clover >}} I am neurodivergent {{< fa infinity >}} and also have a visual disability {{< fa eye-low-vision >}} but this doesn't stop me from persuing my passions: code {{< fa code >}} Bayesian stats {{< fa ranking-star >}} DevOps {{< fa cubes >}} ancient and continental philosophy {{< fa building-columns >}} dichotomy busting {{< fa circle-nodes >}} vegan food {{< fa seedling >}} beer {{< fa beer-mug-empty >}} wine {{< fa wine-bottle >}} coffee {{< fa mug-hot >}} tea {{< fa leaf >}} travel {{< fa plane-departure >}} and striving for balance {{< fa scale-balanced >}} I love abstract and conceptual thinking {{< fa brain >}} and am always trying to learn something new {{< fa book-open-reader >}} 

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### Professionally

My background is in theology, philosophy, and continental thought. This formed the basis for my academic exploration. My BA was in both French and comparative literature at UCLA. In the US, the ‘comp lit’ field is dominated by literary criticism and the search for universal truths and archetypes in global literature, which is not always apparent from the field’s name. Additionally, I took a fair amount of philosophy courses (my major originally), German language courses, and a bit of Scandinavian literature, film, and Old Norse (inspired from a trip to Iceland).  

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My Master’s degree is in Information Science (MSIS). Specifically, Information Systems. The MSIS is designed for information work in many different fields and is a bit of an odd degree for someone with my work experience. The information systems track taught me how to support my organization by thinking systematically and  procedurally; and I combine that with my background in critical theory to ask _why_ some formalization exists--and after all the facts are gathered--whether or not there is a better way to operationalize something. 

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Professionally I've gone from being the sole data person doing, what I suppose we could call _full stack data science_ to leading a data science team within local government. Given the limited resources of nonprofits and local gov, I have a lot of experience finding a way to get things off the ground without a ton of resources. The longer I work in roles like this the more I end up drifting more and more into DevOps territory. As a leader, I want to figure out the best way for my team to work and often that means figuring out the infrastructure so they don't have to. I do my best to create an environment that allows them to do as much dev work with the least amount of distractions as possible.

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### Personally

I’ve been lucky enough to do a fair amount of traveling; a few months in Japan at 19, a year in Paris at 23/24, Summer in Germany and Scandinavia at 24, and some quick trips to different places while spending quality time in these locations.  These experiences have shaped who I am as an individual, before I worked up the courage to talk to a girl sitting across from me on the Metro. This changed everything. I went from an individual to a couple to a family in what felt like no time at all.

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I hope to contribute posts/projects at the intersection of my various interests. I would like to have more time to explore the semantic relationships between objects and concepts in time. Also, I can never seem to escape the epistemological underpinnings of things and often spend time thinking about how probability and statistics is grounded. Deep down I am fairly optimistic: I believe that everything is connected and that the 21st century will be about discovering these connections—-hopefully I can be a part of this. At least in some small way.