Episode 4 — Kirk Borne

Kirk Borne is the Principal Data Scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton, PhD Astrophysicist, and world-renowned Big Data Influencer. In 2007 he launched the first-ever data science bachelors degree program as a Professor of Computational Science at George Mason University and in 2009 co-created the field of Astroinformatics to support his research.

Since Kirk has been around long-before the field was even called Data Science, we start this conversation by taking a 50-foot helicopter view of the field: where we’ve been over the past decade, where we are now, and how aspiring Data Scientists can prepare for what’s coming next.

Other topics covered include…

• what it means to be “data literate”
• how organizations can promote a “culture of experimentation”
• the data science skills, talents, & aptitudes that have stood the test of time
• Kirk’s thought process behind creating the first data science bachelors degree program at GMU
• changes he would make to the program if he re-created it today
• …. and perhaps most notably: how Kirk was asked to brief the President of the United States on Data Mining after the terrorist attacks of 9/11

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Links from the Episode

• Kirk’s (legendary) Twitter
• Kirk’s “Big Data, Small World” TedTalk
• NASA Hubble Telescope
• Kirk’s Rocket-Powered Data Science blog
• Kirk’s “A Growth Hacker’s Journey – at the right place at the right time” article
• The Definitive Q&A For Aspiring Data Scientists
• How to Lie with Statistics by Darrel Huff
• Kirk’s Homepage
• Booz Allen Hamilton

 

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Enjoy!