September / October 2021 Newsletter

PACM & DSA Newsletter

September/ October
2021

Providing you with timely and relevant information to help you stay up-to-date with the fields of applied math and data science.

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In this issue:

DSA Fall 2021 Seminar Series
Alumni Spotlight
Stay Up-to-Date
Meet the Mathematics Department GA and PACM Student
The DSA Coding Challenge
Data Now
Buffalo State Data Talk Podcast
Upcoming Events

DSA Fall 2021 Seminar Series

Wednesday, October 20th | 5-6 PM
Catherine March
Rich Products Network Design and Optimization Manager
In person

Wednesday, October 27th | 5-6 PM
Jason Grinnell
Buffalo State Professor of Philosophy
In person

Wednesday, November 3rd | 5-6 PM
Jackie Malcolm
MN State Colleges and Universities Vice Chancellor of Information Technology
Virtual Presentation

Wednesday, November 10th | 5-6 PM
Francisco Bravo
PhD Student, University of Australia
Virtual Presentation

Alumni Spotlight

with Benjamin Kanouse '20

Ben is a software engineer working at Modo Labs where he develops web applications written with Ruby on Rails.

Career Summary: I graduated from the PACM program in 2011. Shortly after graduating I got a job working for Academic Software Plus as a Junior Software Engineer. Academic Software Plus was bought out Liaison International where I continued to work for the next 7 years. At Liaison I was promoted through their entire engineering career ladder; from Junior Engineer, to Software Engineer, to Senior Engineer, to Principal Engineer, and finally Software Architect.

In 2020 I decided to leave my job with Liaison and get the DSA Certificate. After graduating from the DSA program I was hired at Modo Labs where I currently write software using the Ruby on Rails framework.

How did your experience in PACM help you find your first job?: Fellow students at Buffalo State help me land my first job as a Software Engineer.

What advice do you have for current students?: Don't just go through the classes, spend time with your fellow students off of campus.

Read their complete profile on the DSA website here.

DSA and PACM alumni, if you are interested in sharing information for a profile please complete this survey.

Stay Up-to-Date

Check out this collection of mathematics and data science articles.

Machine Learning Interviews

This online book details the machine learning interview process, including roles available and skills employers are looking for. It also includes over 200 examples questions so you can practice for your next interview.
Read the book here.

Intuition for P-values and Statistical Significance

Gain a more intuitive understanding of p-values by reading this presentation which shows examples, using Python, testing how likely it is that a coin is biased.

"Data Scientists have 3 jobs:

Design
Run
Evaluate

... experiments. This talk is about the evaluation phase, and can be summed up as 'don’t get fooled by randomness'."
Read the full transcript here.

Legality of Web Scraping

A recent Supreme Court decision has brought some clarity to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 is cybersecurity bill that amended an existing computer fraud law. If you scrape the web understanding how this law may be interpreted is important. "The decision also suggests that using web scraping to collect public data is also not a violation of the CFAA, although the courts will still need to clarify whether circumventing technical measures triggers a violation."
Read the full article here.

Meet the Mathematics Department GA and PACM Student

Matilda McDonough

Matilda graduated with a BA in Applied Computational Mathematics from UB. She currently works as a lab assistant in the Bio-Behavioral Health and Recovery Lab at Roswell Park.

Why did you choose the Buffalo State PACM program?

I chose the PACM program at Buffalo State because of its variety of curriculum and integration with so many local businesses.

What are your future career plans?

I don’t have a clear idea of the future yet, but I am very interested in electrical engineering and applications of statistics for digital signal processing.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I like to study every day. My favorite thing to learn about, besides math and computers, is languages. I’m at an intermediate level of Mandarin Chinese and Georgian. I also spend a lot of time walking my dogs and playing the flute.

What is your favorite part of math?

My favorite part of math is checking my work. I love being able to get the same result using as many different methods as possible.

What is something new that you are liking or have tried recently?

I recently took a trip to Brooklyn and tried khachapuri and khinkali from a Georgian restaurant. I’m very excited to go back and try more!

The DSA Coding Challenge

DSA students, deepen your knowledge of Python programming by participating in the DSA Coding Challenge. These problems will explore specific skills expected of data science employees. New challenges are released the third Thursday of each month.

The most recent challenge was released on Thursday August 19th. Don't forget to submit your responses by Thursday September 2nd to be in the running for the DSA Coding Challenge Champion Award!

Data Now

Data science in the everyday

Reservoirs Impacted by Drought

This Washington Post article visualized the water levels in western US reservoirs. This image compares their current levels, which have been impacted by the ongoing drought, to their maximum capacity.

Read full article here.

Electric Vehicles

Check out this New York Times article on electric vehicles that includes a number of data visualizations.

The article shows the age of cars currently on the road and what percent of them are electric. They also show when the majority of cars on the road are expected to be electric and the potential impact of phasing out the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles.

Read full article here.

Buffalo State Data Talk Podcast

September 1st brings the last episode in the summer mini-series all about internships. These episodes will guide listeners through everything you need to know about internships from why you might want to get one, to how to make the most out of the experience.

The topics include:

Episode 1 - Internship basics: Where do I start?
Episode 2 - Internship Networking and LinkedIn: Building digital relationships
Episode 3 - Applying for Internships: Resume, cover letters and interviews
Episode 4 - The Internship: You got one! Now what?

Buffalo State Data Talk Website
Spotify
Apple podcasts
Google Podcasts
YouTube

Upcoming Events

September 6th: Labor day- No classes
September 7th: Last day to drop without a penalty
September 16th: Late registration ends
October 11-12: Fall recess
October 20th: First DSA Seminar with Catherine March
October 27th: Second DSA Seminar- Ethics with Jason Grinnell

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Connect with us

Do you have a journal article, dashboard, news article you want to share? Email your suggestions to Heather Campbell at campbehm@buffalostate.edu.

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