Data Science

This section features my work as a Data Scientist with the Center for Municipal Finance where I built sustainable tools, wrangled data, and created interactive websites for public use.

• A tool to automatically file property tax appeals for low-income homeowners in Detroit and Chicago (python/flask, reactjs, AWS)
• An example webpage from a series of 3000 webpages analyzing property taxes nationwide using geospatial and statistical techniques in R
• An R package for property tax analysis
• A nationwide analysis of 40M property sales using interactive maps (mapbox) and menus (Select2)
• Professional work with the Cook County Assessor’s Office Data Science team

Data Storytelling

Here are examples of how I convert data into stories in both academic and professional settings.

• An analysis of the University of Chicago Police Department using interviews, web scraping (Selenium, python), and data visualizations (R, ggplot/R Markdown)
• Data visualizations of traffic in Chicago using open data made with python (altair)
• A report on regressive property taxes in Detroit
• An analysis of population and race/ethnicity by Chicago Ward
• A tableau dashboard which analyzes Chicago Transit Authority Open Data
• A nationwide analysis of property taxes & assessments

Selected Teaching/Talks

• Instructor, PA 470 Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning in the Public Sector, Master of Science in Civic Analytics program, University at Illinois Chicago
• Detroit City Council Hearing on Property Taxes, September 15th, 2022
• 8th District (Illinois) Tax Fairness Town Hall, September 29th, 2021
• Evaluating Vertical Equity in Assessment: A Practical Guide (software demonstration), International Association of Assessing Officers Conference 2021, Chicago, IL.
• PropeRty Taxes: Transparency, Equity, AND R, satRday 2020
• Trainer @ hacking4justice
• Teaching Fellow (R Programming), Data and Policy Summer Scholar Program, University of Chicago, Summer 2019
• Teaching Assistant, PPHA 30531: Data Skills for Public Policy, University of Chicago, Fall 2019

Public History

• Bearing Witness: The 40th Anniversary of Chicago’s CWRIC Hearing
• Dedication of Japanese American Ban Memorial
• Nikkei South Side: Japanese and Japanese Americans in Hyde Park and its Vicinity, Summer 2021 (researcher/curator)
• Indiana University Issues Apology for Japanese American ban
• ‘Deemed Inadvisable’: The University’s Wartime Japanese American Ban, Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago
• Education Denied: Indiana University’s Japanese American Ban, Indiana Magazine of History June 2019. Winner of the Indiana Association of Historians James H. Madison Best Article Prize, 2020

Press

Various clips from my work researching property taxes.

• Toronto property assessments are shielded from public scrutiny. This is how we discovered many of us were over-taxed, Toronto Star
• Troubling property tax trend hitting Toronto’s cheapest homes while mansions catch a break, Star investigation finds, Toronto Star
• Detroit home assessments continue to be inaccurate, WDET
• Detroit Homes Over Assessed as Residents Struggle with Property Taxes, NBC Nightly News
• How Lower-Income Americans Get Cheated on Property Taxes, New York Times
• Homes in poor neighborhoods are taxed at roughly twice the rate of those in rich areas, study shows, Washington Post
• Racial Inequality: Broken Property-Tax System Blocks Black Wealth Building, Bloomberg News
• The Scandal of the Predatory City, New York Times
• Opinion: Detroit’s property tax methodology continues to harm its poorest residents, Detroit News