Missing the point - missing values, misinterpretations, and missed opportunities in environmental data science
Invited plenary talk for the Urban Drainage Modeling Conference, hybrid remote and at SCCWRP.
Abstract: Getting my hands on new, raw environmental data is exciting, and so is diving into a fresh pool of data wrangling, analysis and visualization. In this talk, I consider different flavors of “missing the point,” asking “What might I be missing when I launch headfirst into a new data science project?” Motivated by past mistakes, I share three ways I’ve missed the point when starting a project due to (1) missing data, (2) misinterpretation, and (3) missed opportunity. Through personal anecdotes and public examples I highlight the risk of these “misses” in data science projects, then share tools and strategies to avoid them moving forward, so that we can all dive enthusiastically into projects a bit more responsibly.