Senior Data Scientist Applies His Grad School Classwork

Name: John Meszaros (he/him)

PhD: Economics, West Virginia University, 2017

What was your main area of research?

I studied economic inequality with time series econometric tools.

What is your current job?

I am a Senior Data Scientist for John Burns Research and Consulting in Irvine, California.

I am now doing data science work, including data cleaning, management, and modeling. This was a relatively easy shift as I had taken some statistics courses and programming courses in graduate school.

What is your favorite thing about your job?

I get to use my forecasting and programming skills on a daily basis and still get to do a bit of research.

What is the most important skill you developed or experience you had during your PhD that now helps you in your current position?

The ability to go after problems and investigate them deeply.

How did you build the skills necessary for your current role?

I took statistical theory courses in graduate school (in the statistics department) as well as programming classes in R. I also took econometrics classes in our economics department. These would be the most relevant for any data science related job.

How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now?

LinkedIn connection

PhD graduate ➡️ Economist, USPS and BEA ➡️ Zonda, Senior Research Analyst ➡️ JBREC, Senior Data Scientist

If someone is interested in a similar role, what would you recommend they start doing now to prepare?

Take courses in R and Python. Also, you will give yourself a big advantage if you understand statistics and statistical theory.

Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia?

I didn't enjoy some of the department politics that seemed to be common across schools. I didn't want to have to tailor my research or views to fit someone else's agenda.

What advice do you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?

There are lots of opportunities outside of academia to make more money as well as potentially still do some important research.