About Me

Statistician and data scientist with a Ph.D. in Statistics and Data Science and 5+ years of research, teaching, consulting, and mentoring experience. I'm passionate about making quantitative methods accessible to diverse audiences, and I work at the intersection of rigorous statistical inference and real-world impact in environmental science, public health, and policy.

Education

Ph.D., Statistics and Data Science

Virginia Commonwealth University

Expected 2025 | GPA: 3.89

Systems Modeling and Analysis. Dissertation: Bayesian Animal Movement Models.

Master's Degree, Economical and Environmental Statistics

Isfahan University of Technology

2017

Thesis: Mixed-effects models for longitudinal ordinal health outcomes.

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Bachelor's Degree, Statistics

Isfahan University of Technology

2014

Undergrad Research: Modeling continuous response variable using SAS software.

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Affiliate Researcher: The College of William & Mary, Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Affiliate student and researcher of The Environmental Statistics and Transdisciplinary Data Science Lab.

Professional Experience

Research & Data Science

Data Science Intern 2026 – Present

Virginia Department of Conservation & Recreation, Richmond, VA

This position is funded and placed through the Virginia Sea Grant.
Work involves geospatial analysis using ArcGIS Pro and applied machine learning methods.

Graduate Research Fellow 2023 – 2025

Virginia Sea Grant / Virginia Commonwealth University

Developed a Bayesian predictive model for imputing and forecasting spatiotemporal data, improving decision-making accuracy for fisheries policy.
Built automated data workflows, enhancing reproducibility and integrity for complex, large-scale spatiotemporal datasets.
Designed an Oracle simulation framework to evaluate model accuracy and robustness.
Developed production-ready R Shiny web application that operationalizes PhD research models, providing a user-friendly interface for non-technical stakeholders.
Optimized large-scale Bayesian and MCMC models using High-Performance Computing (HPC) and integrated efficient C++ code via Rcpp.

Data Scientist 2022 – 2023

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Education Project, VCU

Collaborated with interdisciplinary researchers on HHMI-funded project to support educational initiatives through data analysis and visualization.
Prepared reports and visualizations for stakeholders; contributed to multiple peer-reviewed publications.

Teaching & Consulting

Adjunct Faculty, Department of Mathematics May 2022 – July 2022

Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

Taught Calculus with Analytic Geometry to undergraduate students as sole instructor of record.
Created course materials and assessments; held regular office hours to support student success.

Statistical Consultant 2021 – 2023

Statistics & Analytics Consulting Lab, VCU

Consulted on diverse research projects across medicine, public health, psychology, and finance.
Recommended appropriate statistical methods tailored to each study's design and objectives.
Implemented data cleaning, exploratory analysis, generalized linear models, machine learning methods, and visualizations to communicate complex results to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Technical Skills

Programming & Tools

R (Rcpp, Shiny, tidyverse), Python (NumPy, Pandas, scikit-learn), C++, SQL, SAS, SPSS, Git, Jupyter Notebooks, Power BI, High-Performance Computing (Slurm)

Data Engineering

ETL Pipelines, Data Wrangling & Quality Control, Geospatial Data (ArcGIS Pro, GDAL), API Integration, REDCap

Statistical & ML Methods

Bayesian Inference, MCMC, Spatiotemporal Modeling, Time Series Forecasting, Linear/Logistic Regression, GLMs, Mixed-Effects Models, Supervised/Unsupervised ML, Missing Data Imputation

AI & LLMs

Exploring LangChain, prompt engineering, agentic workflows for data analysis and research automation

Soft Skills

Mentorship & Team Collaboration, Scientific Writing, Presenting Technical Insights to Non-Expert Audiences, Accessibility in Quantitative Work

Selected Honors & Awards

Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship Finalist

2026

The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, Elected Member

January 2025

NSF Participation Award, NSF Workshop on Data-driven Modeling and Prediction of Rare and Extreme Events

December 2024

Best Poster Presentation Award, ASA Virginia Chapter Annual Meeting

October 2023

Virginia Sea Grant Graduate Research Fellowship

September 2023

Leadership & Community

Community Involvement

Virginia Women in High Performance Computing (VA-WHPC) — Committee Member (Feb 2025–Present)
VCU Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Chapter — Secretary (2024–Present)
VCU Statistical Sciences and Operations Research Data Science Team — President (2022–2023)

Mentoring & Volunteering

Mentored a student who delivered a lightning talk at VA-WHPC and won First Place Prize (Nov 2024)
Mentored STEM undergraduate students in the 2nd Annual SURE Conference (Oct 2025)
RAMily Captain, VCU Global Education Office (Fall 2022)

Professional Affiliations

Affiliate Student, Virginia Institute of Marine Science (William & Mary)
Member, Washington Statistical Society (WSS)
Member, American Statistical Association (ASA)