About

Job market status

I am currently on the job market. If you are reading this and want to employ me, remotely or in the greater Hamburg area, please get in contact. A link to my CV should appear on this site, or you can email me.

James as a Data Scientist

Background

My empirical prowess stems from my economics education. After the two-year Masters of Science in Economics program at the Universität Hamburg, I began a PhD at the Graduate School of Economics, Finance, and Management in Frankfurt, where coursework included advanced econometrics, time series analysis, and Bayesian inference. My research focus was heterogeneous agents and their labor market outcomes.

Since stepping back from academia, I have focused on machine learning. My first step was the Data Circle course with the ReDi School. I delved deep into ensemble methods for a multilable classification problem. The next progression was to explore computer vision and neural networks with the HDI (no certificate), then to tackle large language models. This culminated in the AWS Machine Learning Specialist (MLS-C01) certification, completed in December 2025.

I also have professional experience with Statista as a researcher for the Editorial Research Intelligence Department. We researched and prepared domain-specific dossiers on topics from the effects of the George Floyd killing to the cost of European monarchies. Upon joining the team, my writing reduced the turnaround for the drafting phase by over half, with fewer revision requests from the editorial team.

English is my mother tongue, and my German is advanced (C1). I also speak intermediate Spanish (B1) and basic French (A2).

Programming

My first love was MATLAB, mostly because the syntax is so friendly to those of us who love linear algebra. I am now using Python most often, and along the I have used R, Stata, SQL, Bash, a little C++, and others. My academic projects focused on computational methods, primarily Bayesian methods (Gibbs sampler, Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, Kalman filter, etc.) and optimization methods (Bellman optimality, endogenous grid search, hill-climbing algorithms, etc).

I cannot abide a black box and have a long history of digging deep into algorithms. This began in earnest during my Bayesian Modelling for Marketing course, where we tweaked source code for an R package. Connecting this to the MATLAB IDE changed my approach to programming, which has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I was unable to implement the XGBoost algorithm before understanding it thoroughly. On the other hand, knowing that, for example, that alpha and beta correspond to the traditional ridge and lasso regularization parameters makes them intuitive to calibrate, shortening training times. As I expand my programming capabilities, my understanding of different computer science domains respectively grows.

Seemingly Unrelated Work History

Before returning to academia for my masters, I lived and worked on four continents. Jobs included adventure tourism, English teaching, managing a hostel, and nonprofit fundraising. While these were chosen more as a way to fuel my desire for international experience, I took each position seriously, delving deep into the topics offered. The entire process has also endowed me with a library of general knowledge, helping me to create cognitive connections and arrange new data into a broader context.

Through this, I have developed a range of skills which have benefited me in surprising ways. First and foremost, living so long in such different cultural contexts required flexibility and self-reliance. It also bolstered my capacity for quickly acclimating to a situation, rapidly learning the pertinent details to understand my new surroundings. Secondly, as these were all public-facing positions, they developed my communication skills in all contexts, from written to large presentations.

They also required teamwork, and I thrive in a collaborative environment. After my years as a trip leader in adventure situations, I am comfortable at any point in the hierarchy, including leadership roles. I also handle crises well, as few office tasks are more stressful than facilitating a whitewater rescue. Furthermore, such a reliance on my colleagues garnered my capacity for recognizing their various strengths and allocating tasks efficiently.

Other interests

I identify as a nerd and throw myself into topics as they catch me. This has included international relations, linguistics, history, ecology, composting (particularly vermicompost), and whitewater kayaking. By no means am I an expert in these, with the exception of whitewater, but I find it useful to keep myself entertained. It also fuels my creativity.