Martin Monkman

Data Science practitioner, leader & educator

Biography

An innovative and entrepeneurial data science and research practitioner, leader and educator—a generalist with a talent for temporary specialization—with a national reputation for creating value for public sector organizations, and finding trusted data-driven answers to public policy, business outcome, and program performance questions.

Interests

Data science
Socio-demographics of Canada
Business & organizational performance measures

Education

MA in Geography, 1994

University of Victoria
BSc in Geography, 1983

University of Victoria

Skills

Data Science

with R

Socio-Economic Statistics

Business Analytics

Experience

Freelance consulting

May 2022 – Present Victoria, British Columbia

Responsibilities include:

Consulting
Methodological expertise
Training (data science, data literacy)

Instructor, Business Intelligence & Data Analytics

Continuing Studies, University of Victoria

Nov 2019 – Present Victoria, British Columbia

Responsibilities include:

Developing course materials
Instruction

Provincial Statistician & Director

BC Stats, Province of British Columbia

Oct 2013 – Apr 2022 Victoria, British Columbia

Responsibilities include:

Consulting
Leadership of data science unit
Methodological expertise

A/ Executive Director & Provincial Statistician

BC Stats, Province of British Columbia

Jan 2013 – Oct 2013 Victoria, British Columbia

Responsibilities include:

Analysing
Modelling
Deploying

Director

BC Stats, Province of British Columbia

Sep 2009 – Dec 2012 Victoria, British Columbia

Responsibilities include:

Analysing
Modelling
Deploying

Recent Posts

Continuous Learning in a Time of Continuous Change

This blog post is a long-form version of the talk I gave at the Statistical Society of Canada conference on 2022-06-03, one of the …

Last updated on 2022-06-05 14 min read

When variables are, indeed, variable

This blog post is a long-form version of the talk I gave as part of the Data Mishaps virtual event on 2021-02-05. Thanks to the event …

Last updated on 2021-02-07 10 min read

Importing fixed-width files with {palmerpenguins}

Gentoo penguins in Antarctica, walking along a “penguin highway”, a path that joins the sea and their nesting area on a rocky outcrop. …

Last updated on 2021-02-01 9 min read

Same name, different bird

Originally posted to bayesball.blogspot.com, 2019-06-02 What do we mean when we see a bird and say that it’s a robin? A simple …

Last updated on 2020-01-24 8 min read

Book review--Storytelling with Data

by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic (2015, Wiley) Originally posted to bayesball.blogspot.com, 2016-03-06 One of the great strengths of R is …

Last updated on 2019-10-13 5 min read

Projects

Data Science with R

An incomplete compendium of resources that cover data science topics.

MLB Run Scoring Trends

An interactive data visualization app using R’s Shiny package.

Recent & Upcoming Talks

Continuous Learning in Times of Continuous Change

Possible responses that will allow us to keep pace with a perpetually shifting ecosystem

2022-06-03 virtual

Talk text

Always another fork in the road

How does a geographer end up with the job title “Provincial Statistician”?

2021-03-30 virtual

Programming skills that have nothing to do with causal inference or stats

Data science for social scientists

2021-03-30 virtual

Next Generation Data—Unlocking Data Value with Data Science and Machine Learning

Public sector data science and machine learning

2021-03-03 virtual

Data mishaps—When variables are, indeed, variable

What I learned from a data mishap

2021-02-05 virtual

Talk text

Contact