How long have you been with the University?

Just short of 2.5 years now.

What department and/or unit are you in?

I am a data analyst for Campus Planning + Sustainability within Facilities Services.

What is your education or training?

I received my BS degree in advanced marketing analytics from Illinois State University with a minor in Spanish language and literature. My degree taught me how to clean and manipulate data using tools like R Studio, Tableau, and SQL, allowing me to transform raw data into clear visualizations. These skills have given me the ability to derive valuable insights from data and drive strategic business decisions.

Before my time at the University of Chicago, I was working with a technology sales company, CDW. I was trained on how K-12 and higher education can greatly benefit from improved technology environments for both staff and students. I learned how important it is to make sure that every school has the proper tools needed to secure their data and information. 

How does your job relate to sustainability?

My current role at the University allows me to work with sustainability in a few ways. I work with a few other members of the University on Project Cowbell as it relates to the University’s goal to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 50% by 2030. Project Cowbell is the University’s automated system of record for GHG data collection, calculations, and visualizations. I work with collecting and cleaning the data through various sources before our IT Data Warehousing team updates our latest GHG emissions for the University. After our data has been processed in the data warehouse, I am able to create dashboards to report our GHG emissions for the previous fiscal year. The reporting is broken down by three scopes, which include natural gas and fuel oil, electricity, and directly financed air travel. I also collaborate on new ways to track our GHG emissions across campus, such as creating new ways to visualize our utility usage and waste management. The dashboards created for GHG reporting can be viewed on the UChicago Sustainability dashboard page.