Katherine LeVan: data scientist of 16 years, with a love of science education on the side.Currently at the Department of Interior’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) as a data scientist/statistician on the Data Analytics team. The OIG's audits and investigations teams identify waste, fraud and abuse of funding/power within the Department of Interior. In my role, I work with what is probably the best team in government (I mean that both in terms of the results delivered and that folks are delightful to work with), and as a support unit my team and I get to touch hundreds of projects a year. Between stakeholder engagement, a fun and varied portfolio, and a willingness to try new things - this is a place where really interesting problems get tackled with both rigor and vigor!Received my PhD in Biological Sciences in 2013 for work that blended field biology, molecular methods and rigorous statistical analyses. At University of California San Diego, I was thoroughly trained in traditional frequentist approaches and multivariate methods (GLMM, PerMANOVA, etc.) using a variety of programming languages (R, Python). Spent a brief stint after grad school doing science communication for two non-profit organizations, before taking a staff scientist position at the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) managed by Battelle. At NEON, I led the development of 9 data products (freely available at data.neonscience.org) and supported the development of robust data QAQC pipelines. This work required a deep statistical background, an understanding of data structure and use cases, and significant programming experience.