Data Scientist Takes Hiatus from Industry and Embraces Academia Again with Jacobo Pereira-Pacheco
By: Thaisa Fernandes
Tags: Academia, Latinx, Latinx In Tech, Statistics, Data Science

What does it mean to you to be Latinx?

To be a Latinx for me is to have a sense of a community behind my back. I have essentially an army of people behind me who are there for me. Growing up Latinx in America, I realized that what I have, and what I’ve grown to have, is a true privilege that I have because of sacrifices that were made by my parents, and especially my grandparents. I have a lot of opportunities that they didn’t have because of the country they were born in and the circumstances they were born into. So I think being Latinx is a very community-oriented definition for me. And of course, there’s the culture, the food, music, and obviously, the Spanish language as well.

Talking about language, I think we had a similar process of changing our names to make it easier for people to pronounce them, and then we reverted back to our given names. I’d love to hear more about your thoughts and process.

I went through a whole awakening phase in my life. I was born as Jacobo, I was named after my great uncle on my dad’s side. It’s kind of strange, growing up in America as Latinx, to be frank, you sometimes hate your culture because you’re taught to not value it. And you’re taught that it is less than the rest of America, especially the rest of white America.

I didn’t like my name growing up. When I was in elementary school, middle school and high school, so basically kindergarten to 12th grade, I went by Jacob, which was just so much easier. No one would have a problem pronouncing Jacob. And then when I went to college, I started going by Jacobo (without pronouncing the J as H in Spanish) because I was starting to embrace my identity more and embrace my actual name more. I was still going by Jacobo when I initially moved to the Bay Area. So when I first started working at RAPP, I was introducing myself as Jacobo for a bit.

Then I realized that I liked my name with the Spanish pronunciation. I started introducing myself as Jacobo (with the J sounding as H as in Spanish). It was a slow progression of confidence in myself, confidence in my ethnicity, and being proud that I am Latinx. It was where the shift was occurring. I think it’s a very powerful thing to really just own your name, regardless of whether it’s hard for other people to say. I’m not saying that American people need to say it perfectly, I know most can’t because it’s a Spanish name. But I’m also not going to say my name is Jacob just to make it easier for them to pronounce it fluently.

What does a statistician do?

A statistician, which is what I am formally trained as, is someone who’s responsible for interpreting data correctly and logically. It’s basically not making assumptions that aren’t necessarily working to a certain goal, but living the goal, letting the data reveal what is present.

Statistics is a science, I think there’s this common theme where people say that this is a science and an art because it is scientific and mathematical, where you have to understand mathematical proofs, equations, and the different mathematical formulas. Or discovering hypothesis test results, or a z score, or a p value. There’s also the art of learning from the data and the art of thinking logically as humans. What makes sense? We have the statistics theoretically to help us make mathematical decisions. Then the art comes in when we have to think as humans and to think does this make sense? Does this hypothesis make sense?

That’s where statistics comes into play, and especially statistician work, because it grew into fruition when people have hypotheses. You have two hypotheses. You have a null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis, and you want to collect data, and eventually test if the null hypothesis can be rejected or not. Statistics is interesting, because it’s not necessarily the measure of certainty (that’s mathematics) but it’s the measure of uncertainty.

There’s always uncertainty when you’re working with data, especially as a statistician. It’s quantifying that uncertainty that makes statisticians so valuable, especially when it comes to decision making in companies, what they want to do with their fiscal budget, or what their clients want to do.

My role is a bit different at RAPP, I’m a Data Scientist. I work pretty much on projects that my clients want to work on. I’ve done a lot of app building. I build apps for clients. It’s a way that my clients can work with data and large values of money, and then just get results without needing to understand the statistics, because it’s all hidden behind an app. That’s a bit of what I do at RAPP, and then there are other things like exploratory data analysis, which is basically exploring, so it could be a few different things. It could be exploring different data sets and seeing what valuable variables can help us discover what it is that people are really getting targeted by because RAPP is an advertising company.

What does it mean to be a Data Practitioner?

Being a statistician means that by default you have to be a data practitioner. Although there’s the statistics, there’s also the theory and the application side. They’re different sides of the same coin. So theoretically, you have a lot of mathematical proofs and whatnot, and then on the application side, you have to work with data. Being a data practitioner basically means that you understand the data lifecycle, i.e., collecting, storing, exploring, and analyzing the data. All of this has to be done correctly so that whatever results come from this process, decision making is actually influential and well informed.

What’s the difference between a Data Practitioner in Industry and Academia?

I think sometimes the role of data practitioner gets a bit twisted when you work in corporate America compared to how you work in academia. People value statistics very differently in companies compared to in universities. It’s a very interesting divide, I would say. There’s a common theme in academia where people very much value the theory before they start applying the statistics. This is good, this is how it should be done, because that’s what has gotten us to the application of statistics. Basically, data is corrected, curated, and collected properly, ensuring that you meet sample size requirements, get the right distribution of the data, or fit the distribution of data correctly. Then it gets into what type of techniques you are using to explore the data and eventually what assumptions fit.

Assumptions are an area where the corporate world typically differs from academia. When you fit models, like statistical models, pretty much all models have certain assumptions. For example, not to get very theoretical, but like a linear regression model. A common assumption is constant variance and residuals, or making sure that the data between the variables are linearly distributed. The fact that you can fit a line through the data and whatnot. Basically, there are assumptions for different models.

On the academic side of things, people hold these assumptions like the most important thing they have to get right before you apply a model, which in theory is true. The problem with that is the theory behind things is not necessarily always applicable to the real-life data with which you’re working in the corporate world. So when you’re working as a company statistician, what happens is that those assumptions get relaxed, and people start fitting different types of models that don’t necessarily make sense. There has to be a divide between the two to bridge the gap. For example, you may not fit all the assumptions of a certain model when you’re working with real-life data, but you can use that as an indicator to lead you to a different modeling technique where the theoretical assumptions can be met. I think a lot of industry isn’t the best at that, because what happens is that people care less about the theory than about the end results. What happens is that you get results that make you, your employer, and your client happy, but are they real? And are they statistically sound? And are they quantified correctly? That’s why it’s really important to have people who are trained in statistics also value the theory side of it.

Data Scientist is one role that a statistician can fill, and that’s one that has had this huge uptake in the last decade in terms of interest and value. What happens is that people don’t know how to apply the statistics correctly, and then employers don’t necessarily care. And clients don’t really care either because people are focused on the results. That’s a problem when the results are not correct. I think that’s the divide between academia and industry, the different views on the value of statistics and how to apply it.

When does Statistics meet Environmental Studies? How do you apply the knowledge from those two areas in your work and life?

In college, I was initially an Environmental Studies major until my final year where I started studying Statistics. I didn’t realize where statistics met environmental studies until I got deeper into my courses in environmental studies with regards to reading academic papers, starting to do research, starting to do presentations. Then I realized that what was vital to any type of project was making sure that the data made sense, was analyzed correctly, and that the results were mathematically and statistically sound.

That is when I started to see that while I’m exploring environmental studies, I also have to be really good at statistics and working with data. Because that’s how people get their results out into the world, and statistics meeting environmental studies kind of supersedes even just environmental studies. Statistics isn’t everything either, when you’re studying humanities, when you’re doing clinical trials, when you’re doing engineering, when you’re doing physics, like all of this research, what you’re doing is producing data that you’re then going to digest, analyze, curate, and then spit out some results that support your initial hypotheses. So that’s how I started to blend the two.

In terms of when statistics meet environmental studies, I guess they blend together in my life. I am actually starting a collaboration with Nick Shapiro from the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics. One project that he’s really interested in working on is called carceral ecologies, which is basically the study of the American prison system and how having a lot of humans incarcerated (especially at America’s rate in prisons, jails, and detention centers across the country) is producing mass environmental health hazards.

One example, case in point, is the pandemic and Covid-19 in prisons, ICE detention centers, etc. Covid-19 is running rampant in these facilities because inmates and detainees aren’t treated to the same caliber as the American Standard. Covid-19 is just one example. Think about the nutrition they get, the waste systems, the type of water these inmates are drinking. So that’s an interesting project that I’m going to start helping out with, and my role in the lab will be as a statistician to work with the data and see what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense, what hypotheses we can come up with that can possibly give us some insight into what are the ramifications of having a lot of people in a really small space, and what type of environmental hazards result.

Which advice would you give to someone who wants to pursue a career as a Data Practitioner?

I love the theory part, I am a big proponent of the application of data techniques and statistics, and everything is very important. You can do cool stuff, and it’s very valuable, but it is very dependent on your theoretical knowledge of things. I would say learn more math, learn more statistics, and of course, learn more coding, because that is how you’re able to really get tangible results from your work. Then honestly work on projects you find interesting, because when you do so you refine your skills better. There’s a clear divide when people work on projects that they’re passionate about versus projects they’re not passionate about. When you work on projects that you’re passionate about, the result is better because you genuinely care, and you want to do good work.

People should focus first on those things and also get nitty gritty good courses for math. Linear algebra is so important like lower division, upper division. Real analysis is also important, working with matrices, and doing more complex stuff. I think there’s an interesting shift right now, where academically the most popular language is R, but corporately and working like in company settings, the most popular language is Python. Both of them have different good uses.

Python is more of a stronger pipeline when you’re working in tech companies and want to get things in production. But R is very capable of doing the same thing. I’ve done R work, and R is also good for data visualization. Maybe the team you’re working with wants you to work with Python, too. I would say R and Python have some really good data visualization features. There’s also a new language, Julia, that is starting to pick up speed. It’s not actually popular yet, but it seems to be very computationally efficient. I’d suggest that people who want to work with data don’t pigeonhole themselves into one language. There are pros and cons to different languages.

You become more skilled and more desirable if you know multiple languages, and you don’t have to be expert at using them either. I’m not an expert on R, I’m not an expert at Python, but I try. I am always willing to learn and have good resources. Udemy is a website that offers good classes, I took a Python class on Udemy. YouTube is a surprisingly good resource for everything from learning math, statistics, coding. There’s a plethora of resources on YouTube with people just showing coding examples and stuff. There’s also Khan Academy, which I know has courses in math and statistics. I don’t know if they do coding, but I used it when I was in high school. I can’t imagine them not doing coding, because it’s 2020. The world is rapidly changing, and there’s benefits to learn a bit of coding, I think.

How was your experience living and studying in Denmark?

I went to Denmark at a very interesting moment in my life, when I did not know where my life was heading. I wasn’t necessarily happy with what I was studying at the time. This was before I studied statistics, I was only studying environmental studies. So in Denmark, I studied sustainability, paleo climates, basically how climates have changed in the world up until now. I also studied their forestry services, the different types of government bodies that are involved to make sure that the forests in Denmark are properly maintained, and the environmental benefits of that. Academically, I did get a lot out of it, but I think I got the most out of Denmark personally.

It was my first time on a plane. It was my first time living in another country. I didn’t know anyone, I was 20. At this time, it was definitely different to be surrounded in Copenhagen by nothing but Caucasian people. I was used to Los Angeles with a lot of diversity, and even in Santa Barbara, there was some diversity. Denmark, as a country, is very homogenous, they don’t really have a lot of different ethnicities. So it was definitely a culture shock, but I think personally, I got so much out of it, I gained so much confidence, I realized the type of relationships I wanted with my friends and family. I just became, I can’t describe it any other way, I became more powerful. Confidence is a truly powerful thing that I hope everyone gets the chance to experience their transition in life when they become more confident. This was definitely one of the times when I realized I should be proud of my accomplishments and stop comparing myself to other people. I think those were what I got out of living there.

I met really cool people, I met Danish people, I met very nice people that just opened up their home to me. Then I also met other American people that were sitting there at the time that also opened up their lives to me, and I just met a lot of lovely people there that changed me for the better. You can’t ask for anything better, I think in life, besides meeting people that really uplift your life and make you realize how beautiful life can be.

What do you like the most about your job?

Working as a Data Scientist at RAPP, I think what I’ve liked the most is being able to take something complex, or initially daunting or confusing, and turn it into something that’s digestible for someone who doesn’t have the same background that I do. This is not necessarily even specific to that job. It’s something I’m going to be doing for the rest of my career because of my specific skill set. I can take something that stakeholders, clients, my boss don’t understand, and then explain it the best I can in layman terms. The end result is to support decision making, and to make more conscious and flexible decisions. I like that I’m able to explain something to someone who doesn’t necessarily understand mathematical optimization, for example. I think making understandable products is what I really love about what my team does. That’s where we bring a lot of our value, which is cool.

Which advice would you give to your younger self?

I would say, honestly, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to be wrong. Please don’t be afraid to be wrong. Being wrong is not a bad thing, and being brave is not always the best thing either. It’s fine to voice your opinion and to ask a question. Then I’d also say to my younger self to follow my gut. At times I get anxious because I don’t know the future, and I want to know the future. We don’t have that ability as human beings. Your mind can tell you one thing, your heart can tell you one thing, and then at the end of the day, you have your gut telling you this other thing, and my gut has yet to steer me wrong. I think that’s another good thing I would tell my younger self.

It’s interesting to think about how you were initially feeling insecure. Anyone’s younger self, but especially someone Latinx, could really benefit from being proud of the skin you’re in, the community you have, and what you were born into, and your ethnicity. The culture that comes with that, I think that is another thing that I would have loved to have been able to tell my younger self. I struggled and didn’t really become proud of myself until I was 20. So that was another call back to the Denmark question, another revolutionary moment in my life.

Tell me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear these phrases:

Your superpower

The fire in my heart.

The humankind

I would say hope. I have hope.

Favorite artist

FKA twigs, a cool, experimental artist from the United Kingdom.

Queer Latinx community

Family? Safe haven? Just a safe haven to be honest, especially with individuals in our age group that are more modern. It’s interesting because in America a lot of these queer Latinx spaces are very busy — popular community gatherings, local clinics, local book readings, and even queer bookstores throughout America. A lot of younger people, myself included, didn’t really first enter these spaces until we started going out into the nightlife, because there’s different sides of this, and you don’t really get to do that in America until you’re 21, legally. It really takes a while for you to get into these spaces, at least in the U.S., and to realize how fucking cool they are. To meet people that grew up the same way you grew up with conservative or religious parents, and then to just say, I’m just going to live my life honestly and earnestly, and that’s what I’m going to do. To be honest, that’s something that I have found since I’ve lived in San Francisco. I started finding my queer Latinx community in college in Santa Barbara, but I have found it so much more in San Francisco, and even in social media, like Twitter and Instagram, where you meet really cool people. That has just been such a safe haven for me, because I realized other people have had experiences similar to mine. We can talk about it, we can vent about it and realize that it’s not on us. It’s not because we’re doing anything wrong. You have to see the big picture and realize the scope and understand that your parents grew up in different countries and different cultures. We need to let go of the anger that we sometimes have built up inside, because we grew resentful of society, of family, and whatnot. So I think it could have been very liberating.

What’s helping you to cope during this pandemic situation? Is there anything you want to share that is helping you?

First, I’ve never Facetimed this many people so it’s been great. I am naturally an introvert, I learned that this year. It’s very important for me to maintain connections, but not to feel overwhelmed by them. I can get very comfortable in quarantine because I’m very comfortable being by myself. I’ve had to make a conscious effort to Facetime people and check in with people. That’s been really helpful because it reminds me of the network that I have. I can also meet people through social media. I’ve had Facetimes with people I’ve never even talked to in person before quarantine, and it’s been great. I’m also reading and making music. I’ve started to learn how to DJ, which is cool. I’m doing math, I like to do math for fun, because I’m fucking weird. I’m always trying to learn more. So right now, I’m learning more linear algebra.

I am going to miss San Francisco. San Francisco has such good, green space, I’ve never lived in a city with so many parks, with so much nature, and that has really helped me so much. I live close to Golden Gate Park, so I go there all the time to lie under a tree or maybe have a social distanced hang out. I think creating space has been really the propellant for what’s held me together during these very difficult times, the world has never been this introspective. We are stuck in our homes, we have to think about what we think of ourselves.

There’s this thing going on right now in America, or parts of America, where people are questioning their gender identity. There’s this really cool thing going on that just goes to show that gender is socially constructed. There are a lot of people in America realizing they don’t really need to act a certain way, but they have been acting that way because of how society expects a man or women to act, and perhaps because of the people they hang out with. It’s been really cool that people have been coming out and realizing that they are trans or queer, or just that they don’t like putting up a facade and would rather express themselves more authentically. Although it is difficult to go through that, it has also been a very good coping mechanism during the pandemic, because I think anytime someone can live their life more honestly, more truthfully, it becomes better. Living life becomes better, happier, more full of life, and you celebrate life more. Those are things that have been keeping me going.