Hi, I’m Erwin

Language got me into academia. I have a PhD in linguistics from UW–Madison — my dissertation was about idiomatic phrases, which is a technical way of saying I spent years trying to understand why kick the bucket makes perfect sense to everyone even though it shouldn’t. That question hasn’t entirely left me.

These days I work as a Research Data Science Consultant at UW–Madison and help run BRUG, a community of R users in the research computing space. The work is about three things I can’t seem to separate: getting data science tools into more researchers’ hands, helping them produce work that holds up to scrutiny, and clearing away the small frictions that eat time without adding anything. I’m a humanist, and I think those are ethical goals as much as technical ones.

Day Job

Research Data Science Consultant at UW-Madison. I work with researchers on the tools and strategies that make their work more reproducible, shareable, and visible.

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las rubieras pottery

las rubieras pottery is functional stoneware made to be held. The name comes from a lush corner of a Venezuelan farm — green against the dry season sun, almost like a mirage.

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Capital Aikikai of Wisconsin

CAoW is a dojo dedicated to the practice and promotion of the Japanese Martial Art of Aikido.

Visit the dojo →

BRUG

The Badger R User Group — a community of practice for researchers who code in R at UW-Madison.

Visit BRUG →