Jorge’s Introduction
Hello! My name is Jorge Yass, and you can call me Jorge. I am from Guatemala and was born in a beautiful small city called Antigua Guatemala:
Before coming to the US, I worked for 9 years as a software engineer at a financial institution, where I worked mainly with relational databases and C#. My background is in Information Systems and Cybersecurity.
Academic year and degree
I am about to start my fourth year in a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and a co-major in Computer Engineering. My current research is about exploring students’ mental models of the Internet to identify misconceptions, to inform the design/implementation of video games to teach cybersecurity concepts.
I chose my major because of the experiences I had as a software engineer. I realize that even when we met the functional requirements a client required, sometimes the client was unhappy or demotivated to use the software we built, and that is because our team focused on the technical specifications and not the most critical element of a system: the person.
My future plans
I plan to return to my country and start a company focused on UX research! I also want to join the Academy.
Why I care about data science
Data Science is important because it supports the decision-making process. During my previous job, I noticed the importance of data and how it can be used to predict or classify things.
Previous experience in Data Science
- In my previous job, I created a flow to extract information from SonnarQube, a static code vulnerability analysis tool. I took the analysis into a database and made a dashboard in PowerBI that my boss used to see our team’s top 10 vulnerabilities when coding. That helped us to look for specific training.
- I also worked on a project where I used a web-scrapping tool and created a linear model to predict the value of some assets based on the information collected from the web.
Fun facts
I have two dogs, Franky and Bruno.
This is Bruno coding in R Studio:
I also spend a lot of time playing chess (if you play chess, find me on Chess.com as JYassGt), playing video games, and reading.
My skills
I can quickly learn new technical stuff, integrate data from many sources, and clean it.
The skills I want to learn
- Going deep into my Python skills.
- Learn about using geographic visualization tools.
- Learn to use ArcGIS
Mastering Python skills is important for this project and my research, where I experiment with LLMs’ APIs. I also recognize maps’ value in presenting information and want to add to my tools arsenal.
I hope to achieve my skill goals by a hands-on approach trough these 9 weeks.