About

Basic Info

My name is Catherine Williams, but I prefer to go by Cat.

I was born and raised in Albuquerque, NM and after moving around for work for a while, I settled in Seattle, WA in July 2016.

Education

I have a BA in Criminology and an MBA, with concentrations in Management Information Systems and Information Assurance, both from the University of New Mexico.

In June 2019, I completed a certificate program with University of Washington for Data Analytics: Techniques for Decision Making. The courses I took were Data Analysis Essentials, Data Visualization Essentials, and Data Mining & Predictive Analytics Essentials.

Experience

I am currently a data analyst at a small non-profit legal-aid organization. Much of my work consists of analyzing community trends and factors and relating it back to client data and cases in order to better align priorities and more effectively help people. I use R-Studio and dashboarding tools within the organization's case management software (LegalServer) to clean, maintain, and relay information.

Prior to this, I worked for GE Digital where I was hired as a part of their Information Leadership Technology Program (ITLP) (now rebranded as DTLP). This is a rotational program that places you in various different technical job roles in order to expand business and technical acumen. As a part of this program, I got my first professional taste of data analysis using SiSense. I instantly fell in love with the field and since then, have pursued a career in data.

Staying Involved

While I was in grad school, I co-founded an organization called Network Exploitation Security Team (NEST) where I was President for 2 years. My involvement with NEST included organizing and conducting meetings, creating technical tutorials, organizing and obtaining funding for competitions and conferences, as well as networking and hosting guest speakers.

Currently, I am involved in several data meetups, such as Seattle Women in Data Science and R-Ladies Seattle. In addition, I participate in Kaggle competitions, SWD challenges, and Tidy Tuesday exercises.

Hobbies & Interests

I have a huge passion for learning more about data science techniques and best practices. I love to analyze trends using data and to apply that knowledge for making better decisions.

I really enjoy rock climbing, hiking, and camping. I like the problem solving that comes along with rock climbing and staying healthy in general.

In addition, I have a passion for reading and listening to audio books.