Sophie Geoghan’s exceptional passion and unique experiences have allowed her to have a strong impact on the QMSS Instructional Team. Joining the department as a Graduate Student Instructor for the QMSS 301 course this semester, we are so excited to welcome Sophie as the newest edition to our team of accomplished faculty and staff!
Sophie’s extensive experience and background displays the truly interdisciplinary possibilities that are available through learning modern statistical and data analysis techniques to apply to a broad range of disciplines. She graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science & Brain and Cognitive Sciences in 2016 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following this, she worked in various neuroscience labs over the course of a year, including an auditory systems lab, a psychophysics lab in Switzerland, and a social and affective neuroscience lab in Paris. She expressed gratitude to have had these international experiences prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After this year of research, Sophie was looking to expand her data science toolkit. She opted to participate in a 3-month data science & machine learning bootcamp, where she learned to effectively use and fully utilize of modern software tools such as Python, R, and SQL, receiving her certification in 2018. This prepared her to apply these new skills and her passion for innovative healthcare solutions to the health-tech world, where she would work at two different startups: Health Recovery Solutions and Current Health. She spent about two years at each company as a Data Scientist.
She is now at the University of Michigan now pursuing a joint master’s degree in Business Administration and Sustainable Systems, an offering from the Erb Institute which is a collaboration between the Ross School of Business and the School for Environment and Sustainability. She was called to this program because of her interest in sustainability and her desire to acquire management and financial skills. While she still feels her expertise will remain in data analytics, she is looking to cross industry boundaries and make a tangible impact in the energy sector through innovative tech solutions.
Sophie chose to join the QMSS program here at U-M because she is interested in increasing access and availability of the curricula in coursework because she believes coding skills and statistics are a very important part of a social science education. She brings with her not only a passion for equitable access to technological education, but also vast experience, as displayed by her applications of QMSS concepts and statistical techniques in social science settings. She, alongside the other QMSS 301 GSIs, have done a great job this semester, especially amid a short-term instructional absence. Her commitment to expanding opportunities and the skills of her students is evident, and QMSS is lucky to have her!
