goodthingswithdata.com

Exemplar presentations

Published on this site

2026-10-22

Have you ever traced the arc of your personal growth? It’s humbling and gratifying.

As I have been preparing to launch my website, I’ve been sorting out my own intellectual history since I started at CDC. I am populating this site with a mix of anecdotes about co-authored publications, long-form essays, LinkedIn posts (400 words at a time), and presentations. I’ve culled 10 presentations from 2002 to 2022 to capture a variety of topics and the vicissitudes of audience perceptions.

I have scheduled posts to promote these 10 presentations from 2026-10-26 through 12-14, 1-3 presentations at a time.

To render these presentations as web pages, I applied a repeatable sequence of steps to each PowerPoint file: extract native text and presenter notes; use computer vision to extract text from raster images; redact plain text and image elements as needed for disclosure control; and style and render the resulting content for a web page. I used Anthropic Claude, especially for computer vision, harnessed to assure fidelity and my voice.

I thought about calling this series “10 presentations I hate about you”, but I don’t hate you. And what does a 1999 adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew have to do with anything?

This collection of exemplars showcases my worldview more than it conveys results of any analysis. I could have included more examples from cohort studies or clinical trials or philosophy. Instead I chose to realize the claim that good things are for everyone. Accessible visuals, understandable prose, methods tailored to a question rather than constraining a question to the methods. When I talk about everyone who wants to do good things with data, I mean all of ’em.

Post 1 of 7
2026-10-26Elsewhere on the web (opens in a new tab)
An introductory post
Post 2 of 7
Planned for 2026-11-02
A 2002 seminar on statistical decisions. The evaluations of that seminar were interesting in unfortunate ways. My supervillain origin story.
Post 3 of 7
Planned for 2026-11-09
A 2011 exhortation pitch about science and values to college freshmen. My redemption arc.
  • Find TB to stop TB: how science has improved global guidelines for curtailing the TB/HIV syndemic (Citizen Science, Bard College, 2011-01-13)On this site (opens in a new tab)
Post 4 of 7
Planned for 2026-11-16
Expressions of data leadership and vision in 2013 and 2014.
  • Data whispering: gently taming complex laboratory data for tuberculosis research (Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, CDC, 2013-03-14)On this site (opens in a new tab)
  • A scrappy little division that cares a lot about data: a vision for data sciences in DTBE (Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, CDC, 2014-03-06)On this site (opens in a new tab)
Post 5 of 7
Planned for 2026-11-30
Rhetorical spins in 2015, 2019, and 2022 on small data and efficiently dense graphics, likened to writing prose.
Post 6 of 7
Planned for 2026-12-07
A 2018 survey of 7 kinds of machine learning in dozens of CDC- or ATSDR-affiliated papers.
Post 7 of 7
Planned for 2026-12-14
An expanded vision of a progressive culture for data in public health, in 2016 debuting as Associate Director for Data Science and in 2022 tailored for early-career professionals.