Lizzy Wilkins joins NHI as a Data Scientist. As a Data Scientist Lizzy’s focus is on extracting meaning from data and making sense of it to provide NHI’s team with deeper insights and allow clients to easily grasp what their digital media activities are doing.
More about Lizzy:
What is your educational background?
My background emphasizes both formal research and media studies. I graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. in Cognitive & Linguistic Science and Italian Studies. My coursework emphasized psychology, specifically the intricacies of cooperation and competition.
I supplemented my coursework in Cognitive Science with a research opportunity at the MIT Media Lab in the Cognitive Machines Group and studied in the MIT Comparative Media Studies program. My goal was to uncover how people learn and process information alongside how cultures and societies use media and technology.
What led you to Search Marketing?
Search marketing is a continually evolving stream of data about people. Searching online is becoming a basic human behavior. No matter where you are and what you’re doing, you can find information that will help optimize your experience at that instant. This data, when understood in the context of the medium with which you searched, provides an incredible amount of insight into a moment in a life, and we’re lucky as marketers to be privy to it. We have a duty to understand it, because then we understand our people.
What are some of your hobbies/ What do you do in your free time?
I chase the wind! I’m in love with the sport of kiteboarding.
When it’s not windy, a bunch of other hobbies keep me entertained. I’m a regular gym rat who is often found in yoga classes. While I appreciate a well-executed downward dog, I favor the real thing! I grew up in a dog family and breed, raise, and show Bernese Mountain Dogs. Despite having multiple large dogs in the house, the fifteen year-old, twenty-pound Border Terrier rules the roost.
What’s your favorite part about NHI thus far?
There is so much data with an untold amount of power! There is also a brilliant coffee machine and neat people who teach you how to use it. The bike parking is sweet too.
What’s your favorite aspect of living in MN? And your least?
I love the State Fair and its all-you-can-drink milk stand, though I’ve been known to skip out on the fair for kiteboarding if the weekend happened to be windy. In turn, this happens to be my least favorite part about Minnesota: its unpredictable wind patterns!
Favorite local restaurant?
Bar La Grassa, for its rabbit orecchiete.
Bachelor Farmer, for its tasty Old Fashioned cocktails.
Do you have a favorite band?
I have a top 10 favorite albums list, like John Cusack in High Fidelity, but I can’t pick just one favorite!
1) Abbey Road, the Beatles
2) Siamese Dream, the Smashing Pumpkins
3) Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence, Glassjaw
4) Charlie Parker with Strings, Charlie Parker
5) Highly Refined Pirates, Minus the Bear
6) For Emma, Forever Ago, Bon Iver
7) Domestica, Cursive
8) Separation Sunday, the Hold Steady
9) Blue Screen Life, Pinback
10) Third Eye Blind, Third Eye Blind (obligatory mid-nineties pop throwback)
What special qualities are you bringing to NHI?
Fearlessness!
Welcome to the team Lizzy!
