Kirstie Whitaker
Executive Director at Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS)
Berkeley, California, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolKirstie Whitaker is an executive leader in data science with 13 years of experience bridging academic research and practice, now serving as Executive Director of the Berkeley Institute for Data Science after leading tools, practices, and systems programmes at The Alan Turing Institute. Trained as a neuroscientist with a PhD from UC Berkeley, she brings deep domain expertise in reproducible research, scientific software, and large-team collaboration across neuroimaging and data-science communities. A hands-on contributor to open-source projects—such as visualization-focused RainCloudPlots and the influential reproducibility guide The Turing Way—she blends front-end and DevOps skills with an eye for clean, statistically valid visualization. Known for championing diversity and reproducibility, she pairs strategic programme leadership with practical engineering contributions that make research more transparent and trustworthy.
13 years of coding experience
3 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Neuroscience, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Neuroscience at University of California, BerkeleyMaster of Science (MSc), Medical Physics, Master of Science (MSc), Medical Physics at The University of British ColumbiaBachelor of Science (BSc), Physics, Bachelor of Science (BSc), Physics at University of Bristol
English
Stackoverflow
608reputation
71kreached
5answers
1question
Github Skills (22)
data-visualizations10
python10
r10
matlab10
data-visualisation10
data-visualization10
merge-conflicts10
javascript9
seaborn9
ggplot9
pandas8
front-end-development8
configuration-management7
script6
machine-learning6
Programming languages (17)
Github contributions (5)
RainCloudPlots/RainCloudPlots
Aug 2018 - Jan 2021
Code and tutorials to visualise your data that is both beautiful *and* statistically valid
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:2 releases, 63 commits, 9 PRs in 2 years 5 months
Contributions summary:Kirstie uploaded Python and R tutorials, demonstrating a focus on data visualization techniques. The commits include implementation of new plotting functionality within the project's code. The R tutorial introduces a function to generate raincloud plots and simulates example data for these plots. The user also provided a MATLAB tutorial, further broadening the scope of the project by including code for additional languages.
data-analysispythonrdata-scienceknitr
the-turing-way/the-turing-way
Nov 2018 - Jun 2021
Host repository for The Turing Way: a how to guide for reproducible data science
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:5 releases, 65 reviews, 586 commits in 2 years 7 months
Contributions summary:Kirstie's contributions primarily involve merging branches and integrating changes from the master branch into various feature branches. These merges include updates to both JavaScript files (indicating front-end development) and configuration files (such as `setup.sh`), suggesting involvement in both front-end and potentially back-end or DevOps-related tasks. The user also made modifications to the book's content by fixing merge conflicts and adjusting code related to checking for bad latin and "lorem ipsum" instances.
how-to-guidesciencehut23-270hostdata-science
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