About the Authors

Benjamin Bengfort is a data scientist who lives inside the Beltway but ignores politics (the normal business of DC) favoring technology instead. He is currently working to finish his PhD at the University of Maryland where he studies machine learning and distributed computing. His lab does have robots (though this field of study is not one he favors) and, much to his chagrin, they seem to constantly arm said robots with knives and tools; presumably to pursue culinary accolades. Having seen a robot attempt to slice a tomato, Benjamin prefers his own adventures in the kitchen where he specializes in fusion French and Guyanese cuisine as well as BBQ of all types. A professional programmer by trade, a Data Scientist by vocation, Benjamin’s writing pursues a diverse range of subjects from Natural Language Processing, to Data Science with Python to analytics with Hadoop and Spark.

Dr. Rebecca Bilbro is a data scientist, Python programmer, teacher, speaker, and author in Washington, DC. She specializes in visual diagnostics for machine learning, from feature analysis to model selection and hyperparameter tuning, and has conducted research on natural language processing, semantic network extraction, entity resolution, and high dimensional information. An active contributor to the open source software community, Rebecca enjoys collaborating with other developers on inclusive, high-impact projects like Yellowbrick—a pure Python package that aims to take predictive modeling out of the black box. In her spare time, she can often be found either out-of-doors riding bicycles with her family or inside practicing the ukulele. Rebecca earned her doctorate from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where her research centered on communication and visualization practices in engineering.

Tony Ojeda is a data scientist, author, and entrepreneur with expertise in business process optimization and over a decade of experience creating and implementing innovative data products and solutions. He is the founder of District Data Labs, a data science consulting and corporate training firm, research lab, and open source collaborative where people from diverse backgrounds come together to work on interesting projects, push themselves beyond their current capabilities, and help each other become more successful data scientists. He also cofounded Data Community DC, a professional organization that supports and promotes data scientists and the work they do. In his spare time, he enjoys swimming, running, practicing martial arts, as well as discovering delicious restaurants to patronize and fascinating TV shows to watch. Tony has a Masters in Finance from Florida International University and an MBA with concentrations in Strategy and Entrepreneurship from DePaul University in Chicago.