Adam Ross Nelson

Adam is the director of WISCURDS, a program that provides UW-Madison undergraduate students with a pathway to research in data science, and he teaches in UW–Madison’s Data Science in Human Behavior master’s degree program. Adam began his work as a data scientist studying how U.S. high school students transition out of high school into college, career, or other vocations. A key goal of Adam’s early work in data science was to find factors that would predict the reasons a student might start, but not finish, the college application process. He holds a PhD from The University of Wisconsin – Madison in Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis. Adam is formerly an attorney with a history of working in higher education, teaching all ages, and working as an educational administrator. To learn more about data science, he recommends his book Confident Data Science: Discover the Essential Skills of Data Science (Kogan Page, 2023). And to learn more about making a professional transition into data science, find his book How to Become a Data Scientist: A Guide for Established Professionals (Up Level Data, 2024). Learn Data Science Fast + Fun: A Flashcard Series For Serious Data Scientists (No Starch Press) is forthcoming.