I’m a Ph.D. student in history at Northwestern University, where I’m also part of the graduate science studies cluster. My core research is in the history of vital statistics production, and I’m interested in themes of data labor and automation.
Prior to graduate school, I spent many years in newsroom engineering and data journalism. I worked as a web developer at Vermont Public Radio, a software engineer in the New York Times newsroom, then as an investigative data reporter with Spotlight PA. In 2020, I decided to leave traditional journalism to join data quality efforts at The COVID Tracking Project.
I have a B.A. in English from Wellesley College (2013), a certificate in full-stack software development from the Turing School of Software and Design (2015), and an M.S. in Technology & Humanities from the Illinois Institute of Technology (2024).
I live in Chicago with my husband, Mike Tigas, and our tuxedo cat, Clooney. My pronouns are she/her.