My name is Luther Flagstad. I currently work as an Evaluation Data Analyst for a social services agency in Brooklyn, NY. I work with a team to get data, clean it, visualize it, and present it to decisionmakers. We use Tableau. For me, it’s been the gateway drug to the entire data science stack and I’m totally addicted. It’s something new for me. I don’t have a computer science background. I’ve taught English, worked in administration, delivered trainings, attended grad school for development work, interned in policy and government, and somehow landed where I’m at.
Why the name, “vizstas?” Well, for one I was trying to be clever with the word “viz” in some fashion. It seemed like all the other cool data bloggers were doing it. But of course vizstas looks like the Spanish word “vistas” (with the cheeky z thrown in). Vista means view, which is a synonym for a data visualization. It also means perspective. I really liked this since one of the purposes of the blog was to explore the different ways we see data–both the perspectives that data can display and the perspectives each of us brings to a topic, idea, or story. All that and my wife, Liliana, is Peruvian, so it was a fun way to bring her into my blog as well. I always appreciate her commentary, our discussions, and her support.
I included a bit more about this blog specifically in my first post. I think that should be easy enough to dig up. I’ll leave you with this photo of me in the subway, posing, and a bit blurry.
Vizstas 