Data Visualization: The New Frontier with Asya Spears

Get connected to Asya Spears, M.S. in Biostatistics, Founder, Rose Data Studio.

In 2018, she took a 3-year leave of absence from my Ph.D. program in Policy Analysis!  This was a huge step. 

She majored in math at an HBCU, earned a prestigious fellowship, completed several internships, and been on a straight and focused path from kindergarten to Ph.D., but the experience was no longer working for her. People questioned my decision to pivot when the prevailing narrative of making it through the STEM pipeline was to “stay the course”.

 

However, she switched from a CV to a resume, upskilled, and landed a role as a population health analyst at a health insurance company, and that’s when things finally started to make sense. She was able to lean into my passion for bridging people and technology, my skills for communicating data in engaging ways, and my passion for advancing health equity.

 

After many years of considering  data visualization, mentoring, and presenting skills a complement to my statistical analysis skills, she took every training and opportunity she could to put them in the spotlight.

As a result, she moved population health initiatives forward, created practicum and hackathon programs for students, and realized that we don’t all have to be data scientists - she could create her own definition of what it meant to be “in data!”

She founded Rose Data Studio to help others embrace their unique blend of skills and interests, and apply them to make an impact in this world of data-informed advancement.