Staffing and Contact Information

Joel Herndon

Phone: (919) 660-5946
Location: 226 Bostock
Email: joel.herndon@duke.edu
Web: https://joelherndon.info
Twitter: duke_data

I am the Director of the Center for Data and Visualization Sciences and act as a liaison with other data groups at Duke and beyond. Additionally, I serve on the management team of Duke Libraries' digital scholarship space: The Edge: The Ruppert Commons for Research, Technology, and Collaboration. My recent research focuses on how universities and research libraries are responding to a growing demand for data science services and training.

Mark Thomas

Phone: (919) 660-5853
Location: 226 Bostock
Email: mark.thomas@duke.edu

Expertise: Software (ArcGIS, QGIS, Excel, online mapping tools), economic literature, data sources (all formats), maps

I have been working in the Center for Data and Visualization Sciences since its inception in 2007 and currently serve as the subject librarian for economics and business, geographic information systems (GIS), geography, maps and U.S. federal government documents. I began working at Perkins Library in 1996, and from 1990-1996, I worked as a librarian specializing in government documents and maps at Texas A&M University. I earned a Master of Library and Information Science at the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in Economics from Rice University.

Drew Keener

Phone: (919) 613-6256
Location: 226 Bostock
Email: drew.keener@duke.edu

Expertise: Web mapping applications, spatial data analysis, map design, GIS software (ArcGIS Pro and QGIS), Tableau, R. 

John Little

Phone: (919) 627-7795
Location: Zoom Meetings
Email: john.little@duke.edu 
Web: http://johnlittle.info 

Expertise: data science, R, RStudio, Tidyverse, data engineering, data cleaning, data wrangling, data normalization (i.e. data janitor); regular expressions, web scraping

My current interests are using R, RStudio and the Tidyverse in a practical data science context.  Additionally I help people manage data projects from gathering to cleaning, analysis to visualization; helping library users implement new data tools; assist the data-curious explore practical data science solutions. I have a B.A in Sociology with concentrations in Computer Science and Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Eric Monson

Phone: (919) 613-1833
Location: 226 Bostock
Email: eric.monson@duke.edu
Zoom: https://duke.zoom.us/my/emonson (by appointment only)

Expertise: Software (Tableau, Python, Adobe Illustrator, Gephi, Git, Matlab, ParaView), broad range of scientific and humanities data and visualization, NoSQL databases, regular expressions, text analysis.

As the Data Visualization Analyst, I help students, faculty and staff with data visualization, organization, and processing for their research. My background is in the experimental sciences, where a PhD in Applied Physics led me to work on fluorescence microscopy, chemical nanosensors, and neuron-glial brain cell signaling. From 2007 until I joined CDVS in 2015, I worked as a Research Scientist here at Duke, collaborating with faculty and graduate students from Math to Computational Biology to Art History, helping them visualize and understand their data. In my current position, I enjoy introducing people to important skills they need but were never trained in, whether that means teaching visual design and communication to Scientists, or helping Humanists incorporate technology into their scholarship.

Jen Darragh

Phone: (919) 681-1805
Location: 226 Bostock
Email: jennifer.darragh@duke.edu

Expertise: Software (REDCap, Sharepoint, Open Science Framework (OSF), Piktochart), data management workflows, behavioral, social science and health data resources, restricted-use data acquisition, sensitive data management and data security.

I began working in the Center for Data and Visualization Sciences in 2017. My goal is to provide guidance and assistance to Duke researchers from all disciplines in managing their research data. Research data can be anything from spreadsheets, digital surrogates of primary resources, AV files, to complex 3D images.  I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA and a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh.

Sophia Lafferty-Hess

Phone: (919) 660-5782
Location: 226 Bostock
Email: sophia.lafferty.hess@duke.edu

Expertise: Software (Open Science Framework (OSF), Dataverse), data management, data sharing, data curation, digital preservation

I began working in the Center for Data and Visualization Sciences in 2017. I specialize in data management best practices including organizing data, documenting data, citing data, and archiving and sharing data. I have a background working in a social science data archive where I curated data for long-term preservation and reuse. I earned a BA in History and Classical Studies from the University of Arkansas and earned a Master of Science of Information Science and Master of Public Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.