RSAA Colloquia / Seminars / Feast-of-Facts: Friday, 23 October 2015, 14:00-14:20; Duffield Lecture Theatre


Sean Farrell

"Life After Astronomy: Data Science as an Alternative Career"

In October last year I made the tough decision to leave astronomy, after 11 years and 4 postdocs in three different countries. I made the move into the relatively new field of data science, originally working for the Department of Defence before moving to my current position at Teradata. In this talk I will describe my journey from academia to industry, outline what a day in my life as a data scientist is like, and discuss the outlook for data science over the next few years. I will also suggest how someone from an astronomy background can best prepare themselves for a similar transition into data science.