Hello, I'm Sarah Van Oss
I am an archaeologist by training, with over a decade of field experience studying the ancient Maya and graduate studies at Tulane University. But my professional journey has been anything but typical. After a serious and unexpected health challenge in 2019 I transitioned my doctoral research away from field work and towards big-picture analysis of the ancient city of El Peru-Waka', using data from the site's entire history. Moving from a narrow, individual dig to a comprehensive dataset meant I could answer new questions about the city and provide critical new insights to our understanding of the people who lived there. And this shift not only changed my dissertation, but my career: I'm currently an Assistant Director of Assessment in Research and Analytics for Penn State.
I love being a researcher. More importantly, I love asking big-picture questions, using quantitative and qualitative analysis to deliver comprehensive, strategic insights. I am always excited to dive into a new project, to find meaningful answers to urgent needs, and to communicate those findings to teams and audiences who will use them to further a shared mission. In the past five years, this work has honed my technical skills in:
- using R to create programs to collect quantitative data from archival reports/texts
- using R for data collection and analysis
- using SQL to create meaningful data tables
- and using Power BI to communicate research findings for quantitative and qualitative data.
- I also have experience in employing ArcGIS to examine spatial relationships and statistics.
In the next ten years of my career, I want to continue to be part of research teams and initiatives that answer questions about people - in the past, present, and future.
Skills highlighted in this portfolio: R, SQL, Data Cleaning/Management, ArcGIS
Recent Work
Pulling It TogetheR: Collecting and Collating Quantitative Data from Written Reports for Analysis using R and ChatGPT
Engineering a Database from Textual Data using R
Evaluating Product Distribution using PowerBI
Data Cleaning using Excel
Spatial Statistics of Neighborhood Structures using ArcGIS
Evaluating Student Mental Health Using SQL
