Welcome to class!

getting started
Posted

Tuesday August 20, 2024 at 2:13 PM

Hello everyone!

I’m Andrew Heiss, your professor for PMAP 8551/4551 (Data visualization with R) this fall, and I’m so excited for the class! Out of all the different classes I teach, this is probably my favorite. It’s so satisfying to run a few lines of code and see beautiful data-based graphics.

I have a few important announcements before class:

Quick background about me: I’m an assistant professor here at the Andrew Young School, where I’ve been teaching MPA/MPP microeconomics, program evaluation, and data visualization. I moved here from Utah in Fall 2019, where I was a visiting professor of public management at the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University (BYU). While at BYU, I taught microeconomics, statistics, and data visualization (basically the same stuff I’m teaching now). I finished my PhD in public policy and political science from Duke in 2017, and before then I finished my MPA in nonprofit management from BYU in 2012. When I’m not teaching, I research international nonprofits and human rights.

I’m also a graphic designer (mostly print; sometimes web). I minored in design as an undergrad and worked remotely for an academic press at BYU throughout my PhD (yay side hustles), where I typeset a couple dozen academic books and dozens of articles. I still do design work now (though not as much) and am the main typesetter for a small nonprofit press named BCC Press. The fun thing about my design background is that it spills over into my research, statistical work, and teaching—it’s in part why I created this class!

When I’m not teaching or researching, I’m normally chilling at home with my 6 kids (see https://www.heissatopia.com for photos and hilarious stories).

Again, I’m really excited to get started next week. This summer should be a blast!