Intro to Crosstown Team
Objectives:
We are Crosstown Team from the University of Southern California. We are looking for interesting stories from publicly available data of Los Angeles. A lot of information is yet to be discovered from the data because drawing insights from them is not a trivial task. It involves preprocessing the data and performing mathematical analyses which can be tedious and challenging. Choosing which stories to tell is difficult because there are infinite of ways to interpret the data. Our team of journalists and engineers will be tackling these problems and presenting meaningful stories to the public.
Team Photo
Biographies:
Wei-Chung Wang
I am a graduate Data Informatics student. I have skills in database management and web back-end technology. I could help the team build up the core of data service and the web server platform. My experience of working on a scrum team in the industry is useful for building an efficient and fast deliver software engineer team. My experience as a research assistant equips myself with strong data analysis skills and machine learning knowledge.
Nicole Menges
I am a senior communications major, and have had some experience surrounding current technologies such as IoT, Smart Cities, and Big Data. I’ve also had experience writing feature style articles as well as editing a multitude of article styles. This combined knowledge and experience will help me understand what is going on in the programming side of the project, and how the group can apply that to a compelling news piece.
Alex Kuo
I am a third year studying computer science and business. My industry experience comprises of reverse engineering malware, prototyping app features, using machine learning tools, and writing technical papers. As a course producer for two computer science courses, I took complex concepts and explained them in layman’s terms to younger students. These skills will allow me to understand the technical aspects of the project and communicate them clearly to those who do not have a technical background.
Hannah Zhang
I’m a senior majoring in Linguistics and minoring in Media Economy and Entrepreneurship (M2E). I’m also starting my Communication Management graduate program at Annenberg this semester. My studies in Linguistics has trained my analytical and research skills. Therefore, I am confident that I will be a fast learner when it comes to data analysis. Through the M2E program, I have also learned how media and business intersect. My entrepreneurship background has made me a problem solver and a team player. I’m excited to join the Crosstown team and explore the possibilities of interpreting data in a easily comprehensible way, and using data to tell intriguing and relevant stories about the world we live in.
Fan Yang
My name is Fan Yang. I am a sophomore studying in communication major and music minor. My hometown is Beijing, China. As a communication student, my specialty is data analysis, as well as digital media and reporting. I am highly interested in advertising and public relations. As a comm student of this group, I will narrow down and analyze the information that CS students have found for the project. I am good at telling an attractive story merged with data. Although I know nothing about coding, I am able to assist the CS students to filter data, and to transfer these data into thought-provoking stories that people want to learn about.
Cheuk Yin Lam (Matthew)
I am studying for the master of computer science and I am excited in leveraging the data in Los Angeles to find insights that are interesting and informative to the public. I have more experience in back-end software development and I am confident in building the infrastructure that connects the dots between mathematical analyses of the city data and visual representations of insights drawn from the data.
Wanjin Li
I am a second year master in data informatics, focusing on data analysis, management and development of applications. I have learned machine learning and data mining knowledge and skills, and have experience in applying big data in the industry. Besides, I also have some digital design skills, hope that can be helpful for data visual representation. I look forward to discovering new things about LA data and creating something incredible together with the crosstown team.
Xijia Chen
I am now a master student in USC majoring in Computer Science. I have done some work on big data mining and machine learning, so I am familiar with some data-related tools or techniques in these fields, such as Spark, Hadoop, SQL. Also, I have done some data processing work before like data cleaning, information extraction in NLP. I also have interest in deep learning such as NN, RNN, CNN on TensorFlow. Hope I can help you guys in the project.