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Joshua Satya Cetron, Ph.D. | Resume

jcetron [@] iq.harvard.edu | 1737 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA 02138

Data scientist, applied statistician, research methodologist, cognitive neuroscientist

Education

Ph.D., Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, May 2023

  • Advisors: Mina Cikara, Ph.D. (primary advisor), Joshua Greene, Ph.D.
  • Presidential Scholar, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
  • National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow
  • M.A. in Psychology also conferred in March 2021

B.A., Neuroscience, Summa Cum Laude, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, June 2016

  • GPA: 3.92, Phi Beta Kappa, Rufus Choate Scholar (top 5% of class, 2 years)
  • High Honors Award, Neuroscience Honors Thesis (advisor: David Kraemer, Ph.D.)
  • James O. Freeman Presidential Scholar and Kaminsky Family Fund Award Grantee

Professional Experience

Data Science Specialist, Harvard University Institute for Quantitative Social Science Cambridge, MA, June 2023 - Present

  • Consultant and expert collaborator advising on the development and implementation of methods and statistical analyses for cutting-edge scientific research at Harvard and MIT
  • Special expertise: experimental methods, advanced regression modeling, high-dimensional representational analysis, programming and data visualization in R

Doctoral Researcher, Harvard University Cambridge, MA, September 2018 - May 2023

  • Built and implemented a research program on the impact of intergroup bias on evidence-based learning and the mental representations of factual and opinion statements
  • Developed new methods advancing neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and statistics

Teaching Fellow in Doctoral Statistics, Harvard University Cambridge, MA, September 2020 - December 2024

  • Taught advanced statistics courses for Harvard doctoral students in the social sciences alongside Senior Lecturer in Statistics Patrick Mair, Ph.D.
  • Material covered: GLMMs, GAMs, path regression models, robust and resistant regression, mixture regression, frequentist and Bayesian inference, cluster analysis, hidden Markov models, longitudinal and time series models, regularization (LASSO, Ridge), model-based recursive partitioning, causal inference.
  • Three-time awardee of the Derek Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching

Skills and Expertise

  • Statistical consulting expertise: 2 years of professional experience consulting on over 125 unique cases providing short- and long-term support for statistical analysis, methods development, data management, research planning and preregistration, and experimental design
  • Advanced expertise in R for statistical modeling and data visualization
  • Advanced regression modeling (frequentist and Bayesian): Linear and generalized linear fixed-effects, mixed-effects, and additive modeling, mixture regression, robust and quantile regression
  • Multivariate cluster analyses: Hierarchical clustering, density-based clustering, K-means
  • Multivariate analyses to process and characterize high-dimensional data: representational similarity analysis (RSA), multivariate pattern analysis of neuroimaging data (MVPA), multidimensional scaling (MDS) and unfolding analysis, principal components analysis (PCA), support vector machine (SVM) classifiers, informational network analysis
  • Other programming expertise: Python, shell scripting, HPC batch process scripting (slurm and PBS for job scheduling), HTML essentials for web-scraping, git, markdown, notebooks via RMarkdown, Quarto, and jupyter notebook
  • Additional skills: Fluent in Spanish; lifelong musician (25+ years of multi-instrumental training and performance)

Additional Work Experience

Honors Thesis and Research Advisor, Harvard University Cambridge, MA, 2019 - 2022

  • Advised and mentored multiple award-winning undergraduate student researchers

Researcher and Lab Manager, Cognitive Neuroscience of Learning Lab, Dartmouth College Hanover, NH, 2013 - 2018

  • Designed and conducted neuroimaging, behavioral, and classroom-based research to explore the multivariate neural representations of STEM learning
  • Developed novel analytical methods to characterize knowledge representations in the brain
  • Authored 6 academic publications, 5 of which were published within a 2-year period

Director, Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC) First-Year Trips Program Hanover, NH, 2015 - 2016

  • Directed the largest College outdoor orientation program in the country: 1000 incoming students participating in 139 five-day, student-led outdoor trips across New Hampshire’s White Mountains
  • Interviewed and hired a 20-person Directorate including 1 Assistant Director and 19 team leaders
  • Selected and managed a student volunteer staff of 350+ (278 trip leaders + 56 support crew members on 6 teams) from an applicant pool of 600+

Laboratory Intern and Research Assistant, Emory University Transplant Centers Atlanta, GA, 2010 - 2012

  • Assisted with data collection, specimen management, and statistical analysis in the laboratory of Leslie Kean, M.D., Ph.D. studying graft-versus-host disease in bone marrow transplant patients

Program Facilitator, Pearson Seminar on Youth Leadership (PSYL) Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific, Victoria, B.C., Canada, 2010 & 2011

  • Designed and implemented a month-long summer leadership program on social justice, global citizenship, environmental sustainability, and community-building for 100 high school students from 20+ countries, alongside 16 other facilitators and 8 program coordinators