'It is really fun to visualize data and place it spatially'

This story is a part of Hacker Noon's Meet the Writer series of interviews. The series is intended for tech professionals contributing the most insightful Hacker Noon stories to share more about their writing habits, ideas, and professional background (and maybe a hobby or two). If you too would like to start contributing to Hacker Noon, you can do so here.

So let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself. For example, name, profession, and personal interests.

I’m interning at the USGS, and have a general passion for geology and environmental science. However, my current specific interests are observational seismology, engineering seismology, and climate-change science.

Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top story about?

My most popular recent story is a tutorial for plotting geologic maps with Python using the PyGMT library. Geologic maps are constructed of many polygons, so plotting them can be tricky. In geosciences, being able to contextualize the spatial distribution of data with local or regional geology is important.

Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about?

I typically write about coding in the geosciences, as that is where my professional and educational journey is taking me right now. It has often been challenging to find easily understood and/or well-documented solutions to coding tasks I have, so it’s my goal now to write tutorials that cover tasks I’ve previously struggled with.

Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?)

Typically, I start by defining what a potential reader needs to know, and what resources they will need to follow my tutorial. Then I write a script that covers everything from start to finish; I try to assume relatively little about the knowledge of potential readers. The most important thing, in my opinion, is to use real data in a tutorial, as it can be unclear how to translate code that uses artificially generated data to one that uses real data. Once the code is prepared, I try to provide a little background at the start of the tutorial to give it some context. In the rest of the tutorial, I break down the script into sections that perform the major operations and add a brief description of why the operation is being performed and what it is doing. I think structuring a tutorial this way makes it easier to understand than just diving right into the code.

Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing?

I think it can be difficult to estimate how much information is too much information, and it’s possible I tend to error on the side of too little in my tutorials. One thing I’m cognizant of is that many people do not want to read through a lot of text to get their answers, so I try to find a balance between explanation and expediency.

What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career?

I would like to attend grad school to study seismology, particularly with respect to basin amplification and near-surface materials. There is a lot I need to learn regarding both subjects of interest, and I look forward to expanding my understanding!

Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice?

I like making maps! I think it is really fun to visualize data and place it spatially.

Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it?

I’ve been trying to teach myself skateboarding. I’ve wanted to be a skater ever since I played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater on the N64, so I’ve been trying to make that a reality lately!

What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next?

If I ever figure it out, I’m going to write a tutorial on how to perform a kirging interpolation on geospatial data in Python. Until then, I’m going to write a tutorial for using PyGMT to extract values from a raster at specific coordinates, then plot a linear regression of the data using Seaborn.

Thanks for taking time to join our “Meet the writer” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words?

There was a time not that long ago that I believed I would never know enough to be able to write a tutorial. I guess what I want to say is, there are a lot of helpful people out there in the world of programming, and if you encounter a roadblock don’t be afraid to reach out for help.