Blair Christian

Current

• Postdoctoral Fellow at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Past

• Volunteer at Proyecto Caribe
• Statistical Software Engineer at Zilliant
• Statistician at GlaxoSmithKline

• Volunteer at Third Ward Community Bike Center
• Lecturer, Intro to Engineering Computation at Rice University
• Statistician (summer intern) at Los Alamos National Lab
• Statistics Graduate Student at Rice University

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Education

• Rice University
• Stanton

Connections

172 connections

Industry

Research

Blair Christian’s Summary

I work at the intersection of statistical theory and its application to data: I know the correct methodology for the application at hand, and I know how to implement it in the most efficient manner. I particularly enjoy working with very large and complex data sets, and exploring elegant solutions- just because one has a terascale cluster doesn't mean that it's the right tool for the job (but it is fun to parallelize trivial tasks). I have implemented algorithms for both brute force approaches to large datasets as well as more sophisticated subsampling approaches (think bootstrap).

First, I do some work on methodology - exploring the literature, finding/creating/exploring the correct models for the data, write executive and technical summaries/technical papers. Then I find the most appropriate algorithms to implement for the programming environment at hand- I have incorporated algorithms/libraries/scripts into windows, unix, osx, etc environments. I have experience with assorted development tools.

Blair Christian’s Specialties:

segmentation, pricing, data analysis, data, LAPACK, BLAS, sql, S, R, sas, matlab, C, python, unix, linux, genetics, bioinformatics, mathematical biology, statistics, regression, multivariate analysis, database, code, script, hack, data mining, numerical algorithm, agile,

Blair Christian’s Experience

• Postdoctoral Fellow

  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

  (Government Agency; Government Administration industry)

  August 2009 — Present (4 months)

• Volunteer

  Proyecto Caribe

  (Political Organization industry)

  October 2008 — May 2009 (8 months)

• Statistical Software Engineer

  Zilliant

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

  June 2007 — October 2008 (1 year 5 months)

  http://www.zilliant.com
  
  Responsible for implementing statistical algorithms in the Zilliant software suite to help our clients better price their goods in the business to business (B2B) market.

• Statistician

  GlaxoSmithKline

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; gsk; Research industry)

  April 2006 — May 2007 (1 year 2 months)

  http://www.gsk.com
  
  I function as a statistician and computational statistical geneticist in the pharmacogenomics group, where we are responsible for finding the genetic components of drug efficacy and side effects (pharmacovigilance). I research on appropriate methodologies, write executive summaries of current research in areas such as multiple testing correction and meta-analysis for association studies, as well as work with statistical geneticists and programmers as a quasi-numerical analyst, ensuring that the correct statistical models are being solved in a numerically efficient manner.

• Volunteer

  Third Ward Community Bike Center

  (Non-Profit; 1-10 employees; Health, Wellness and Fitness industry)

  August 2004 — January 2006 (1 year 6 months)

  http://www.thirdwardbikes.org/
  
  I helped community members in both the earn-a-bike program, with open shop and with some computer maintenance. Earn-a-bike is a program where any member of the community can come in and they first recycle an old bike (take apart into usable parts, recycling non-usable parts), learn how to fix a flat, fix a bike up for charity, then fix a bike up for themselves. Open shop is a time where any member of the community may bring in their bike and use the shop tools for free and purchase discount used parts.

• Lecturer, Intro to Engineering Computation

  Rice University

  (Educational Institution; 5001-10,000 employees; Higher Education industry)

  January 2004 — May 2004 (5 months)

  http://www.caam.rice.edu/~caam210/
  
  I introduced students to scientific programming with MATLAB, managed 3 graders, co-wrote new course material, exams, homework, class notes and an e-textbook.

• Statistician (summer intern)

  Los Alamos National Lab

  (Government Agency; 5001-10,000 employees; Research industry)

  May 2003 — August 2003 (4 months)

  http://www.ccs.lanl.gov/ccs6/
  
  Under the direction of Dr. Dave Higdon, (formerly Division D-1), I Improved the efficiency of solving large scale Bayesian statistical problems, and designed and implemented an algorithm to improve convergence of monte carlo Markov chain (MCMC) algorithm on distributed memory computers using message-passing interface (MPI).

• Statistics Graduate Student

  Rice University

  (Research industry)

  2000 — 2002 (2 years )

Blair Christian’s Education

• Rice University

  BA,MA,PhD , Statistics, Computational & Applied Math , 1998 — 2008

  Defended thesis on 10 Sept 08.

• Stanton