Brandon Derr

CV/Resume

(View my full resume as a PDF)

Education

Master of Arts in Political Science
University of Southern Mississippi

Thesis: "Polarized Without the Other Side: Measurements from Congress on Bluesky"

Bachelor of Science in Political Science, Magna Cum Laude
University of Southern Mississippi, Honors College

Honors Thesis: "Climate Change Policy Preferences and Senatorial Tweets"

Professional Experience

Graduate Research Assistant

Minerva Research Initiative, USM
Aug 2024 - Present

Developed and documented the ICEWSnet R package, used to transform international event data into formats ready for modeling, reducing manual preprocessing time.
Led integration and optimization of code for ICEWSnet from 3 contributors, increasing a key function's speed by more than 50% and standardizing the user experience across functions.
Collaborated with 5 cross-functional team members (PIs from various disciplines, RAs) through biweekly hybrid meetings to gather requirements and feedback for ICEWSnet.
Presented results of subsequent paper at an international academic conference.

Research Intern

Institute for Advanced Analytics and Security, USM
2022 - 2023

Evaluated and documented 3-4 alternative data sources for key project metrics, enabling team leads to evaluate them and compare trade-offs.
Cleaned data sets chosen by team leads, preparing them for the modeling process.
Communicated with a team of 6 cross-functional researchers (senior leadership, faculty, RAs) through weekly in-person meetings to clarify requirements and share findings.

Skills

Programming Languages

Python, R, SQL, Lua

Tools and Software

Git, Excel, Tableau, VS Code, R Studio, Obsidian

Packages

R: Tidyverse

Python: NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Seaborn, Plotnine

Techniques

Statistical Modeling (OLS/GLM, Negative Binomial, Logistic), Data Visualization, ETL (Extract,Transform, Load), Machine Learning (Classification), NLP (Natural Language Processing), API Integration

Certifications

Google Advanced Data Analytics Certificate (View Certificate)
CITI Program Graduate Research Ethics Certification (View Certificate)

Awards

2024: Graduate Competitive Travel Award; School of Social Science and Global Studies Travel Award
2023: Drapeau Center for Undergraduate Research Eagle SPUR Grant
2022: Drapeau Center for Undergraduate Research Unanticipated Opportunities Grant
2021: Allan McBride Political Science Methods Award
2020: USM Honors College Discovery Scholarship

Conference Presentations

January 2024 - Southern Political Science Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico
April 2024 - Undergraduate Symposium on Research and Creative Activity, Hattiesburg, MS
April 2024 - Midwestern Political Science Association, Chicago, IL
January 2024 - Southern Political Science Association, New Orleans, LA
April 2023 - Midwestern Political Science Association, Chicago, IL
January 2023 - Southern Political Science Association, St. Pete Beach, FL