Hi, my name is Liam :-)

I’m a Columbia SIPA-QMSS double Master’s graduate and Fulbright Scholar with deep interests in data science and quantitative applications to economic policy, international trade and financial markets. Aussie-Singaporean. Food, travel and nature lover. Always curious. Currently working as a senior research associate at M Science.

• Email: liam.k@columbia.edu
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamtaykearney
• Nationalities: 🇦🇺 Australia, 🇮🇪 Ireland, 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
• Languages: English (native), Mandarin (fluent), Spanish (ok), Malay (basic), Hokkien (basic)
• Interests: data science, data visualization, applied econometrics, alternative data, equity research

Projects

Data science and visualization

1. imfpy - an intuitive API client for the IMF - python package
2. Understanding COVID-19 misinformation - NLP resources, Tableau visualizations
3. Understanding far-right networks using Wikipedia data - paper
4. Flood classification using satellite data - presentation

Applied econometrics

1. New measurements of inequalities in public transit accessibility - Shiny app
2. Time series analysis of Australian inward FDI - paper
3. Empirical analysis of municipal broadband restrictions - policy memo

Political economy

1. Congressional FTA voting and import competition - policy brief
2. Analyzing partisanship in America through language - Shiny app
3. Private sector participation in Europe's pivot away from Russian gas - report

Technical Skills ►

I am most comfortable/skilled in data mining with R, Python/PySpark, SQL, Tableau and Excel, with experience applying them across a variety of use cases and subject domains. I also have proficiency in the following:

Skill area	Technologies
Data Visualization	Tableau, Shiny, D3, Dash
Databases	MySQL, MongoDB, Neo4j, MS Access
Geospatial	QGIS, Leaflet, GeoPandas, GeoDa
Machine Learning	Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch
Econometrics & Statistics	R, Stata, EViews
Cloud Services	AWS, GCP, Snowflake
Big Data & Workflow	Databricks, PySpark, Airflow
Web Development	HTML, CSS, JS, Flask
Version Control	Git, Github

Qualifications ►

• Master of International Affairs - International Finance & Economic Policy (Columbia SIPA)
• Master of Arts - Applied Data Science (Columbia QMSS)
• Bachelor of Philosophy (Hons) - Economics, Finance (UWA)
• Diploma of Interpreting - Chinese-English (AIWT)

Experience ►

• M Science - Senior Research Associate (2023-present)
• University of Pennsylvania - Research Data Analyst (2022-present)
• Citi Global Wealth - Grad. Consultant, Investment Research (Fall 2022)
• Columbia SIPA - Research Assistant, Data Science & Public Policy (2021-22)
• Columbia SIPA - Teaching Assistant, R for Policy Research (2021-22)
• Australian Embassy, Beijing - Public Affairs Assistant (2018)
• UN Capital Development Fund - Junior Research Analyst (2017)
• Internships:
  • Asia Society Policy Institute (Washington, 2022)
  • KPMG Global China Practice (Beijing, 2018)
  • Westpac Institutional Bank (Sydney, 2017)

Hobbies ►

• Cooking - from my Peranakan heritage (ongoing project)
• Eating - here are some favourite destinations in Singapore, NYC, Houston and Perth
• Travelling - here are some places I've visited on the journey so far
• Jazz - am an aspiring (amateur) jazz piano player