Julia Buffinton
About Julia Buffinton
Julia Buffinton is a Senior Data Scientist at LMI, where she leads a team focused on analytics projects for the Army Vantage program. She has received multiple awards for her contributions to diversity in data science and has a strong academic background in information and data science.
Current Role at LMI
Julia Buffinton currently serves as a Senior Data Scientist at LMI, a position she has held since 2019. In this role, she leads an eight-member team of data scientists and data engineers, focusing on short-term analytics projects for the Army Vantage program. Her responsibilities include developing innovative solutions and implementing automation techniques to enhance data processing and analysis.
Previous Work Experience
Before joining LMI, Julia Buffinton held various positions in academia and industry. She worked as a Director of Strategic Initiatives at McAllister & Quinn from 2016 to 2019. Earlier, she served as a Research Assistant at Carnegie Mellon University and Bucknell University, where she contributed to projects in the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center and the Linguistics Lab, respectively. Additionally, she was a Lab Manager at the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Lab at the University of Maryland.
Education and Expertise
Julia Buffinton earned a Master of Information and Data Science (MIDS) from the UC Berkeley School of Information, completing her studies from 2017 to 2019. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics, Computer Science, and Cognitive Science from Cornell University, which she completed in 2014. Her educational background provides a strong foundation for her expertise in data science and analytics.
Achievements and Contributions
Julia Buffinton received the 2021 LMI Luminary Award for Diversity and Culture for her efforts in establishing LMI's Women in Data community of practice, aimed at promoting diversity and inclusivity in the field. She also won the 2021 LMI Luminary Award for Teamwork for her contributions to US Army ASA(ALT) projects. Her work includes creating an interactive Tableau dashboard for NASA and implementing automation techniques in the Department of Defense's SMART Scholarship Program.
Technical Projects and Innovations
Julia Buffinton has developed several technical projects throughout her career. Notably, she built an automated pipeline to process monthly financial transaction reports for the Army Vantage program. She also created a novel algorithm to reconcile disparate location paradigms between Army domains. Her work in automation has resulted in significant time savings, such as saving 250 hours annually through the use of semi-supervised document clustering and OCR.