Nicholas Lyon
Nick Lyon started their career as a community ecologist specializing in pollinator and flowering plant communities and went on to study insect pest and predator communities on organic farms and their interactions with local weed communities. While doing this work, they emphasized strengthening data management and coding skills due to the complexity inherent in ecological data. These data science qualifications led to collaborations with other scientists that allowed Nick to focus exclusively on the data side of exciting research questions. Nick then pivoted from a career as an ecologist to one as a data scientist and continues to leverage their background as a broadly-trained ecologist in their current role as a Data Analyst for the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network Office. Nick aims to help other early career ecologists gain confidence with data science tools by designing intuitive workshops and pedagogical materials.