Choroplethr and R Consulting

Free, high-quality datasets about the US population haven’t been easily accessible until recently. Free tools, like R, enable us to analyze these large datasets and create rich insights that are useful to help companies, governments, and non-profits further their missions.

For example, a regional health insurance company needed to pinpoint the best markets for its health insurance products, and Census data helped them find the right people, down to the zip code. Through a consulting engagement, we were able to automate data ingestion and strengthen their marketing strategy by understanding the best target markets for their marketing campaigns.

I have taken on several other projects that relate to R and Choroplethr. Past projects include:

  • Helping the US Census Bureau design Census Academy, their new Learning Management System, that helps anyone in the world learn about and access Census data. I also created a course on Choroplethr for Census Academy that enables anyone to visualize complex and publicly-available Census data sets.
  • Creating the Census Working Group for the R Consortium, a group dedicated to supporting R users worldwide. My work led to the publication of the Guide to Working with Census Data in R - a curated list of the most popular Census datasets, and R packages to analyze them.
  • Extending Choroplethr to a proprietary map so a company can easily visualize its data using their own natural boundaries. 

If you have questions about your custom R or Choroplethr project, please contact me by clicking the button below.

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Patrick Richardson Data Scientist

I Recommend Ari Lamstein Without Hesitation

My team wanted to target prospective customers using U.S. Census data. We needed an automated way to download U.S. Census and American Community Survey data, append custom metadata, and then import those customized tables directly into our Oracle database with a minimum of user interaction.

Widely regarded as an expert in analyzing Census data using R, Ari was the logical choice. I was somewhat concerned because we were located on completely opposite sides of the country. The time difference proved to have zero impact on our ability to speak daily about the project status and impending milestones (which were always finished on-time).

The software that he developed is immensely valuable and far exceeded our expectations. During the course of the project, there were frequent conversations where it was apparent that this wasn’t “just another consulting project,” but that Ari genuinely cared about the business value that could be derived from this work and he frequently made suggestions to ensure that we could maximize that value.

Upon completion of this project, I found myself searching for additional projects Ari could help us with.

I would recommend Ari Lamstein, without hesitation, to any company seeking an experienced, multidisciplinary consultant to help create innovative solutions to their data problems.