Eric Bayless

Data Scientist · XC Coach · Endurance Enthusiast

I’m a data scientist and endurance enthusiast who likes to take on seemingly impossible challenges one step at a time. I aim to make people’s lives better through the power of quality data analysis.

Currently Working On: Racing Bib Detector Mobile App
Currently Reading: Interpretable Machine Learning by Christoph Molnar

Skills

Programming Languages & Libraries
  • Python
  • Pandas
  • Sci-Kit Learn
  • Numpy
  • Tensorflow/Keras
  • SQL
  • HTML
  • C++

Data Science & Machine Learning Skills
  • Data Collection and Cleaning
  • Webscraping
  • Neural Networks
  • Computer Vision
  • Natual Language Processing
  • Data Visualization

Projects

Race Bib Number Detection


In high school cross country, chip timing is the gold standard for accurate results. These systems are expensive, and often beyond the budget for small race organizations and schools. Timing can be accomplished in a relatively accurate and efficient manner using handheld stopwatch/printers. However, compiling the order of finish is often a manual task prone to error. The goal of this project is to use machine learning to build a model that can identify a racer's bib number in the chute after the finish line for the purpose of logging the order of finish. The model needs to be lightweight and relatively fast, so that it could be used in a mobile app on a live video feed.

Demo App Here
Code Here

Subreddit Classification Using Natural Language Processing


Given the body of a post, predict whether the given text came from the r/Fitness or r/Bodyweightfitness subreddit. The goal is to determine how differntiable the posts in these two seemingly similar forums are. This project involved data acquisition an API, exploratory data analysis, as well as training and comparing many different classification models.

Presentation Here
Code Here

Experience

Instructional Associate

General Assembly
  • Provide lessons to supplement and review the main curriculum
  • Evaluate and provide feedback on projects, lab assignments, and quizzes
  • Engage with students 1:1 to answer questions and troubleshoot errors
April 2021 - Present

Cross Country Coach and Academic Substitute Teacher

Sparta High School
  • Planned and facilitated daily training, hosted home meet for team sizes ranging from 5 to 22 athletes
  • Three section qualifiers and one state qualifier in 2017
  • Qualified both boys and girls teams for sectional in 2019
  • Substituted grades ranging from K through 12th with class sizes around 20-25 students
  • Two long-term math substitute assignments; one included supporting lesson planning
2016 - 2020

Consultant

Enable Central China
  • Prototyped a histopathology de-waxing machine which involved programming an Arduino board using C++ and a text-based GUI using Python
  • Redesigned the company website which ran on the Drupal platform using HTML and CSS
August 2015 - December 2015

System Engineer

Cerner Corporation
  • Primarily managed data collection, reporting, and software deployment for around 50,000 client systems. This involved developing scripts, SQL queries, and troubleshooting issues
  • Ranked in the top 15% of over 10,000 associates in 2013
  • Received team award for accountability in 2013
  • Awarded by executives for assistance on critical issue in 2012
2010 - 2015

Education

General Assembly

Data Science Immersive
480+ hour immersive data science program
November 2020 - March 2021

Missouri University of Science and Technology

B.S. in Computer Engineering
Student Ambassador and Engineers Without Boarders Member
August 2006 - May 2010

Interests

Apart from being a data scientist, I enjoy staying active, usually swimming, biking, or running. A few of my adventures include:

  • A 4 day, 480 mile bike from San Francisco to LA
  • A single day 160 mile bike across Indiana
  • 3 Ironman triathlon finishes
  • Running my age in miles on my birthday for the past 2 years

Most Recent Adventure: 100 mile bike around St. Louis finishing through downtown.