Trish Roth, Principal Scientist, Abbott Laboratories
Fun fact: I grew up in New England, and my happy place is Vermont for skiing, hiking and horseback riding.
JMP User since 1998
What is your favorite feature in JMP?
Hands down, I love and use the Tabulate and Join functions the most. The Table and Analyze menus are my most frequently used platforms. The ability to save an analysis script back to a data table is also a huge time saver.
What was your first job (ever)?
My first job was at the Carter's underwear factory typing invoices in the shipping department.
What is your proudest professional moment?
Being selected to receive Black Belt training. It was a great recognition of both technical and teamwork capabilities. That opportunity opened many doors to get higher profile assignments and advancement opportunities.
How did you get interested in research and analytics?
I transitioned from research science doing experimentation in a biochemistry laboratory to data analytics over a series of years. Going through Black Belt training really opened my eyes to the importance and power of analytics and data presentation. I have found it incredibly rewarding to be able to help people get insights through data and then become more self-sufficient with data exploration.
What do you like most about the work you do?
There is never a dull moment! Being able to do analytics has afforded me the opportunity to work on many different projects. I have gotten to work with a lot of different folks, travel to different facilities and be part of many different teams. I like the challenges and variety.
How are you currently using JMP?
I spend a lot of time in the Control Chart platform doing SPC. This takes me into regression and analysis of variance platforms as well. Most recently, I have heavily utilized the Graph Builder platform and means comparisons functions to evaluate changes over time and between different populations of data.
What is the first project you worked on using JMP?
Is there anything you would like to say to JMP Development or John Sall?
Don’t forget the little guy. The basic functions such as creating data visuals for data summarization and presentation make JMP useful to a broader audience. The latest statistical and machine learning techniques are used by a more limited audience, and with the spread of open source products like R, this pool of advanced statistics users may shrink. Continue to invest in usability, simple things like better page formatting on printing, integration with Microsoft Office products and business intelligence tools. Seamless integration across platforms is becoming a must, including cloud services and compatibility with AWS products.
How do you see the field of data science progressing in the next 20-50 years?
I see data science evolving to be a standard business tool across departments, not just reserved for the statisticians and a specialized role called data scientist. Much like use of spreadsheets and word processing is standard practice, today what is a data science project will be standard practice in the future.
What advice would you give a beginning JMP user?
Do some of the online tutorials, and find a local area colleague to get you started. There is a learning curve, so be patient. Push yourself to STEP AWAY FROM EXCEL