Profile
Lisa Hursell
-
About Me:
I live in Surrey. I love rollercoasters and Disney, so you can probably guess my favourite place to go on holiday 🙂
I also love data, and solving puzzles, which is why I’m a Data Scientist – you never know what you’ll find!
-
Read more
Did you guess right? My favourite holiday destination is Disneyworld, Florida! Organising a holiday there is almost a job all on it’s own – booking reservations at the best restaurants (you can eat in Space there!), finding the best times to ride the rides when the queues are shortest, which parks to visit on which days (there are 7 parks in Disney alone, plus Universal and all the others…). When I’m not doing that, you can usually find me engrossed in a video game – more puzzle solving and organising to make the best choices – which starter Pokémon do I choose? Who should get that special item?
You can see now why I love data – how much data do you deal with every day that you don’t think about?
-
My pronouns are:
she/her
-
My Work:
I am a data scientist. That means I look at lots of data and try to solve puzzles or find interesting things in it…
-
Read more
I work for the police, so I might be looking at where we should be putting officers and cars so they can respond best to 999 calls, or I might be looking at what people are saying on social media to find crimes, or I might be trying to find hidden data in a case. Like a digital Sherlock Holmes!
-
My Typical Day:
I mix working at home and in the office. I look at what new things people want to find out, and talk to the team about how we could work it out. We test different ideas, write and share code and see what we’ve found – and why, the most important part!
-
Read more
Some days, I might be working with officers on a case to work out what has happened by looking at calls people have made or messages they have sent. Other days, I might be trying to work out why there’s been a lot of crime in one area. I look at how we make sure police officers are able to do their job, and how we make sure places are safe.
-
What I'd do with the prize money:
I’d invest in more equipment so our forensic scientists can run more crime scene analysis events, since these seem to be the most popular events we do! And some STEM themed banners for policing so I don’t have to go to events and just be asked how to be a police officer 🙂
-
Education:
After primary school, I went to an all-girls Grammar School in Kent, where I stayed all the way up until University. I went to the University of Kent at Canterbury, and I had a 4 year degree, one of those years I had to work – and I worked for the police. I went back to the police after graduation and never left!
-
Qualifications:
I have GCSEs in Maths, English, Science, ICT, History, Religious Studies, French, German and Business Studies, all between A*-B.
I have A-Levels in ICT, French, German and General Studies (C,C,C,B).
I have a 1st Class Honours Degree in Computer Science.
I’m also trained in digital forensics, database administration and data science.
Because I work for the police, I’m also trained in personal safety and emergency first aid!
-
Work History:
I’ve always worked for the police, but in many different roles. I started as a Crime Analyst, making the statistics about how much crime there’s been.
Then I moved into Data Architecture, where I designed new IT systems and how we should put data in them (things like making sure age is entered as a number and not letters!).
Then I worked as a Technical Analyst, building tools to get data in to different systems so the analysts can work better.
Then I worked as a Developer, where I did lots of different things like digital forensics (looking at what’s on phones and computers to solve crime), building databases and writing code to uncover hidden clues in cases.
Now I work as a Data Scientist.
-
Employer:
I work for the Metropolitan Police Service in London.
-
My Interview
-
How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
the data detective
What did you want to be after you left school?
I had no idea!
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Only through the actions of the whole class...
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
Disney Imagineer (the people who make the rides and lands in the parks!)
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Dashboard Confessional
What's your favourite food?
Does chocolate count as food?
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
That people understand the power of data, that I was better at playing videogames than I am, and that getting to Disneyworld was faster!
Tell us a joke.
How do you confuse a naughty penguin? Tell him to stand in the corner of his igloo!
-