Meet the 2023 Fellows: Anna Schoeny
Anna is a Fellow working for the Bureau of Justice Statistics
This blog is part of a series introducing a few of the Fellows selected to be part of Coding it Forward’s 2023 Fellowship, a cohort of 92 early-career technologists working across federal, state, and local government in data, design, product management, and software engineering roles.
About Anna
Host Office: Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
Hometown: Oak Park, IL
Current Location: Nashville, TN
Academic Institution: Tulane University
Academic Program: Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Sociology with a minor in Political Science
Graduation Year: 2023
Meet Anna
Our team sat down with Anna to learn a little more about her and why she’s excited about being a Coding it Forward Fellow this summer.
Coding it Forward: Tell us about yourself.
Anna Schoeny : I grew up just outside of Chicago in Oak Park but spent the past four years in New Orleans as an undergrad at Tulane University studying Computer Science and Sociology. During my freshman year, I took a service-learning course called Intro to Women’s Imprisonment, where I studied the experiences of women in the carceral system. I got the opportunity to work as a research assistant for women at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women, working towards Tulane degrees through the Prison Education Initiative Program. This experience was my first real understanding of the complexities of the criminal legal system and really put me on a path in my studies and extracurriculars.
I have worked the past several summers as an intern for several criminal legal system advocacy and research organizations. Most recently, during my senior year, I partnered with a New Orleans organization that recruits volunteers to observe Orleans Parish court proceedings as part of a capstone project. I cleaned up data and built an intuitive dashboard to display New Orleans court docket data on the individual and aggregate levels. This dashboard was made to support their mission of fighting toward better accountability in the courts. I am really passionate about my research and advocacy work for those impacted by the criminal legal system, and I am really excited to take a lot of the skills I acquired into my position with the Bureau of Justice Statistics this summer to better explore trends in state-level justice expenditures!
After graduation, I moved to Nashville, which is where I plan to be through December, likely applying to graduate schools at the conclusion of the fellowship. After that, I head to Southeast Asia with one of my good friends to backpack for a few months in the spring! Right now, we’re planning on moving through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. In my free time, I also really love to cook and have been trying to make dishes from each country’s cuisine I plan to visit.
CIF: Why are you excited to be a Fellow?
AS: I touched on this briefly already, but I am really interested in the intersection between technology and the social sciences. At first, a lot of people seemed so surprised that I was double majoring in sociology and computer science, but I think that this combination is going to be increasingly popular over the next several years. So much of my coursework went hand in hand, particularly when it came to data analysis and visualization. I also think the combination of sociology and computer science gives a different perspective on how to address complex social issues, as technology has changed how data is handled and how people communicate in general. I think the work I’ve done has prepared me well to think critically, and I am really excited to dive into the Justice Expenditure and Employment Extract series extracts data.
This fellowship is really unique in that entry-level technologists are given the chance to really engage in important projects while learning from mentors in their fields of interest. I also can’t wait to meet all of the other Fellows in D.C. at the beginning of the program and see the other amazing work people are doing throughout the rest of the program.
CIF: What is a fun fact about yourself?
AS: On a whim, I signed up to take a hand-building ceramics class in my last semester of college. I originally planned to take it pass-fail since I wouldn’t consider myself the most artistic and just wanted to take it for fun. I hadn’t touched clay since elementary school, if that tells you anything. However, I ended up getting super invested in the class, and I spent a lot of extra hours outside of class in the studio making gifts for my family and friends. I really think it was one of my favorite classes I took all of college, and the professor was absolutely amazing. It turns out I’m actually pretty good at it! Now that I’m in Nashville, I am planning to join a ceramic studio and hopefully learn how to wheel-throw next.
CIF: What is your favorite thing about technology, and why?
AS: In the right hands, I think technology has the ability to not only connect people socially but also connect people through the information that is available to them. I think that most data should be open and accessible to everybody, not just to policymakers or academics. This is part of what inspired my capstone project my senior year, trying to make accessing accurate data much easier and displaying it in a way that the general public could also learn from and digest. This is my favorite thing about technology, I think — just the ability to empower people through information. Technology has the potential to break down barriers to accessing knowledge and allow for more collaboration between individuals.
CIF: What did you want to be when you grew up? Why?
AS: I think I’ve changed my mind on this a hundred times, and I honestly still don’t really know what I want to do or be. When I was really little, I told my parents I wanted to be an elephant when I grew up, but I also remember really wanting to be a teacher. My family was convinced for a while that I’d be a lawyer because I’ve always been very passionate and opinionated. Having just graduated, I honestly really wish I could just say elephant again. I definitely know what interests me and what my strengths are, but I’m still trying to figure out exactly what to do with all of that. I’m hoping this fellowship could give me a little more clarity on that. A big draw for me to take a gap year this year was to give myself a chance to slow down and figure things out before jumping into graduate school or a longer-term career.
Applications for our 2024 Fellowship will open in the fall. Subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to know when applications will go live.
