My name is Jonah

I'm a thinker, tinkerer, and do-er in New York, working as a Director of Data Solutions at Accordion, where I help our clients implement data platforms and analyses. I previously led the day-to-day operations of Marsh's reinsurance brokerage's data platform - where I spent 1/3rd of my time writing code, 1/3rd of my time leading a team of 5 engineers, and 1/3rd of my time assisting the hundreds of actuaries, brokers, and analysts working on the platform. Before that, I worked in data engineering, data science, and technology strategy consulting for McKinsey and IBM. I have an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BA from Wesleyan University.

Outside work, I'm fascinated by the future of media and national and New York politics. I'm a dedicated but mediocre weightlifter, former collegiate and Boston Marathon-qualifying long distance runner, and "amateur reader" (to quote J.D. Salinger). I also love music, particularly punk / indie rock, jazz, and showtunes.

LinkedIn | GitHub | Email

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Blog posts:

Frequent topics: books (14), python (7), data science (7), nyc (6), music (4), advertising (3)

• Taiwan Traveloge, by Yang Shuang-Zi
  2026-10-20
  Meta-meta-meta-fiction, anyone?


• The Land and Its People, by David Sedaris
  2026-10-05
  A comfort read


• How to Listen to Jazz, by Ted Gioia
  2026-07-26
  A perfect guide for the jazz advanced novice


• The Chronicles of DOOM, by S. H. Fernando, Jr.
  2026-07-19
  The man in the mask


• Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson
  2026-07-18
  When less is more


• How Economics Explains the World, by Andrew Leigh
  2026-07-12
  The world, somewhat explained


• Blood Horses, by John Jeremiah Sullivan
  2026-06-07
  A man's relationship with his father, mankind's relationship with the horse


• Changeover, by Giri Nathan
  2026-05-02
  Sometimes there just isn't much to say


• Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
  2026-04-30
  Never has a page break meant more


• The Sabbath, by Abraham Joshua Heschel
  2026-04-19
  Sanctifying time


• A Book Recommender on AWS
  2020-12-18
  Getting started with Docker and AWS Elastic Container Service with a Goodreads-powered book recommender


• Falling Into The Gap
  2020-11-11
  Why data science projects fall short of expectations, and what to do about it


• Time for Revisions
  2018-05-28
  What I learn by rewriting code


• On Getting There
  2017-12-28
  How I became a data scientist


• I Read on the Train
  2017-02-20
  Some thoughts on books I have read recently.


• New Year, New Blumste.in
  2017-01-02
  Rewriting my personal website in Flask and SASS


• Are Last.FM Playcounts Affected by Pitchfork Scores?: A Data Analysis
  2016-12-11
  Fun with python data analysis, web scraping, and the Last.FM API


• A Night at the Museum
  2016-11-30
  Creating a universal API for the American Museum of Natural History at its Hack the Stacks Hackathon


• Making Chloropleths from NYC Parking Tickets Data
  2016-11-19
  Cleaning and mapping data for the 30 million plus parking tickets issued in NYC from 2013 to 2016


• Introducing Group Reduce, a K-Means Algorithm for Clustering Groups
  2016-10-18
  Introducing Group Reduce, a k-means clustering algorithm for reducing the number of groups in a data set (i.e., for clustering groups).


• 2 Quick Thoughts on 'Every Song Ever'
  2016-07-15
  Yep, I have thoughts.


• Favorite recent moment in ad targeting
  2016-05-18
  Ad targeting that's at once effective and not


• Review: Sober Living for the Revolution
  2015-11-27
  20 pages of Ian Mackaye saying straight edge (sXe) is against rules, and then 200 pages of assorted communists, socialists, and anarchists saying 'follow our sXe-derived rules!'


• Fixing the Online News Media's Customer Experience Problem
  2015-01-05
  The emergence of workable news media models should be cheered. But we need to be honest: product deficiencies still abound. Luckily, native and content advertising may solve many of them. Here's why and how they'll do it.


• An Idea for Personalized Alerts from the MTA
  2014-10-20
  The MTA should create a more personal connection with riders by using technology to harness customer data. This data could be used to create personalized alerts for riders.


• 2001: A Space Odyssey Predicts Tablets and 24 Hour News Cycle
  2014-02-06
  Prescient prediction from Arthur C. Clarke, writing in 1968...


• The Facebook Donate Now Button Is Better For Small and Medium-Sized Non-Profits than Ad Grants
  2013-12-19
  The haters are wrong: the Facebook Donate Now button is the best thing it can do for small- and medium-sized non-profits.


• CSS3 Has a Ton of Cool Features. Can we start using them?
  2013-10-27
  In the future, CSS3 will allow developers to build CSS-only animations and gradients, allow for the mixing of pixels and percentages, and make the box model more flexible. Is the future now?


• I Heart #NYCTECH
  2013-10-10
  My awesome week in New York City Tech. Featuring inspiration from Alexis Ohanian!


• Getting Americans into the Banking System, for Good and for Profit
  2013-09-27
  While public sector actions and public-private partnerships will play a role in getting more Americans into the banking system, the financial services industry's resources and drive to improve profits will be a bigger factor.


• Hopes, Dreams, Aspirations (MBA as Training for Product Management)
  2013-08-27
  With the start of business school, I'm planning out my professional life beyond the next year or so for the first time. Thinking about what I really want to do, I've realized that what I'm really passionate is technology and product management. Now I'm trying to learn how to get from point A to point B.