Alice Coyne

After matric, I started a BA in human movement science and psychology at the University of the Free State. After completing my undergraduate degree, I completed my honours in psychology at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, and then started on my masters. During my masters, I linked up with the mathematics department at UKZN as part of my research project. During this stage, I discovered my true passion was working with numbers. I dropped out of masters, and began my BSc in pure and applied mathematics.

Having studied psychology, I have excellent people skills, and enjoy working and managing people. I am a strong team player, but also work well on my own. One of my best attributes, is to remain calm and professional under stress and pressure. I'm an also a confident public speaker, with strong written and verbal skills. I also excel in logical and reasoning, with good problem solving skills.

I am currently completing my masters in Mathematical Statistics at UCT. My research topic is looking at Value-of-Risk in volatile markets, such as South Africa. I am also working full-time as a data engineer in Durbanville, where I have worked on Python, R, SQL, and Cognos. Other languages I learnt while at university include: Matlab, Mathematica, and Genstat, as well as statistical packages such as SPSS. I have also successfully been managing one of the company's projects for a team of about 5 people. This has been accomplished using Kanban-style workflow.

Earlier this year I attended the Sat-R-Day conference, which was the first R programming conference in South Africa. Here I was given the opportunity to chair for one of the keynote speakers, Jennifer Bryan, who is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia.