The Site
I started this site with myself as the primary audience. The purpose was twofold: first, to articulate and register my own professional learning, for my own benefit, and possibly to share with family and friends; second, to improve my capacity to present data and information analysis in a clear and appealing way. I also wanted to broaden my Information Technology (IT) tool set (e.g. learn R) and thought this could be a way to force me to practice and record my learning, while picking up some familiarity with other skills along the way. I expected the site to consist mainly of a blog and a list of resources that I find useful. The site would cover subjects I worked with or was particularly interested in: data and information analysis; epistemology and human cognition; international development and foreign assistance; economic growth, poverty and inequality; education and innovation systems; management and leadership.
From the start I knew that I could want to make the site public in the future, perhaps as a way of offering my personal services, or as a tool to share what I have learned with others. So I have been building the site with that possibility in mind.
Joeira
Joeira is a Portuguese word for a type of large shallow basket used for winnowing grains, such as when separating wheat grain from its chaff or rice grain from its hull.
The Author
My name is Alex Uriarte Somaglino. I was born in Paraguay, grew up in Brazil and the United States and hold citizenship from all three countries. Some time in my youth, living in Brazil, I became interested in poverty and inequality both of families and countries. I studied mostly economics, both in Brazil and in the U.S., but also other social sciences and I hold an interdisciplinary PhD in Development Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I went on to work in technical positions as an economist, and in managerial and team lead positions around data and information. Today I find myself mostly interested in history, cognitive science, and our relationship with data, information and knowledge in an environment of rapidly evolving digital technologies. For more information about my professional background, please visit my LinkedIn page here.
A Pervasive Theme: Data, Information and Human Cognition
A common theme throughout this site is related to data, information and human cognition. I have grappled through the years with discerning what we really know and what is distorted by ideology, religion, egos, or even by the limitations of academic models and their misuse, not just by the public, but often by academics themselves, interpreting their models to be more generalizable than they are. The challenge of synthesizing knowledge has proven to be a widespread and serious issue, given the frequent need to digest and draw conclusions from the large and ever growing amount of data and information available on the internet. I have had the privilege of working closely with the interpretation of data and information for most of my professional life and of leading teams focused on data management and analysis. The theme of data, information, what we make of them, how and why, is a central one throughout this site.
