ryan.honea

About

Ryan Honea

I'm a data scientist in Memphis with eight-plus years across global logistics, eCommerce, consumer R&D, and the public sector. What holds it together is the discipline itself: I care about where data is going as a field, and about the patterns that transfer between industries. Today I lead a multidisciplinary data science team on government digital transformation, where the standard is audit-ready: end-to-end data platforms, relief-program data operations, and mainframe-to-cloud modernization.

Outside the day job, I keep a public-interest practice. Organizations doing important work often sit on program data that never becomes evidence; I help them turn it into actionable, metric-based power: the numbers that prove impact and win government funding.

The best way to reach me is by email at ryan@honea.info.

01Experience

  1. 2022 — Present

    Data Scientist Supervisor

    BDO USA, Government Digital TransformationMemphis, TN

    Lead data science for government digital-transformation work, supervising a multidisciplinary team of data scientists, analysts, and visualization specialists across federal, state, and private-sector contracts.

    • ▪Oversaw data operations for Florida's Homeowner Assistance Fund, managing application-to-payment processing for more than $550M in federal relief assistance
    • ▪Redesigned an unstructured data-extraction platform from a single-threaded process to a multithreaded platform supporting 100+ dashboards and 1,000+ users
    • ▪Lead data scientist on the complete refactor of a statewide HR and payroll system from mainframe to cloud
    • ▪Lead development of end-to-end data platforms, from ingesting disparate sources to delivering fully autonomous systems for client operations
    • ▪Implement hybrid recommendation models in Databricks with an optimized model-serving solution powering customer recommendations for eCommerce systems
    • ▪Support internal monitoring and reporting programs that strengthen operational decision-making and transparency for government clients
    PythonSQLDatabricksPySparkInformaticaPower Platform
  2. 2018 — 2022

    Decision Scientist

    FedEx ExpressMemphis, TN

    Data science for global express logistics, building and hardening the systems that kept international shipments moving, compliant, and profitable.

    • ▪Led development of a customs clearance system that protected more than $30M in revenue by automating and streamlining paperwork processing
    • ▪Applied QDM and Six Sigma methodologies to find process inefficiencies and ship scalable, data-driven fixes
    • ▪Improved ETL workflows through rigorous schema design, data cleaning, and efficient pipeline structuring
    • ▪Trained new engineers across legacy and modern tech stacks, ensuring quick adoption of mission-critical systems
    PythonJavaSQLColdFusion
  3. May 2017 — Aug 2017

    Software Engineering & Data Science Intern

    Electrolux Cooking R&DSpringfield, TN

    Applied NLP to millions of rows of quality data to surface hidden failure trends in oven technology and advise R&D leadership on scalable machine-learning adoption.

    • ▪Clustered technician reports with Bag-of-Words and Word2Vec to categorize failure types; sentiment analysis on customer feedback surfaced unreported technical issues
    • ▪Delivered strategic recommendations to R&D directors on adopting scalable big-data and ML solutions
    PythonNLP

02Toolbox

Languages

  • Python (pandas, PySpark, Jupyter)
  • SQL (SQL Server, Oracle, Teradata, MySQL)
  • R (tidyverse, Shiny, ggplot2)
  • JavaScript (React)

Platforms & tools

  • Databricks (model serving & deployment)
  • Azure Data Factory
  • Informatica Suite
  • SQL Server Integration Services
  • Power Apps / Power Automate
  • Git

Methods

  • Machine learning & model building
  • Generalized linear models
  • Time series & forecasting
  • Natural language processing
  • Stochastic processes
  • Nonparametric tests

Ways of working

  • LEAN-AGILE delivery
  • Quality Driven Management (QDM)
  • Executive stakeholder engagement
  • Data storytelling

03Practice areas

Data Architecture

Data models and warehouses designed to outlive their original context.

System Design

Architecture that keeps its shape under scale, failure, and change.

Backend & API Design

Careful contracts, purposeful endpoints, clean service boundaries.

Technical Leadership

Alignment, review, and mentorship that raise a whole team’s output.

Infrastructure

Cloud environments and deployment pipelines provisioned with intention.

System Auditing

Tracing anomalies through logs and lineage to independent, actionable findings.

04Education & certifications

  1. Master of Predictive AnalyticsAustin Peay State University
    2018
  2. B.S. Statistics & Pure MathematicsAustin Peay State University
    2017
  • ▪AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals
  • ▪Quality-Driven Management Expert · American Society for Quality (Six Sigma Green Belt equivalent)
  • ▪QDM Silver Cup (2020) · Business Leading Analytics Driving the Enterprise
  • ▪Big Data Specialization · UC San Diego
  • ▪Machine Learning Specialization · University of Washington