MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: MOLLY HICKMAN

Could you tell us who you are and what it is that you do?

I'm Molly Hickman, a software engineer/data scientist. I work for a startup called nLine, Inc. that measures electricity reliability in Sub-Saharan Africa. We plug these little sensors into outlets in homes, businesses, and sometimes health clinics, in Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, and soon the DRC and Uganda. The sensors tell us the voltage and frequency and how often folks lose power, for how long. We're a small team, nine people, so we all wear several hats, but I mostly do statistics and back-end stuff.

What do you love most about the work?

I hit the jackpot with this job. I'm doing meaningful work, with awesome people; I get to leverage things I'm really good at; and I have a lot of opportunities to grow new skills. Maybe my favorite part is: I love being able to take strong positions on things that matter to me, and having my thoughts matter to the team. We all bring different skills to the table and everyone's opinions hold weight. I don't have to beat around the bush or bite my tongue; I can just say what I'm thinking. And best of all, if it turns out I'm wrong, I can admit it and we move on, it's fine. Everyone is so compassionate. In my past jobs it's always been a game of, like, what am I allowed to say in front of this group of people? What am I risking by speaking my mind? Is it worth it? It's so nice not to have to worry about that, and we get so much more work done!!

How did you arrive at this point in your work? What’s your backstory?

My background is in national security, specifically anticipatory intelligence, even more specifically crowd-sourced intelligence/forecasting. I did math and linguistics in undergrad, did a little coding toward the end of college, and was very lucky to get an internship and then a job at MITRE in McLean. I enjoyed that work and still try to keep up with the literature, and contribute to forecasting projects when I'm able. I'm currently "pro" forecasting on a platform called INFER, run by U-Maryland's ARLIS (Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security). Anyway, MITRE is chock full of PhD's and there's only so much you can do there with only an undergraduate degree, so I went to Virginia Tech for a masters in Computer Science. My co-advisor Shaddi Hasan connected me with the founders of the startup I work for now. I worked for them as a "guest researcher" while I finished my masters, and I loved the work so much that I made the tough choice to leave MITRE and join nLine.

What values drive your work each day?

I value data integrity. That's taken on an oddly specific meaning in industry, but I just mean I care about creating data that are honest, and also taking care about what we claim based on data. One of the most important things I've learned over the course of my time at MITRE and then Virginia Tech is how easy it is to make the wrong inferences from data. Crazy easy. Whenever you hear someone say "the data show this," be suspicious! First, just the process of creating data always involves choices about what details to record, maybe how often to record them, how to sample, how many samples are enough, etc. But even if we lived in a magical world where we could just collect every detail imaginable with perfect faithfulness, we'd still have the tough job of interpreting the data, trying to glean whether A "causes" B, like, whether an intervention made a difference. Causal inference is a whole amazing problem unto itself that economists and philosophers and scientists of all stripes have thought about for ages. What drives me is I want to get at the truth. The measurements my company makes, the data we create, these data reflect people's realities, their experience of electricity. That excites me, that drives me. I want to tell their story faithfully.

What is the most challenging aspect of the work?

Being remote. Working at IX has been a game-changer, but it's still really hard to work apart from my coworkers. We're split across several time zones, from Berkeley to Nairobi. And I guess also, related to the remoteness, it's been challenging to figure out how to manage each other. We're a pretty young company; I was the fourth or fifth full-time hire, I think. We're all young. For many of us it's the first job, or at least the first job in tech. We're still very much figuring out what kind of company we want to be, how to work together, how to structure project management, all that. It's exciting! I think we're making really good choices. But it's hard, and a little nerve-wracking.

Has there been a light switch moment, a turning point, professionally and/or personally along the way?

Hm! I'm having a hard time crafting a serious answer to this so I'll give the kinda silly one. My older brother changed the course of my life when I had just finished my freshman year of college. I was studying music at the time. I wanted to be a conductor, or a singer, or write music for puppet shows or something. I still have an ambition to accompany puppet shows. But anyway, my brother had also been a musician, and he basically said: "Don't major in music. All my musician friends are miserable. You should study Business, get an MBA." I couldn't stomach Business, but my eighteen year old brain somehow figured that math was the next best thing. I had effectively flunked precalculus in high school; I don't know what possessed me to give it another shot. But anyway, I wound up loving math! I was never a great student but I had some extraordinary professors who encouraged me. So here we are.

What are you currently working on, excited about, looking forward to?

I've been designing an interview study for a long time that we might finally get to execute in the next couple months! We want to interview district engineers at the electrical utility in Accra, Ghana, the folks who fix things when the power goes out, so that we can hopefully build a tool that lets them leverage our sensor data to restore power faster. I'm probably going to Accra at the end of this month. I've been studying their distribution grid for almost two years now, but this will be my first visit to Ghana. I'm stoked.

Anything we missed that you might care to share (closing thoughts)?

I'm always frowning at my computer when I'm at IX, but I'm actually fairly friendly! I look forward to meeting other Studio IX members. So glad Sara Surface introduced me to this place.