Amber Thomas

I'm a data lover, storyteller, and pro question asker. Making complex things more accessible is my jam.

Currently Community Lead at data.world

Previously: Senior Journalist-Engineer at The Pudding

A spiral bound, lined notebook in the foreground with several balls of crumpled up paper just beyond it.

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Continue, Pivot, or Put It Down

August 20 2020 • 1 min read

Detailing The Pudding’s process to go from idea to data story

The Pudding
Pug dog wrapped in a beige blanket on a bed, looking sad.

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Dear Career Switchers: You are not a Failure

June 2 2019 • 10 min read

I have always struggled with failure. Switching careers brought that back full force. Here's what I learned along the way.

failure, random thoughts
Unfocused image of young boy playing Jenga by stacking blocks

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Making Data Viz Without SVG Using D3 & Flexbox

July 6 2018 • 2 min read

Bye bye tricky SVG alignments.

The Pudding, d3.js, flexbox
Orange cat sleeping inside fluffy white pet bed

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Making Multi-Argument Functions & Data Frames Purrr

March 26 2018 • 5 min read

Using the purrr package to iterate over lots of values and return a data frame.

purrr, R

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Adding Syntax Highlighting to Blogdown Posts

November 15 2017 • 7 min read

My journey into making the code in my blog posts colorful

blogdown, R, tutorial
Pink, yellow, and green dyed eggs sit in their own individual small nests.

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Nesting and Accessing Data in D3v4

May 2 2017 • 17 min read

My explorations of d3's nesting functions

d3.js, tutorial

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Making a Website Using Blogdown, Hugo, and GitHub Pages.

December 19 2016 • 23 min read

Wonder how I set up this website using just GitHub pages, Hugo, and RStudio package blogdown? This tutorial walks you through every step.

tutorial, blogdown, github
Hands resting on MacBook keyboard

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Online Data Science Classes

December 17 2016 • 8 min read

A list of the data science courses I've taken, my ratings on them, and comments for future learners.

R, courses