Data Scientist, Epidemiologist, and Biostatistician

Michael Espero

About Me

I’m a data scientist, biostatistician, and epidemiologist with experience in real-world evidence, causal inference, and large-scale forecasting. I’ve built population health infrastructure for LA County Public Health, scaled tooling (i.e. provider directories, CalAIM data visualization builders) and analytics (i.e. predictive engagement, utilization and claims forecasting) as a Senior Data Scientist at Centene, and worked across cross-functional teams from startups to large enterprises.

Some of what I do:

  • → Production-grade data pipelines and explainable ML, built in R, Python, and SQL
  • → Causal inference that answers “what actually works”, not just “what correlates”
  • → Translating statistical results into decisions for executives and policymakers

I care about how people and models reason, and where each fails. I've mentored analysts and co-taught doctorate-level statistical methods and data science. Earlier in my career I co-founded a gym that grew past 1,000 members, which taught me how to build something high-touch & human-centered from zero.

Michael Espero instructing a course
2 PhD-level courses co-taught in 3 languages
100+ Data Science Courses Completed

Selected Visualizations

A sample of analytical outputs — from network analysis and causal graphs to individualization of effect estimates and semantic dimensionality reduction.

Selected Presentations

Research Design

November 2019

A deep dive into advanced research methodology, drawing on a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Data Science for Public Good

June 2020

Presented for Statistics Without Borders as part of a panel at the Joint Statistical Meeting (American Statistical Association).

View Session

Teaching Data Science & Machine Learning

June 2020

Introducing R language, data wrangling, and computer vision.

Experimental Research Design

Do Cognitive Reference Points at Encoding Nonarbitrarily Influence Working Memory?

2017

An experiment examining perceptual frameworks and their influence on facets of memory.

Creative Confidence and Divergent Thinking

2018

An experiment exploring the cognitive components of divergent thinking and the role of creative confidence in problem-solving.

The Effects of Acute Exercise on Working Memory Capacity (WMC)

2018

An experiment investigating the acute effects of aerobic exercise on WMC.

Preprints

The Inflammatory Cascade Through Discrimination, Socioeconomic Status, and Body-Mass Index

Preprint hosted on medRxiv.

Receptive Vocabulary Performance Varies with Depression

Preprint hosted on PsyArXiv via Open Science Framework.

Genetic Prediction of Parkinson’s Diagnosis: Firth to Ensemble Learning

Preprint hosted on medRxiv.

The Prognostic Value of Genetic Architectures in Cognitive Decline

Preprint hosted on medRxiv.

Heterogeneity In Multimodal AI Feature Engineering Utility For Explaining Change In Dementia

Preprint hosted on PsyArXiv via Open Science Framework.

Professional Experience

Senior Data Scientist (III)

Centene 2022 - 2025

Designed and developed machine learning, evaluation, and probabilistic forecasting (claims spend, utilization, and marketwide membership) for every plan and every medical department of care (i.e. oncology, cardiology, neurology, etc) in every status (scheduled, urgent, emergency, etc) in California. Developed interactive R Shiny web applications updated daily. Managed fail-safe data ingestion pipelines handling 0.5B-1.5B rows of healthcare claims data.

R Shiny Machine Learning AWS S3 Posit Connect

Epidemiologist - Data Science Team

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health 2020 - 2022

Led the Outbreak Management SQL Server Team. Produced complex reproducible reports 7 days a week using R, SAS, and SQL. Developed de-identified data wrangling pipelines for all Los Angeles County School COVID-19 data.

SQL Server SAS R Distributed Team Lead

Researcher

Claremont Graduate University (CGU), Public Health/Mathematics Dec 2020 - Mid 2021

Leveraged open-source natural language processing libraries to build tabular time-series from unstructured text. Applied AI for predictive models and contributed to the implementation of parameterized models.

NLP Time-Series Predictive AI

Statistical Consultant

Statistics Without Borders 2019 - Per Engagement

Led a distributed team of data scientists on an NLP project concerning COVID-19. Presented at the 2020 Joint Statistical Meeting (JSM) on supporting emergency response clients.

NLP Team Leadership JSM Presenter

Graduate Teaching Assistant

CGU, School of Community & Global Health May 2020 - Aug 2020

Mediation, conditional process modeling, growth curves, multinomial regression, and mixed effects.

Teaching Advanced Statistics Regression

Graduate Teaching Assistant

CGU, Transdisciplinary Studies May 2020 - Aug 2020

Dimensional reduction, dealing with missing data, visualization, and time-series data wrangling.

Data Wrangling Visualization Teaching

Support

Pomona High-Performance Computing Unit June 2019 - Oct 2020

Leveraged supercomputers for Natural Language Processing. Presented on H2O Driverless AI and ggplot2.

NLP H2O.ai Supercomputing

Researcher

CGU, School of Community & Global Health Jan 2019 - May 2019

Fit generalized low-rank models, Bayesian mixed effects models, and gradient boosting machines for longitudinal responses to breast cancer treatments.

Dimensionality Reduction Bayesian Statistics Gradient Boosting

Researcher

Human Working Memory Lab Jan 2018 - Dec 2018

Built cognitive tasks, ran experiments in accordance with human research ethics, and analyzed data via reproducible pipelines for cognitive science.

Cognitive Science Reproducible Pipelines Experiment Design

Community Adviser

Claremont Collegiate Apartments June 2016 - Aug 2020

Served as a resource and community adviser for residents.

Leadership Community Building Safety

One Team Lead

Deloitte April 2013 - Aug 2013

Led operational teams to support business objectives.

Team Leadership Operations

Cofounder

Studiomix Nov 2011 - April 2013

Co-founded a San Francisco-based health and fitness startup.

Entrepreneurship Service Design Hiring Functional Exercise Nutrition

Teaching

Technical Toolbox

Languages & AI

  • R / Python / Julia / SAS
  • SQL / Arrow
  • Agentic LLMs (Command Line, IDE integrations)
  • Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Forecasting / Statistics

Statistics & Modeling

  • Causal Inference
  • Bayesian Statistics
  • Structural Equation Models
  • Psychometrics

Infrastructure & Tools

  • Shiny / Posit Connect
  • AWS (EC2, S3)
  • Docker / CI/CD
  • Cloud Computing

Honors & Awards

James A. Blaisdell Fellow

2019

Claremont Graduate University

Howard R. Houston Fellow

2017

Claremont Graduate University

Randall Lewis Fellow

2016

Claremont Graduate University (Declined)

Dean's International Scholar

2010

San Jose State University

Leadership Alliance Scholar

2009

Tufts University

Ronald E. McNair Scholar

2009

San Jose State University

S. H. Scaffold Scholar

2008

San Jose State University

Education

Ph.D. Health Promotion Sciences

Neurocognitive Sciences, Biostatistics, and Epidemiology

Claremont Graduate University, Post-Coursework 2020

Tool Milestone: Data Science 2019

Machine Learning Scientist

Machine Learning Scientist Certificate

DataCamp, 2026

Credential ID 33ab3bdeab3d9364bb18ef3e3608044ecd1347d6

Statistician

R Statistician Certificate

DataCamp, 2020

Credential ID 147123

Master of Public Health

Biostatistics and Epidemiology

Claremont Graduate University, 2019

Artificial Intelligence Bootcamp

Kinestry, 2019

Data Scientist

R Data Scientist Certificate

DataCamp, 2017

Credential ID 5703

Data Analyst

R Data Analyst Certificate

DataCamp, 2017

Credential ID 4526

Developer

R Developer Certificate

DataCamp, 2017

Credential ID 4799

Bachelor's degree

Global Studies

San Jose State University, 2010

#1 Most Transformative University #5 Public University in the U.S.

Personal Trainer

ACE-CPT

American Council on Exercise, 2007

Let's Work Together