Since September 2023, I have worked as a Data Scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Mission Area's Integrated Information Dissemination Division. In this role, I lead the Analytics task for WMA's web products, analyze water scarcity data using Natural Language Processing and modeling, and contribute to various USGS-maintained R and Python packages. Check out my USGS staff profile over at https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/joseph-zemmels.

I hold a Ph.D. in Statistics from the Department of Statistics at Iowa State University and Graduate Research Assistant at the Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence (CSAFE). My research interests are in pattern recognition and forensic statistics, with an emphasis on firearm and toolmark evidence.

I earned my M.Sc. in statistics in 2020 from Iowa State University and B.Sc. in Honors Mathematics and Mathematics: Secondary Education from Winona State University in 2017.

I love creating tools to help others learn and analyze data more effectively. Check out the cartridgeInvestigatR web application I developed to help forensic examiners engage with cartridge case comparison algorithms.