Researcher · Evaluation Specialist · Statistical Programmer
Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning | Austin, TX | Texas 2036
Alchemizing ☕ caffeine into Stata code
Two decades in Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, working where complex statistical programming meets applied policy research. I build the evidence base for state, federal and foundation-funded programs in education, behavioral health and juvenile justice — and I build the tooling that makes that work reproducible. Currently at the non-partisan policy think tank Texas 2036, on data-driven policy for the state.
→ The code portfolio — every tool I maintain, searchable by the problem it solves, with a gallery of what eleven of the packages actually produce.
 mergemap every join, mapped |
 surveymap survey flow & skips |
 gpolish polished Stata graphs |
 Sparkta2 interactive Texas maps |
 DashboardBuilder HTML/JS dashboards |
 StataShiny widgets in the browser |
 Webdoc2 do-file → website |
 GoogleChart Google Charts from Stata |
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Additional galleries → more outputs in the code portfolio |
Build & publish
| Package | What it does | Install |
|---|---|---|
dashboardbuilder v1.3.4 |
Self-contained interactive HTML dashboards, written from a do-file | ssc install dashboardbuilder |
statashiny v1.5.4 |
Shiny-style widgets that recompute in the browser | ssc install statashiny |
sparkta2 v0.8.13 |
Interactive small-multiple and county maps, charts and dashboards | GitHub |
webdoc2 v1.1.6 |
Turns the do-file that made the numbers into the page that reports them | GitHub |
googlechart v0.1.7 |
Google Charts and dashboards driven straight from Stata | ssc install googlechart |
statplot v1.3.0 |
Plots of summary statistics, by category (with Nicholas J. Cox) | ssc install statplot |
gpolish v0.4.0 |
Publication-style Stata graphs: direct labels, callouts and an optional matplotlib render | GitHub |
Analyze, inspect & document
| Package | What it does | Install |
|---|---|---|
peerpick v0.1.2 |
Picks a comparison group for one unit, then tests how much it mattered | GitHub |
mergemap v0.5.6 |
Maps every join in a do-file and what each did to the row count | GitHub |
surveymap v0.8.4 |
Survey flow maps that count answers, refusals and skips separately | GitHub |
datadictionary v1.0.2 |
Over-time-ready codebooks across survey waves | ssc install datadictionary |
srctag v2.0.1 |
Stamps variables with source lineage, then searches that provenance | GitHub |
reshapehelper v1.0.1 |
Diagnoses the data and suggests the reshape before you run it | ssc install reshapehelper |
Pull, package & share
| Package | What it does | Install |
|---|---|---|
ercotapi v1.0.2 |
Pulls ERCOT grid data — prices, load, generation — straight into Stata | GitHub |
webapi v0.1.4 |
Fetches an authenticated JSON web API into Stata as a dataset | ssc install webapi |
googlesheets v0.1.7 |
Read, write and format Google Sheets without leaving Stata | ssc install googlesheets |
datadeposit v0.1.1 |
Archive-ready copies of a dataset for Stata, R and Python in one step | GitHub |
projectbuilder v2.1.2 |
Scaffolds a project folder with a numbered do-file pipeline | ssc install projectbuilder |
Actively maintained, with the current version shown; the full set lives in the code portfolio.
Background & expertise
Now: Texas 2036 — data modernization and advanced analytics for state policy.
Previously: Senior Director of Research and President at Far Harbor, LLC (promoted from Sr. Statistician, 2020) · Research Faculty at the Texas A&M Public Policy Research Institute · Lecturer in Health Policy & Management at Texas A&M, teaching graduate research methods and statistical programming · Senior Research Scientist at Gibson Consulting Group. Affiliated researcher with the Texas Education Research Center and the Southwest Regional Education Laboratory (REL).
Selected impact. Published in the Journal of Developmental Education, Party Politics, American Journal of Public Health and the Journal of Applied Research on Children; co-author of a book from Teachers College Press; 80+ technical and evaluation reports. The CSG-sponsored study Breaking Schools' Rules provided statewide longitudinal analysis of school discipline and juvenile justice placement that informed state and federal legislative change, and was cited as a motivating study for President Obama's My Brother's Keeper initiative.
Core expertise
- Statistical programming — expert-level Stata (active SSC contributor) and Python; working R, SAS and NVivo.
- Complex modeling — multilevel models, panel data, sampling weights, nonresponse bias sensitivity; LASSO and related ML.
- Workflow automation — reproducible end-to-end pipelines, from raw data to analytic dataset to deliverable.
- Study design — lead investigator on large longitudinal studies and RCTs, including designs built for messy collection and hard-to-retain participants.
Teaching. Workshops on applied evaluation, including AI-assisted methods — most recently the NSF-funded Research in Excellence workshop at Prairie View A&M and the Texas Evaluation Network annual meeting.
Data advocacy. State-level data modernization and data-rescue work: harmonization, machine-readability and transparency in public reporting.
- Website: www.eric-booth.com
- Email: eric.a.booth@gmail.com
- RePEc / SSC: software and papers
- Statalist: active member and contributor