Half Stack Data Science

S03E04 - The language of data literacy - with Valerie Logan

Half Stack Data Science

Show Notes

Continuing our series of conversations with data educators, in this episode we spoke to Valerie Logan.

Founding The Data Lodge in 2019, Valerie is as committed to data literacy as it gets. She believes that in today's digital society, data literacy is not just a work skill- it's a life skill. With advisory services, train-the-trainer bootcamps, an extensive resource library and community services at The Data Lodge, Valerie is certifying the world’s first Data Literacy Program Leads across commercial, nonprofit and public sectors.

In 2022, The Data Lodge was recognized by CDO Magazine as one of the "Top 25 Data Startups to Watch in 2022". Valerie has more than 28 years of experience, including two decades of global consulting across industries, and five years of applied experience in the telecommunications industry at both field and enterprise levels. She holds a B.S. in Math from SUNY College at Buffalo and an M.S. in Applied Math with a concentration in Operations Research from New Mexico State.

We talked to Valerie about how literacy in data is like literacy in any language, how to spread data literacy effectively in a business, what are some obstacles to doing this, how you measure the success of a data literacy program, and of course the effect of the emergence of AI on all of the above. Valerie even made a custom Scrabble board just for this episode, you can see that on our website halfstackdatascience.com

If you enjoy our podcast, please consider rating and reviewing it on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

More from Half Stack Data Science

Jul 26, 2026

In this episode, we tackle the question of learning in the age of AI. Among other things, we talked about: whether worrying about AI is the same as worrying about calculators why David gets all his students to turn AI features off while learning why rising token prices might end up being a great thing whether AI slop is worse than human slop what we can learn from sailing as we think about our future in an AI world

May 4, 2026

In this episode, we discuss: - Will people really just write all their own software instead of buying it? - Is the change management around GenAI projects any different from other technologies? - What is the right approach when giving people freedom to vibe code internal tools? - Is there room for a new role to emerge as a bridge between vibe coding and useful internal tools, a technical connector of AI capability and business value?

Mar 16, 2026

In the first episode of the new season, we discuss: whether it's a good thing that we can produce more with GenAI, how GenAI will force us to consider the purpose of education, how we are supposed to develop wisdom if GenAI can just build everything for us, how AI-written code introduces "cognitive debt", and in a roundabout way we discuss whether GenAI will kill software companies --- David’s book, The Well-Grounded Data Analyst is out! ⁠https://www.manning.com/books/the-well-grounded-data-analyst⁠ If you want to find out more, we have a whole episode about it: https://halfstackdatascience.com/s3-finale-the-well-grounded-data-analyst-with-david-asboth

Jan 24, 2026

In this episode, we wrapped up 2025 by reflecting on what we talked about on the podcast, where AI is and where it's heading, and looked ahead to 2026. We also discussed some of our favourite sci-fi books we read last year!

Jun 22, 2025

In this episode, we spoke to Kirsten Hill. Dr Kirsten Hill is a researcher, writer, and the founder of bisque — a survey platform that actually cares if you get good data. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, has led research for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and has worked with over 100 mission-driven teams on measurement & evaluation. This past year, she authored her first book, Ask Better Questions, a top release on survey design — and realized that writing the book wasn’t enough. If she really wanted to change how people do research, she had to build the tools that would make it easier to do it right. With real-time AI feedback, intuitive design, and built-in best practices, bisque makes it easy to create surveys that get you the answers you actually need. We spoke to Kirsten about how and why surveys are often bad, why she believes the major survey platforms aren't fit for purpose, why she's building her own survey platform "bisque", how she's using Large Language Models to develop a working prototype, and what advice she has for other non-programmers who want to build things with AI. You can find her on: LinkedIn @kirstenleehill TikTok @kirstenleehill Substack kirstenleehill.substack.com

See all episodes →