Overview: As part of my 'Blueprint for Modernity' coursework, I conducted an original research project to contribute to work on the history of engineering.

Identified historical source data from The Cornellian, Cornell's yearbook, from 1875-1915

Converted documents to usable text data

Cleaned the data for usability and relevancy using R/RStudio

Visualized the data in 5 multi-panel visualizations using ggplotly

Analyzed the data with historical context

Presented the findings in a 30-page final research report

I found my primary source data on the online HathiTrust digital library. Its original format was scanned document pages, which I downloaded and converted to text files after isolating the lists of faculty.

Using R, I cleaned these text files and merged them into a usable, formatted database.

Using my newly cleaned database, I was able to create 5 multi-panel interactive visualizations providing insight into the world of the early engineering faculty at Cornell, including student-to-faculty ratio, turnover, distribution of specializations, alumni professors, and more. A few examples are shown below:

The final report included an appendix containing these visualizations, a discussion of the insights from each, and full historical context to enrich the understanding of the visualizations.

Project Paper:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VeCJ9SyYGshH8Hd3awvHPzA61GgTC7N8lF5aJxbPOIA/edit