I'm James Hayes (né McMahon) (he/him), a Principal Information Analyst for Public Health Scotland with a passion for data and its power to drive meaningful insights. My journey into the world of data started with a Maths BSc from the University of St Andrews, and since then, I've been on an exciting ride through the ever-evolving landscape of data science.

I live in the beautiful region of Perthshire, Scotland, and I'm a big advocate for remote work. Working for PHS in this way is excellent for maintaining a healthy work-life balance and ensuring I can maximise my time with my family. It also gives me the flexibility to serve my community as a retained firefighter.

When I'm not wrangling data or responding to emergencies, I enjoy exploring my hobbyist interest in Python.

Here are some of the technologies I work with:

I'm particularly proficient in R's tidyverse ecosystem for data manipulation and visualisation, and I have extensive experience in mentoring and training others in these skills.

Here are some of the projects I'm proud to have worked on:

• Source Linkage Files: I played a key role in the management and development of source linkage files, which are crucial for connecting different health datasets and enabling powerful, large-scale research.
• Locality Profiles: I led the creation of locality profiles, providing detailed health and social care data at a local level to help inform decision-making and improve services.

• OctopusR: An R package for interacting with the Octopus Energy API, allowing users to easily retrieve and analyse their energy data.
• phsmethods: A collection of standardised methods for common analytical tasks in Public Health Scotland, improving efficiency and reproducibility.
• phsopendata: A package that simplifies access to data from the Scottish Health and Social Care Open Data platform.
• phslookups: A package for working with PHS lookup files.
• phstemplates: An R package for creating standardised R projects and documents at Public Health Scotland. The functionality from phssensitivitylabels has been incorporated into this package.

Here's a snapshot of my GitHub activity:

I prefer to be contacted by email. You can reach me at the email address associated with my GitHub account.