About Me

Hi! I’m Jess Helmer. I’m a third-year PhD student in the Quantitative Psychology program at Georgia Tech, working under Dr. Mark Himmelstein. I enjoy developing and evaluating statistical models, especially in the Bayesian framework. Right now, some things I’m working on are:

• a metaanalysis model of how people incorporate advice into their own beliefs,

• techniques to examine and account for the impact of measurement reactivity (when responses differ in different measurement contexts), and

• methods to more precisely measure someone’s ability at making accurate forecasts about future events.

I’m a huge R nerd, and love learning about the latest and greatest in R development. My newest obsession is the {targets} package, which has quickly been integrated into almost all of my projects. I’m also a gargantuan Quarto fan, and I’m always exploring the different ways it can facilitate data and analytics communication.

I have two cats and many plants, though fewer than I used to. I’m a (new, and still learning) amateur radio enthusiast, and in summer 2025, I got my Technician license. I also love to gobble up some sci-fi: I’m currently watching the new season of Silo, and my favorite authors are Octavia Butler and Cixin Liu.