Master of Engineering, Tennessee State University
Concentration in Environmental Engineering

Post-Baccalaureate Program, University of Kentucky
Civil and Environmental Engineering

Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, University of Tennessee

Irucka Embry’s R Packages: https://www.ecoccs.com/rtraining.html#repos
Irucka Embry’s R Examples: https://www.ecoccs.com/rtraining.html#examp

Work Experience:

Principal, November 2007 – Present
EcoC2S
Nashville, TN

Performing R programming tasks for clients and/or myself, including the creation and maintenance of R packages for CRAN (iemisc, iemiscdata, ie2misc, ie2miscdata, USA.state.boundaries, and install.load).

Performing data mining, data cleaning and munging & explored data visualization techniques on a variety of data stored in Microsoft Excel/Libre Office Calc spreadsheets, MariaDB/MySQL databases, and text files using R.

Notable Projects
Created R scripts and functions to download and harmonize data from the United Nations (UN) MICS database.

Created R scripts and functions to visualize the ecological interactions between viruses and bats based on their location.

Created an R package to perform fuzzy matching on two large databases to be merged together.

Adjunct Professor, August 2016 – Present
August 2015 – December 2015
August 2013 – December 2014
Tennessee State University (TSU) Civil and Architectural Engineering Department
Nashville, TN

Prepare students to take the NCEES Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) Examination through teaching test-taking strategies and effective methods to solve a variety of engineering problems.

Mentor both undergraduate and graduate students with regards to both academic and career goals.

Instructed students in the Theory of Structures I (Structural Analysis) course, which is about the analysis of statically determinate and indeterminate structures.

Taught Structural Testing Laboratory, which is about the design and testing of concrete mixes.

Instructed students in the Freshman Engineering Seminar course which introduces the following topics: Personal and Engineering Ethics (including discussing current issues such as the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear power plant explosions & the General Motors parts recall), the path to PE licensure, Problem solving, computer programming with R and MATLAB/GNU Octave, Statistics and Probability (including the analysis of product failure rates), Engineering Economics, and Communication.

Participated in Department meetings and made improvement recommendations to the Department Chair.

Transportation Project Specialist, December 2016 – July 2021
Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) Environmental Division Ecology and Permits Office, Permits Section
Nashville, TN

Was responsible for obtaining environmental permits associated with water resource alterations to waterbodies (creeks, rivers, springs, streams, wetlands, and wet weather conveyances), impacts to potential sinkholes, and stormwater management [National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Construction Stormwater Permit] for transportation projects from federal and/or state environmental agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, TDEC, and the Tennessee Valley Authority; reviewed water resource information provided by the TDOT Ecology Section and transportation engineering plans to determine potential water resource impacts, permit requirements, and the type of permits needed; review project design plans and provide assessments of the proposed impacts that specify changes which are required to the plans to meet all the environmental requirements necessary for permit application; identified and located on construction plans the proposed impacts to jurisdictional water resources in the form of a permit assessment to describe the extent of the construction-related impacts and any required mitigation for the proposed project impacts; attend field review meetings to address environmental requirements and concerns; and after receiving revised project plans, review them to ensure all environmental issues have been addressed prior to permit application.

Designed a new Microsoft Access database for our office based on office feedback.

Wrote R scripts and functions to convert between engineering survey coordinates in Tennessee and Kentucky.

Scientist II, July 2013 – July 2015
Cherokee Nation Technology Solutions, LLC (CNTS)
Nashville, TN

Worked on assignment for the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) Lower Mississippi – Gulf Water Science Center (LMG WSC) assisting them with data management and analysis & computer modeling.

Provided R Trainings for both TSU students/faculty & USGS colleagues.

Performed data mining, data cleaning and munging & explored data visualization techniques on a variety of data stored in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and text files using R.

Wrote many R functions (similar to Microsoft Excel macros) to clean and compile data stored in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

Wrote R functions to perform lookup ups between tables (similar in scope to VLOOKUP in Microsoft Excel).

Displayed data using pivot tables in R (similar to pivot tables in Microsoft Excel).

Used MariaDB/MySQL to create and manage a database from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing numerous tabs for easier data analysis in R.

Extracted tabular data stored in Portable Document Format (PDF) documents to create a geographic map in R.

Physical Science Technician, May 2012 – April 2013
August 2011 – September 2011
USGS Tennessee Water Science Center
Nashville, TN

Performed data mining, data cleaning and munging & explored data visualization techniques on a variety of data stored in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and text files using R.

Graduate Student Researcher, January 2011 – August 2012
TSU Civil and Environmental Engineering Department
Nashville, TN

Explored data visualization techniques on a variety of data stored in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets using GNU Octave/MATLAB.

Landfill Operations Manager, October 2005 – November 2007
Rutherford County Landfill
Murfreesboro, TN

Directed, oversaw, and managed landfill operations and activities.

Designed Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and monthly report spreadsheets to analyze the volume of waste generated from both residential and commercial customers.

Volunteer Experience:

Volunteer for Science, July 2015 – Present
April 2013 – June 2013
USGS LMG WSC
Nashville, TN

Created and maintained R packages (ie2misc, ie2miscdata, states2k, and FEWSR).

Performed data mining, data cleaning and munging & explored data visualization techniques on a variety of data stored in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and text files using R.

• R (10+ years experience)
• GNU Octave/MATLAB (2 years experience)
• Microsoft Windows and GNU/Linux {Bash shell] (Operating Systems)
• Microsoft Office Suite (Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word) and LibreOffice Suite (Base, Calc, Impress, Writer)
• MariaDB/MySQL (Database)
• ArcGIS (ArcMap), QGIS and R
• The GIMP and Inkscape (Image Manipulation)
• HTML and CSS (Web site development)

Public speaking

English