Meet Kendall Mcneil
Kendall McNeil
Kendall joined the City Leadership team in February 2024 as our Data Scientist.
What brought Kendall to Memphis
Though my roots lie in Houston, Memphis now feels like home. I arrived here in 2012 to attend Rhodes College, and, apart from brief stints in New York City and Massachusetts, I've been here ever since.
My time at Rhodes was truly remarkable—a place where debate flourished, and a time where my critical thinking skills were deeply formed. It simultaneously nurtured in me a love for this city and a passion for educational equity.
Passion for Education
My own K-12 educational journey, experiencing a variety of school environments, fostered in me a keen understanding of how surrounding environments impact our joy of learning and motivation.
Additionally, while at Rhodes, I began teaching prenatal care courses to teenage moms in local high schools through Young Lives Ministries, an organization close to my heart for over a decade now.
My educational journey coupled with my experience serving in Memphis public high schools left an indelible impression on me, which led me to teach in South Memphis following graduation.
The field of data science
During my time in New York City as a Project Manager and Special Assistant to the President of Uncommon Schools, a large charter school network of 52 schools in the northeast, I discovered my knack for making sense of numbers and building efficient systems. Data-informed, organization-wide decision making was the name of the game, and Python code enabled me to do my work effectively.
Concurrently, I was pursuing my Master’s at Harvard University in Psychology, where I focused my research on the impact trauma has on knowledge retention, both related to K-12 students and workplace psychology (known as Industrial/Organizational Psychology).
Additionally, I worked as a Researcher at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where I analyzed longitudinal pediatric healthcare data to explore trends associated with the development of learned helplessness.
These experiences collectively sparked my niche interest in the intersection of psychology and data science (plug to check out my blog about this very topic linked here). I am thrilled to contribute my knowledge of statistical analysis, coding, data modeling, and machine learning/AI to an organization I deeply believe in, doing meaningful work in a city I love.
Kendall outside of work
In my free time, you'll find me enjoying quality time with my better half, Jackson McNeil, and our toddler, Theo. We're often outdoors, playing ping pong, or hosting friends. I'm also an avid blogger and reader, particularly drawn to authors who make research accessible to the general public.
Some favorites include:
Rescuing Socrates by Dr. Roosevelt Montás
All books by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker
Upstream by Dr. Dan Heath
Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS by Dr. Andy Field
And for lighter reading, the Children of Blood and Bone series by Tomi Adeyemi
Connect with Kendall
I love connecting with others who share similar passions and interests, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you'd like to connect. Cheers!
