David Olsen

David Olsen is a Research Data Engineer and Consultant with the Liberal Arts Technologies and Innovation Services (LATIS) in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota. He works at the intersection of research computing, data engineering, and applied data science, helping faculty and students across the liberal arts design and utilize research systems that are scalable, reproducible, and computationally efficient.

With an academic background in economics, mathematics, and statistics, David approaches research infrastructure with a focus on quantitative design and efficiency. His work includes acquiring and modeling complex data, developing algorithms and pipelines to improve computational performance, and creating environments that simplify the use of advanced methods. He often relies on high-performance computing and container technologies to ensure that research remains reproducible and scalable across disciplines.

Recent projects include the design and maintenance of CLA’s high-performance research cluster; building APIs and automation tools that connect MTurk, Prolific, Qualtrics, and custom web-based studies; and deploying cloud-based data pipelines and dashboards for large-scale survey and behavioral research. He has also developed machine-learning models for image analysis and mobile eye-tracking data, and created an MRI simulator used in teaching behavioral and neuroimaging research methods. Other efforts have focused on automation, orchestration, and the broader design of research infrastructure.

In addition to his technical work, David teaches workshops that help researchers integrate programming languages and computational tools into their work. He collaborates widely across the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences, adapting disciplinary approaches to scalable research environments. He also contributes to college initiatives that advance reproducibility, open science, and sustainable computing within the liberal arts.