Sheila Wafula – Data Storytelling Portfolio

Welcome to my public portfolio for Telling Stories with Data at Carnegie Mellon University.
This space documents my work, reflections, and growth throughout the course.

Web page:
https://shishi5089.github.io/sheila-data-portfolio/

Repository:
https://github.com/shishi5089/sheila-data-portfolio/

About Me

Hi, I am Sheila — a Master’s student in Information Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. My background spans software development, data science, and research, and I have had the opportunity to work across a range of domains including public health, financial systems, and GIS web platform development.

I am drawn to problems where data can drive meaningful decisions, and I care deeply about making technical work accessible — not just to other engineers, but to the policymakers, practitioners, and communities who ultimately act on it. That gap between insight and understanding is something I think about a lot, which is exactly what brought me to this course.

Outside of work and school, I am passionate about community engagement, mentorship, and the intersection of technology and equity.

What I Hope to Learn

I come into this course with a solid technical foundation in building models, processing large datasets, and developing data-driven applications. What I want to develop here is the other half of that skillset: the ability to communicate findings clearly, compellingly, and honestly.

Specifically, I hope to:

Develop a principled approach to choosing the right visualization for the right message
Learn to critique data visualizations, identifying what works, what misleads, and why
Build habits around design clarity and visual integrity that I can carry into research and professional work
Create a portfolio that demonstrates not just technical ability, but the ability to tell a coherent story with data

By the end of this course, I want to move fluidly between analysis and communication, and this portfolio will be the record of that journey.

Portfolio

Data Viz Examples

View examples

Assignment: Visualizing Government Debt

Assignment 3 & 4: Critique by Design

Final Project

Part I
Part II
Part III (in progress)

AI Acknowledgements

Claude (Anthropic) was used to help structure and draft content on this page and across assignments in this portfolio, in line with course guidelines. All work, observations and decisions are my own.