Elijah Taber
Data Scientist | Physicist | Army Veteran:
Transforming Chaos Into Insight, One Dataset At A Time
Data Scientist | Physicist | Army Veteran:
Transforming Chaos Into Insight, One Dataset At A Time
Graduated high school and enlisted in the Army. After 12 years of school and being a full time athelete, I was ready to see the world.
Completed Basic Training and PSYOP school. Discipline, integrity, teamwork, and work ethic were infused into my everyday life, shaping me into the man I am today.
Transferred to Portland State University to pursue a Physics degree where I was learning how to think like a scientist and dive deep into some of the most complex problems humanity has ever faced.
Graduated with a degree in Physics and a minor in Geology. With a strong foundation in physics, mathematics, electrical engineering, chemistry, and geology, I was ready for my next step forward.
Got married to my best friend and began a new path. While settling down in my new home, I start programming and doing lesson on a daily basis, trying to learn everything there is to know about data science, software, and artificial intelligence.
I start my degree in Data Science with a minor in Information Systems at Bellevue University, coding 7 days a week for 2 years straight. Here, I spend my time building projects, diving into theory, and getting a 4.0 on all my classes. Retired from the Army Reserves
Graduated with a 4.0 GPA, now holding 2 degrees and all the knowledge that comes with them. As well as thousands upon thousands of hours of programming, data analysis, machine learning, and problem solving. Now very eager to apply these skills to a goal I am passionate about.
Constructed an extremely extensive full-stack data science pipeline to predict and display future atmospheric gas emissions using a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM), a type of Recursive Neural Network (RNN), as a time series analysis model that was deployed on a fully interactable website built from scratch. Millions of raw data points were scraped from NOAA GML and NASA MODIS, then cleaned, transformed, and loaded into a PostgreSQL database for further analysis.
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Psychological Operations (PSYOP) is a specific occupation in the U.S. Army's Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (USACAPOC), which is a subdivision of the Special Operations Command (SOCOM). USACAPOC’s PSYOP community represents an elite cadre of experts rigorously trained to dissect foreign target audiences, analyzing cultural norms, sociopolitical dynamics, cognitive vulnerabilities, and behavioral triggers, to create meticulously tailored messaging strategies. Leveraging master-level psychology, behavioral science, and advanced communication tactics, we identified and exploited strengths, weaknesses, and latent fissures within populations or adversarial groups to sway motives, beliefs, and actions in alignment with U.S. objectives. Unlike conventional forces, PSYOP operators achieve mission success through persuasion rather than force, requiring a blend of analytical precision, creative adaptability, and ethical discernment to avoid blowback. Every decision carried strategic weight, as missteps could escalate conflicts or undermine trust. Surviving PSYOP training and operations meant proving you could outthink adversaries, anticipate cultural nuances invisible to outsiders, and wield psychology as deftly as a weapon through the art of reshaping human behavior at scale. As my Sergeant once told me, PSYOP Specialits are not psychologists, they are the reason you need a psychologist.
I can remember my first day at PSYOP school like it was yesterday. There were around 10 of us that just got done with 3 very long and extremely grueling months of Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood in the hot Missouri climate, and were all ready to start our training for PSYOP school. We arrived at Fort Bragg at around 1am and it was pouring down rain. The first thing we were greeted with was 6 screaming PSYOP instructors (each of which have seen combat multiple times) ordering us to get on the ground and start doing push ups and flutter kicks until sunrise. While we were doing this in the middle of a thunder storm, they would get right in our face and tell us that this school will be the hardest thing any of us will ever do in our lives and they are going to try to break us every single day as this is not a place for the weak. They were right, it was the hardest thing I have ever done by far, but nevertheless 3 months later I walked across the graduation stage and saluted my commander as PSYOP Specialist. Since then, in my 320th PSYOP Company in Oregon, I have been deployed to the Philippines in 2017 to maintain a strong relationship with the Philippine government and prepare them for operations against ISIS on their own soil. I have been promoted multiple times to a leadership position, earned the respect of all my fellow soldiers (they called me "Master Chief"), and retired honorably in 2023. The experiences that changed me from boy to man have shaped me into the tenacious person I am today, knowing I can accomplish anything, no matter the difficulty, all I have to do is work for it.
