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Analyze Boulder Census

Members of Analyze Boulder, "a community of data geeks who live, work, and play in Boulder, Colorado," answered a brief survey asking

their age within a decade
the professional and academic fields of study / work they identify with
their level of formal education
if they are freelancing or contracting

The visualization below describes census results, elucidating the nature of Analyze Boulder and, while certainly not conclusive given the sample size, hints at who comprises the larger "data science" community and, by extension, what "data science" is.

Hover over almost any part of the visualization including the names of the fields, the age groups, and the education levels to reveal more info. See instructions at the end of the page for more info about controls and important caveats to the data.

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Controls:

Hover over an age group to see which fields respondants in that age range identify with.

Hover over an degree group to see which fields respondants with that degree level identify with..

Hover over an age / degree intersection group to see which fields respondants of that age with that degree level identify with.

Hover over a field average point to see more information about that field.

Hover over a field's information display to see more details about it. This includes how many respondants the selected discipline shares with other fields as well as the age and degree levels of the selected disciplines' members

[Notes] Repsondants reported age by decade, projecting the continuous metric to interval scale. Respondants selected from a list of fields they identify with that included an "other" option with free-form text. While this could cause over-reporting,

the source of the survey (a meetup focused on data science) may have unintentionally discouraged identification with fields traditionally outside of data science as users may assume the group was only interested in expressely related disciplines
natural text response would have resisted conversion to a nominal scale (necessary for examination as a graph) and a similar prior survey run by Analyze Boulder lead to ambiguity in how to categorize a large number of respondants

Those reporting "other" are listed in their own category in the visualization. Finally and most embarrassingly, the web based survey was constructed very quickly during an event and some survey respondants saw a version with age groups: 20-30, 30-40, etc. Still, while possible, it is unlikely this issue would change many conclusions drawn from this graphic.