---
title: About
---
<img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/b464bd12dd8e08493990689147d7a422?s=128" class="img-rounded" style="float:left;margin:0 10px 0 0;" />

I am Austin Rochford, a PhD student in the [Department of Mathematics](http://www.math.uiuc.edu) at the [University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign](http://www.uiuc.edu).  My academic research is in [operator algebras](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operator_algebra), specifically the relationship between geometric group theory and analytic approximation properties.

As I near the completion of my degree, I am transitioning into an industry career in data science.

I am passionate about math education, statistics, machine learning, software development, functional programming, and [pit](/images/snowdogs.png) [bulls](http://rescueapittie.org/).

This site is generated by [Hakyll](http://jaspervdj.be/hakyll/), a static site generator written in [Haskell](http://www.haskell.org).  The code that Hakyll uses to generate this site is open source and available on [GitHub](http://www.github.com/AustinRochford/www).  This site uses CSS from [Bootstrap](http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/index.html), specifically, Thomas Park's [Cosmo](http://bootswatch.com/cosmo) theme.


---
title: About
---
About
-----

<img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/b464bd12dd8e08493990689147d7a422?s=128" class="img-rounded" style="float:left;margin:0 10px 0 0;" />

I am Austin Rochford, a PhD student in the [Department of Mathematics](http://www.math.uiuc.edu) at the [University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign](http://www.uiuc.edu).  My academic research is in [operator algebras](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operator_algebra), specifically the relationship between geometric group theory and analytic approximation properties.

As I near the completion of my degree, I am transitioning into an industry career in data science.

I am passionate about math education, statistics, machine learning, software development, functional programming, and [pit](/images/snowdogs.png) [bulls](http://rescueapittie.org/).

This site is generated by [Hakyll](http://jaspervdj.be/hakyll/), a static site generator written in [Haskell](http://www.haskell.org).  The code that Hakyll uses to generate this site is open source and available on [GitHub](http://www.github.com/AustinRochford/www).  This site uses CSS from [Bootstrap](http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/index.html), specifically, Thomas Park's [Cosmo](http://bootswatch.com/cosmo) theme.


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