Welcome Miguel - our new Analytics Engineer

Miguel Roca-Terry, Analytics Engineer, Data Orchard

This month, we welcomed Miguel Roca-Terry – our new Analytics Engineer – to the Data Orchard team. Miguel brings a unique mix of skills and experience that we’re confident will hugely benefit our clients and sector.  

To introduce Miguel to the wider Data Orchard community and help you get to know him, here’s a little interview:

Welcome to Data Orchard, we're delighted to have you on the team. For those who haven't met you yet, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your career journey so far?  

Thank you, it’s great to be joining the team!  

Well, for starters I’m a man of many names and enjoy a mixed heritage (born British, Irish and Peruvian by descent). My Latin American father registered me as Miguel with the local authorities when we used to live in Spain. I’ve used that name in a professional context for many years, but I’m also registered in the UK as Michael (often known as Mike socially).   

I feel blessed with many things including my wonderful family: my wife and I have two school-age children who are lots of fun. In my free time I enjoy walking our miniature schnauzer called Alfie, reading, travelling, creative writing, exercising, and doing martial arts (Chinese kung fu and Karate). 

My career has been a little eclectic so far. I was a musician and educator for many years before studying data journalism in 2020. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of being a data journalist at a commercial analytics firm, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the BBC. 

Is there a piece of work/data-related project you're most proud of that you can tell us about? 

That’s a tough question! If I had to choose one, I’d probably go with a collaborative census-related interactive story I worked on at the ONS called The geographic divide in health, disability, and unpaid care.  

I developed a novel summary scoring method combining three distinct datasets. The scores powered an interactive map featured at the end of the story and drove key aspects of the narrative.  

To achieve this, I reverse-engineered some of our in-house code templates including the map and the overall “scrolly-telling” story format with support from several brilliant colleagues. 

It was challenging and really rewarding. I learnt so much during the process and loved discovering genuine data-driven insights, even though the subject matter was serious and highlighted stark inequalities. I also appreciated the opportunity to work closely with a variety of stakeholders, including many brilliant subject specialists, who helped us make sense of the patterns we were seeing in the data.  

Above all, it cemented my belief in the value and power of data-driven storytelling and interdisciplinary partnerships. 

What motivated you to join Data Orchard, and what are you most looking forward to tackling in your new role? 

I feel a strong affinity with Data Orchard’s vision, mission, and values. When I saw the job advert and started reading about some recent projects and initiatives, I felt excited about joining the mission. 

Helping people and using data to benefit society are strong motivators for me, and I am a big believer in the power of positive ripple effects. I have a strong visual imagination and can picture numbers and mathematical symbols representing our data-related work being cast into a lake, spreading out far beyond the point they hit the water.  

I am really looking forward to getting to know more about the diverse charities and nonprofit organisations we work with, and getting stuck into analysis, research, and visualisation.  

Above all, I want to play my part in empowering and equipping nonprofit people to make better use of data within their various spheres of work. Ultimately, I hope to see a tangible impact, leading to meaningful real-world change.

Finally, is there an interesting fact about you that most people might not know? 

I was once in an original instrumental Jazz-Funk band underpinned by a complex science-fiction narrative, where each band member embodied the persona of a fictional figure in the story. I even co-wrote and produced a humorous, pre-recorded local radio show featuring two of these characters.  

The band performed regularly across Cambridgeshire and occasionally wore costumes! For my part, I was cast as an eccentric, tweed-jacketed professor, skilled in manipulating the space-time continuum.