Hesron Kija
Data Scientist & Software Engineer Open to 2027 internships & roles

From Dar es Salaam to data science

I trained as a biomedical equipment engineer. Now I clean up data that doesn't agree with itself.

I'm a data science student at BYU-Idaho. At work I evaluate transfer credit: 300+ academic records a semester from schools that each describe the same course differently. Most of what I know about messy data, I learned there.

Degree
BS Data Science, CS minor, BYU-Idaho · expected July 2027
GPA
3.90
Records evaluated
300+ per semester, 100% accuracy
Based in
Rexburg, Idaho · originally from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Hesron Kija DSM · 06.79°S RXE · 43.82°N
Hesron Kija Systems → data
01 · About

Most of my work starts
where two records disagree.

Now
BS Data Science (CS minor)
BYU-Idaho
Expected July 2027
Before
Diploma, Biomedical Equipment Engineering
Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology
2019 to 2022

I studied biomedical equipment engineering in Dar es Salaam. The hard part was rarely one device. It was everything around it that had to be right before you could trust a reading. I came to the U.S. for computer science, switched to data science, and kept running into the same kind of problem.

My campus job is transfer credit evaluation. Every semester, hundreds of transcripts come in from schools that name, number and weight their courses differently, and someone has to decide what counts as what. It's basically schema matching, except a student's graduation date depends on getting it right.

So I build tools for the tedious parts: pulling data out, matching it, and checking it. At a hackathon I built a tool that reads web pages so researchers don't have to open every one. At work I reordered our verification steps and cut processing time by 20%. It's not the exciting part of data work, but everything after it depends on it.

How I got here

Different fields,
same kind of problem.

In each one, the job was making sure the pieces agreed before anyone relied on the result.

01
Dar es Salaam · 2019 to 2022

Biomedical equipment

How medical devices work, and what it takes to trust what they measure.

02
Moving to the U.S. · 2022 to 2024

Software

Learning to turn manual, step-by-step work into code people can reuse.

03
Rexburg · Now

Data

Matching and cleaning up records before anyone analyzes them or makes decisions with them.

Experience

Where I've worked

Apr 2025 to Present

Transfer Evaluation Processor

Student Records & Registration · BYU-Idaho

Evaluate 300+ academic records per semester with 100% accuracy, matching courses between schools whose catalogs don't line up. Reordered the verification steps, which cut processing time by 20%. Resolve 50+ data discrepancies a term by tracing each one back to the department that created it.

Sep 2023 to Apr 2025

Testing Center Proctor

Student Testing Center · BYU-Idaho

Ran exam security procedures for 50+ test-takers at a time and helped 20+ people a week with technical problems.

Toolkit

Tools I use

Data & ML
PythonpandasNumPyscikit-learnTensorFlowHugging FaceR
Data systems
SQLPostgreSQLData wranglingETLDockerLinuxGit
Engineering
JavaScriptC#AstroChrome Extensions
Coursework
Data StructuresAlgorithmsStatisticsDatabase ManagementCalculus
02 · Selected work

A few things I've built

Interactive demo · made-up data

How mismatched course records get matched

This demo uses made-up records to show the kind of mismatch I deal with at work: the same course listed under different titles, credit values or department codes.

Show mismatch
Incoming catalogsinconsistent
Our catalogverified
Course record reconciliation map Made-up incoming course records connected to the matching course in our catalog. Hover or tab to a record to see its match, or use the filters to show one type of mismatch at a time.
    001
    Mar 2025 · Hackathon, UVU

    SumAI — AI Extraction Pipeline

    Problem
    Researchers waste a lot of time opening pages just to figure out whether a source is worth reading.
    Approach
    A Chrome extension with a Python backend that extracts and processes the active page, then lets researchers ask page-specific questions without leaving the tab.
    Outcome
    Cut research time by 80% in our testing. Built start to finish in 24 hours at a Utah Valley University hackathon.
    PythonpandasSeleniumChrome Extensions APILLM summarization
    002
    2025 · BYU-Idaho

    Transfer Evaluation Workflow

    Problem
    300+ transfer records a semester, each from a school with its own catalog, course names and credit system. Matching them by hand was slow, and a mistake can push back a student's graduation.
    Approach
    Moved the checks that catch the most errors to the start of the process, and set up one standard way to flag problems and send them to the department that can fix them.
    Outcome
    Processing is 20% faster with accuracy still at 100%, and 50+ discrepancies a term get resolved instead of escalated.
    SQLData verificationProcess designCross-team coordination
    003
    2026 · Open-source project

    FamTree — Interactive Family Knowledge Graph

    Problem
    Family histories become difficult to navigate and update as generations and relationships grow, while the underlying information still needs strict privacy controls.
    Approach
    Built a responsive graph interface with search, timelines and member profiles, backed by invite-only Firebase access and an administrator review queue for proposed changes.
    Outcome
    Turned a static family-history document into a structured, explorable system with reviewable edits. The source is open for contributions; all public examples use invented people and no real family records.
    ReactTypeScriptD3FirebaseZustandVitest
    03 · Contact

    If your data doesn't line up,
    I'd like to hear about it.

    I'm looking for data science and data engineering internships, and full-time roles starting in 2027.

    I enjoy the early part of the pipeline most: getting data out, matching it, and making sure it's right. Either way, feel free to reach out. I reply to every message.