Amazon Internship:

Expanding Alexa COVID-19 Coverage

Role: Data Ontology Intern

Duration: 12 weeks

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My Published Data Visualizations on Alexa

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“Alexa, what is the percent of people vaccinated for COVID-19 in France?”

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“Alexa, how many people got the COVID-19 vaccine near me?”

“Alexa, how many new deaths from COVID-19 were there in Washington?”

Role and Responsibilities

As a Data Ontologist, I:

  • Analyzed customer data to prioritize and direct projects, documented findings.

  • Worked with Kettle Pentaho and SQL to extract, transform, and load (ETL) data from external sources to the Alexa Knowledge database.

  • Expanded and strengthened the ontological structure of the database.

  • Created map and line chart visualizations to show data on Alexa screened devices.

  • Worked with a core team (data ontologists) and cross-functional teams (visual designers and software developers) to produce high-quality deliverables.


As a User Researcher, I:

  • Evaluated high-traffic visualizations and identified bugs and improvements

  • Wrote a user study proposal to explore customer preferences on information about new movies.

  • Conducted a user study using a Qualtrics survey with 216 participants from the Alexa InsightsLab.

  • Analyzed and reported findings to the Alexa Experiences team.

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Project 1: County-Level COVID-19 Vaccination Data

“Alexa, how many people are vaccinated for COVID-19 near me?”

  • Problem Statement: Customers were served COVID-19 vaccination data at the state level when they asked for the county or city level, or asked “near me”.

  • Solution: Leverage data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to add to the Alexa Knowledge database and serve to customers.

  • My Work:

    • Leveraged CDC API to get daily updated data for county-level COVID-19 vaccinations.

    • Extracted, transformed, and loaded (ETL) the data into the Alexa Knowledge database.

    • Created a new table and schema for this data.

    • Created new ideas and units of “number of new vaccinations” and “kids vaccinated” in the Alexa Knowledge database, so that the data can be asked about and answered by Alexa.

    • Created map vizzes for county-level COVID-19 vaccination data and line chart vizzes for all other locations.

  • Going the Extra Mile:

    • Add existing COVID-19 vaccination data in the Alexa Knowledge database so that all the data is recorded with a unique location and date (previously, just location was used).

Project 2: Vizzes for New COVID-19 Cases & Deaths

“Alexa, how many people died from COVID-19 in Washington today?”

  • Problem Statement: Customers were served vizzes about the total number of cases and deaths when they asked about the number of cases and deaths from COVID-19 on a specific day (today, yesterday, etc).

  • Solution: Create new fields for the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths, and use these fields to answer temporal questions and make line charts.

  • My Work:

    • Extracted, transformed, and loaded (ETL) existing COVID-19 data in the Alexa Knowledge database to add new fields for the number of new cases and new deaths.

    • Created line chart vizzes for these new variables.

Project 3: User Study on Movie Viz

“Alexa, what movies are playing near me?”

  • Problem Statement: The movie viz was served 60,000/month so optimization has a large impact on the improving customer experience and engagement.

  • Solution: Run a user study on Alexa customers to ask their preference of seeing information on IMDb ratings versus movie ratings (G, PG, PG-13, R).

  • My Work:

    • Wrote a user study proposal to explore customer preferences on information about new movies.

    • Conducted a user study using a Qualtrics survey with 216 participants from the Alexa InsightsLab.

    • Analyzed and reported findings to the Alexa Experiences team (IMDb ratings were preferred).