DATA SCIENCE

You’ll be amazed by what AI makes possible today.

I advise organizations on how to better leverage their existing data using commercial tools from AWS and Azure. Plus, I am the principal engineer of Smarter , an orchestration platform for AI resources.

I teach AI and cloud computing at University of British Columbia.

I regularly publish code samples, articles, and video content on the latest AI and machine learning concepts, all of which are listed below for your convenience.

MIT Institute For Data, Systems, and SocietyMIT Institute For Data, Systems, and Society
Machine Learning CertificationMachine Learning Grade Received

To complement my professional experience, I have completed advanced training in data science, machine learning, and business analytics from world-class institutions. This includes four certificates from the Wharton Business Data Analytics program, focused on applying data insights to strategic decision-making; Stanford’s renowned Machine Learning course taught by Dr. Andrew Ng, covering core algorithms and modeling techniques; and MIT IDSS’s program in Data Science & Machine Learning , emphasizing statistical methods and practical applications. These programs strengthen my ability to bridge technical expertise with real-world business impact.

Wharton Analytics Completion Certificate for Lawrence McDaniel
Wharton Analytics Completion Certificate for Lawrence McDaniel
Wharton Analytics Completion Certificate for Lawrence McDaniel
Wharton Analytics Completion Certificate for Lawrence McDaniel

INFRASTRUCTURE

Designing infrastructure environments for machine learning projects is quite different from most web services and apps. High data throughput and horizontal scalability are critical. Moreover, providers like AWS are constantly evolving and introducing new services for extremely large data sets, analytics and map-reduce parallelism.

DATA

Designing data sets for machine learning projects is rapidly evolving into its own trade craft. Beyond traditional data QC and analysis and database skills you also need intuition into how algorithms work (or don't work) and how changing/increasing learning and cross-validation sets can move a project forward.

ALGORITHMS

The good news is that few if any of the algorithms currently in use are new. The bad news is that understanding when to use each and their respective strengths and weaknesses is an ongoing and fast-evolving process.

RegressionMulti-variable Linear, Polynomial and Logistic regression models leveraging a plethora of cost optimization strategies
Neural NetworksFor image processing, compression, robotics, OCR and other non-linear problem spaces.
Support Vector MachinesFor classification problems in non-linear environments like text categorization, image sorting and hand-written character recognition
Anomaly DetectionSupervised learning algorithms to identify potential service failures, factory defects and other types of outliers in highly dynamic and non-linear environments.
Recommender SystemsContent-based recommendation engines e-commerce optimizations and other predictive customer recommendations
Unsupervised LearningClustering and K-means algorithms for applications like market segmentation, social network analysis and IT infrastructure management

Code Samples & Publications

These are a combination of managed GitHub repositories that I use for instructional purposes, combined with repositories belonging to open source organizations to which I am the maintainer. Most of these also demonstrate best practices for software management including pre-commit, linting techniques, and devops methods for automating unit testing, documentation and CI-CD operations for build, deploy and code dependency package updates.

Repository
Full StackCloudReact
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6845686
Last commit: Oct 2026
Total commits: 3,337

Python (40.8%)
HCL (34.7%)
JavaScript (18.6%)
smarter-sh/smarter

Smarter is used as an instructional tool at University of British Columbia for teaching AI. The Smarter Project is an open source, cloud-native platform and developer framework for building sophisticated AI applications without writing a single line of Python. An application that searches the web, queries your databases, calls your APIs, uses the tools of any MCP server, and defends itself against prompt injection and data leaks is described in one short YAML file, and deployed with one command:

smarter apply -f my-ai-application.yaml
Full Stack
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13611364
Last commit: Oct 2026
Total commits: 7,447

Python (43.8%)
JavaScript (35.0%)
CSS (11.2%)
FullStackWithLawrence/azureml-example

Demonstrate basic usage of Azure Machine Learning's Automated ML service. Implements the following:

  • AzureAIMLWorkspace: Azure AI ML Studio workspace helper class. generates an authenticated instance of a workspace.
  • AzureAIMLAssetsDataset: Azure AI ML Studio data set. Provides helpers for managing ML Studio data sets, and for porting to/from kaggle data sets and local csv and Excel files.
  • AzureAIMLStudioComputeCluster: Azure AI ML Studio Compute - compute cluster object with helpers for instantitation.
  • AzureAIMLStudioAssetsBatchEndpoint: Azure AI ML Studio Assets - batch end point. Providers helpers for managing end points.
  • AzureAIMLStudioAuthoringAutomatedML: Azure AI ML Studio Authoring - Automated ML. Helper class for managing life cycle of 'automated ml' jobs. There is also an example production deployment of a model created using AutomatedML. See important deployment details, here. Note the following:
  1. Model training is a computationally intensive task and it is not free. You'll need a paid Azure Subscription. Expect to spend in the neighborhood of $0.10/per hour ($USD) when training models.
  2. This repo is currently based on Python3.9 even though this is several versions behind the latest stable version of Python. DO NOT ARBITRARILY UPGRADE TO LATER VERSIONS OF PYTHON. It will break. This repo is actively maintained. We monitor this. You have been warned.
Full Stack
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35837
Last commit: Apr 2026
Total commits: 112

Python (56.6%)
Jupyter Notebook (36.0%)
Makefile (3.6%)
FullStackWithLawrence/openai-embeddings

🤖 Retrieval Augmented Generation and Hybrid Search 🤖 A Hybrid Search and Augmented Generation prompting solution using Python OpenAI API Embeddings persisted to a Pinecone vector database index and managed by LangChain. Demonstrates the following:

  • System Prompting. How do use the system prompt to modify LLM text completion behavior.
  • Templates. How to create templates in order keep your prompts DRY.
  • LangChain. How to setup a project using LangChain as an alternative to vendor specific LLM PyPi packages.
  • PDF Loader. a command-line pdf loader program that extracts text, vectorizes, and loads into a Pinecone dot product vector database that is dimensioned to match OpenAI embeddings.
  • Pinecone. How to create, load, and query a Pinecone vector database.
  • Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). A chatGPT prompt based on a hybrid search retriever that locates relevant documents from the vector database and includes these in OpenAI prompts. Secondarily, I also use this repo for demonstrating how to setup Pydantic to manage your project settings and how to safely work with sensitive credentials data inside your project.
Full Stack
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Last commit: Aug 2026
Total commits: 1,443

Python (94.3%)
JavaScript (2.9%)
Makefile (2.6%)
Full StackCloud
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Last commit: Oct 2026
Total commits: 2,187

Python (62.2%)
HCL (30.0%)
Makefile (2.9%)
FullStackWithLawrence/006-scikit-learn-logistic-regression

A simple example of how to setup a Logistic Regression predictive model using Python with Pandas, MatPlotLib, Seaborn and Scikit Learn. This is the source code for FullStackWithLawrence Youtube Video -- "Scikit-learn Logistic Regression model in 10 minutes".

Full Stack
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Last commit: Aug 2023
Total commits: 30

HTML (63.6%)
Jupyter Notebook (36.2%)
Python (0.2%)
FullStackWithLawrence/007-scikit-learn-svm

A simple example of how to setup a Support Vector Machine predictive model using Python with Pandas, MatPlotLib, Seaborn and Scikit Learn. This is the source code for FullStackWithLawrence Youtube Video -- "????".

Full Stack
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Last commit: Jun 2023
Total commits: 9

Jupyter Notebook (51.2%)
HTML (48.6%)
Python (0.2%)
Full Stack
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Last commit: Jun 2023
Total commits: 9

HTML (51.5%)
Jupyter Notebook (48.3%)
Python (0.2%)
Full Stack
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Last commit: Jun 2023
Total commits: 8

HTML (51.8%)
Jupyter Notebook (48.0%)
Python (0.1%)

These are articles that I've published. Usually from my personal blog, but every now and then from other sources.

Article

Videos from my YouTube Channel, Full Stack With Lawrence

Video
OpenAI API With AWS Serverless: Quick Start

Source Code: https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/aws-openai Deploy your OpenAI application in one hour with this serverless solution based on AWS API Gateway + Lambda and the OpenAI Python Code: https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/aws-openai/tree/main/api/terraform/python Blog Article: https://blog.lawrencemcdaniel.com/openai-api-with-aws-lambda/

OpenAI API With AWS Serverless: Quick Start
OpenAI API: Docker Deployment Method

https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/openai-hello-world Deploy the Python OpenAI API using Docker in only five minutes with this handy tutorial that I use in an AI course that I teach at University of British Columbia. Happy learning!!! Also, here's a brief tutorial that better explains the OpenAI "Hello World!" Python application: https://youtu.be/RS9vH9FhGRI **

OpenAI API: Docker Deployment Method
"What is ChatGTP Doing ... and Why Does It Work?" - Quick Summary

"What is ChatGTP Doing ... and Why Does It Work?" by Stephen Wolfram is a must read if you aspire to become a Prompt Engineer for ChatGPT. Check out my review of this groundbreaking text. Links: ------- - ✨ My affiliate link for the book on amazon.com ✨ -- https://amzn.to/465Hj3H - CS50 Tech Talk on ChatGPT -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw-KWfKwvTQ

"What is ChatGTP Doing ... and Why Does It Work?" - Quick Summary
Build a ChatGPT chatbot with React and AWS Serverless

This is a full stack implementation of each of the 30 example applications found in the OpenAI API official documentation, implemented using ReactJS, ViteJS, Terraform and the AWS Serverless components, API Gateway and Lambda. There are example Terraform implementations for Lambda using both Python and Node.js. Links: - The GitHub repository in this video: https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/aws-openai - This application deployed to production: https://openai.lawrencemcdaniel.com/ - OpenAI API Example apps: https://platform.openai.com/examples - Blog article: https://blog.lawrencemcdaniel.com/chatgpt-full-stack-using-react-aws-serverless/ - OpenAI Python API With AWS API Gateway + Lambda - https://youtu.be/FqARAi8nS2M

Build a ChatGPT chatbot with React and AWS Serverless
AWS Lambda Layers Crash Course

When should you use Layers with your AWS Lambda function, and more importantly, how? Links: - The GitHub repository in this video: https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/aws-openai - YT Video for the React App: https://youtu.be/emW0E8E6M0c - YT Video for the REST API: https://youtu.be/FqARAi8nS2M - AWS Lambda docs: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/packaging-layers.html - This application deployed to production: https://openai.lawrencemcdaniel.com/ - OpenAI API Example apps: https://platform.openai.com/examples

AWS Lambda Layers Crash Course
Scikit-learn Logistic Regression model in 10 minutes

Follow along using the Jupyter Notebook in the code sample Github repository to create a Scikit-Learn Logistic Regression model. You can clone or fork the Github repository presented in this video to create your own production-ready predictive model. Source Code: https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/006-scikit-learn-logistic-regression About: In this video Lawrence presents complete scaffolding to create an entire predictive module in Python using Pandas, NumPy, Seaborn, MatPlotLib and Scikit-Learn.

Scikit-learn Logistic Regression model in 10 minutes
OpenAI API: Python 1-Minute Quick Start

https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/openai-hello-world Get the OpenAI API working in your dev environment in less than a minute with this great GitHub scaffolding repo that I use as a teaching tool for my AI course at University of British Columbia. **

OpenAI API: Python 1-Minute Quick Start
OpenAI API on AWS Lambda: 12-Factor Methodology

Repo: https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/aws-openai Deploy the OpenAI API to AWS Lambda in accordance with the 12-Factor methodology. Python code referenced in this video: - https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/aws-openai/tree/main/api/terraform/python/openai_api Terraform Code reference in this video: - https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/aws-openai/tree/main/api/terraform Other videos that are mentioned: - AWS Lambda Layers Crash Course: https://youtu.be/5Jf34t_UlZA - Pro Tips For Setting Up Your GitHub Repo - Part I: https://youtu.be/IUgvj0lPYVM - Pro Tips For Setting Up Your GitHub Repo - Part II: https://youtu.be/1w2y_0noo7g **

OpenAI API on AWS Lambda: 12-Factor Methodology
OpenAI API: Docker Deployment Method

Deploy the Python OpenAI API using Docker in only five minutes with this handy tutorial that I use in an AI course that I teach at University of British Columbia https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/openai-hello-world

OpenAI API: Docker Deployment Method
OpenAI API in 1 Minute

Get the OpenAI API working in your dev environment in less than a minute with this great GitHub scaffolding repo that I use as a teaching tool for my AI course at University of British Columbia - https://github.com/FullStackWithLawrence/openai-hello-world

OpenAI API in 1 Minute