Jules Tucher

Full Name: Jules Tucher

Grad Year: ​2026

Degree/Program: ​MS in DACSS

Current Title: Data Analyst

Current Employer: Veritas Prep Charter School

What is the core mission of your role, or what is a major project you are currently working on? The core mission of my role is to manage the school’s data systems, ensure quality and accurate data reporting to the Massachusetts Department of Early and Secondary Education (DESE), and support operational and strategic decisions with data analysis. As the lead data
person at the organization, I have a hand in the full life cycle of student and staff data, from data entry at the time of student enrollment through the academic cycle to the time of graduation. In this role, I have supported the expansion of Veritas Prep’s Early College program, developing continuous monitoring reports to track students eligibility for, performance in, and completion of a dually-enrolled Associate’s Degree. There’s rarely a slow period, as the team is constantly using data to support strategic planning, grant applications, and internal and external reporting.

Could you share the story of how you found this position? Did a specific networking contact, internship, or program resource help open the door? I was really excited to apply my technical skills to a local organization, so I set my LinkedIn filters to in-person roles within a 30-mile radius of Amherst. Veritas was hiring its inaugural Data Coordinator role, so after connecting with the CEO Rachel Romano and Director of Business Management Lynne Goncalves, I was able to help shape the role of Data Analyst to best align with the organization’s needs and my skill set

Is there a specific skill, methodology, or lesson from your degree that you rely on to do your work successfully?
Being able to translate findings from data into real-world implications is the core skill I learned from my time at DACSS that I rely on to make a successful impact. It’s important to be able to see the student behind the data, and understand that whatever data records I’m looking at only represent a fraction of what’s happening in real life for that person. Presenting the results of an analysis require the data interpretation skills that I learned in DACSS to help our staff make decisions that will impact the lives of our students.

Looking back, what was a pivotal moment, favorite class, or faculty mentorship during your time in the program that directly shaped how you approach your career today? Professor Eunkyung Song is an excellent professor and mentor, and the lessons I learned in her classes changed the course of my career. She helped me understand how to follow my passions when developing a research project. I took her section of Research Methods and then her Network Inference class, where she made complex methods seem approachable by using concrete examples and encouraging us to design research projects around topics that would intrinsically motivate us.

If you could give one piece of advice to a student who is on the fence about starting the MS in DACSS, what would it be? The DACSS program is a wonderful blend of technical, substantive, and exploratory. It provides you with a strong programming background while treating research and model design as essential to successful data analytics rather than as an afterthought. The program staff also encourage interdisciplinary exploration and break the mold on what kinds of questions can be answered through data.