Sean Franco

Sean Franco is an economist and data analyst at RTI where he uses advanced statistical modeling and data visualization techniques to answer complex questions for diverse clients. Mr. Franco offers quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques in economic research and analysis of various programs and policy initiatives with technical experience in machine learning, time series, and regression modeling in R and Python. Mr. Franco has skills in data automation and visualizations of grant and financial datasets. He also has skills in written and oral policy communications to explain impacts.

Mr. Franco spearheaded data analysis on NIH's SEED Accelerator and SBIR/STTR program where he collected small business innovation research (SBIR) award data and performed summary statistics of awarded research grant attributes in R and Python. Mr. Franco developed financial Pre-post analysis of small business investments in NIH grants to evaluate the sector’s economic impacts on the US economy. PDF scraping was utilized to gather award data that was fed into text analysis of awarded abstracts to showcase the portfolio of NIH’s SBIR program insights.

Mr. Franco's prior work experience involved analyzing 100+ loan attributes from an EPA drinking water loan program using Python and R. He provided insights on infrastructure financing to inform 55,000 utilities published in the July/August edition of Journal AWWA. Mr. Franco also wrote a technical report utilizing machine learning and data visualization in Python on EPA’s 6-year arsenic violations supporting the government affairs team during EPA’s policy comment period. Mr. Franco developed a Bayesian approach to PFAS compound occurrences in drinking water facilities as a model for national regulatory compliance. Additionally, Mr. Franco has experience writing and researching economic briefings in the water and education sectors in regard labor market trends, commercial real estate, and domestic and global economic impact.

In addition to his work, Mr. Franco received a data science certificate from George Washington University and a GIS certification from the University of Richmond. He holds a written and oral communications certificate from the National Association of Business Economist. Additionally, Mr. Franco is a member of the Toastmasters.