Welcome to Plot & Policy

I started Plot & Policy in March 2025 as a place to write about spatial economics, research software, and the academic job market. The original site was on WordPress at ianhelfrich.com. Its writing now lives here.

I wanted room for work that was too small for a paper: a useful coding example, a problem with a geographic dataset, notes on a method, or a question raised by something I was reading. Writing those notes also made me check steps I might otherwise leave implicit in code.

By May 2026, independent research and teaching had become a larger part of my work. The site grew to include working papers, datasets, and software. In August I returned to the academic market for the 2026–27 cycle while continuing the independent practice.

Originally published March 2025; revised September 2026. This is an edited version of the introductory post, not a verbatim archive.