Shows
Women in Data Science WorldwideThe Future of AI Agents and the Power of CommunityHighlightsGoogle’s new Agent Development Kit (ADK) (3:16)Getting production agents ready (8:33)Taking risks in career (11:10)Balancing life (13:22)How being a WiDS Ambassador impacted Shir’s career (19:31)BioShir Meir Lador leads a team evangelizing applied AI at Google cloud. Previously, she worked as the AI group Manager of the Document Intelligence Group at Intuit, where she led teams in developing AI services that helped consumers and small businesses prosper. Prior to intuit, sheworked at 2 Israeli startups as a data scientist and researcher.A recognized leader in AI and data scie...
2025-09-1725 min
Aarna's News | Inspiring and Uplifting Stories of Women In STEM117 Margot Gerritsen: Thriving As A Multi-Dimensional LearnerIn this episode of Aarna’s News, host Aarna Sahu sits down with Margot Gerritsen, a renowned computational scientist, engineer, and co-founder of Women in Data Science (WiDS) Worldwide, to explore the power of curiosity, lifelong learning, and embracing multiple passions instead of limiting yourself to one subject. Margot shares her inspiring journey from earning a PhD in Computational Mathematics at Stanford to leading Stanford’s Institute for Computational & Mathematical Engineering, with research spanning energy sustainability, ocean modeling, data science, and even building a remote-controlled pterosaur for National Geographic. Together, Aarna and Margot discuss overcoming imposter syndrome, building connections in S...
2025-08-1839 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideNavigating Career Transitions: From Academia to Product Management with Sohini SakharHighlightsTime at Mathworks (17:27)Being a team leader (18:52)Staying in touch with the technical side (20:04)Advice (27:07)BioSohini Sarkar is a Principal Product Manager and a Senior Team Lead at MathWorks. Her career started with earning a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering and then working on DOE and EPA projects as a postdoctoral researcher. She has held various positions at Dassault Systèmes, ranging from a solution consultant to a market and competitive intelligence analyst, concurrently earning her MBA. Currently at MathWorks, Sohini focuses on established areas such as Math, Statistics, Optimization, and Machine Learning, t...
2025-02-2629 min
Women in Data Science WorldwidePredicting Responsibly: Claudia Perlich on AI, Bias, and the Art of Data SciencePredictive Modeling (4:15) Human judgement and processes (14:06)Imperfection in models (21:40)BioClaudia Perlich is Managing Director and Head of Strategic Data Science for Investment Management at Two Sigma, where she has worked for seven years. In this role, Claudia is responsible for developing innovative alpha strategies at the intersection of alternative data, thematic hypotheses and machine learning in public markets. Claudia joined Two Sigma from Dstillery, an AI ad targeting company, where she worked as Chief Scientist. Claudia began her career in data science at the IBM Watson Research Center, concentrating on research in data analytics and machine l...
2025-01-1646 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideNavigating Curiosity to Leadership in TechHighlightsVulnerability and honesty in leadership (12:07)Finding leaders who are willing to take risks on talent (13:48)BioMaritza is an engineering manager at Klaviyo, where she leads a team focused on creating tools that help marketers better understand and optimize their campaign and flow performance. She enjoys collaborating with her team to develop solutions that provide clear, actionable insights for users.Before joining Klaviyo, Maritza worked at startups in the clinical trial management and natural language processing (NLP) sectors, where she gained experience in applying software to solve practical challenges. She began her...
2024-12-1815 min
Waar wil ik werken?Mammoet - WERKTUIGBOUW - 43 miljoen (!!) kg hijsen met een hijskraanMammoet is de grootste speler ter wereld in het heavy lifting en transport van gigantische objecten. Denk aan bruggen van 4000 ton of boorplatformen van wel 43.000 ton, dat is dus 43 miljoen kilogram! Mammoet bedenkt, berekend, plant en voert het verplaatsen van zulke grote en zware objecten uit. Hiervoor gebruiken ze bestaand apparatuur, zoals hele grote kranen en trailers, en als de klus erom vraagt kunnen ze ook nieuw equipment ontwerpen.
Moon interviewt mega enthousiaste civil engineer Wouter Gerritsen.
2024-11-0620 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideFrom Graphs to Growth: Mentorship, Math, and the Power of AlgorithmsMath and Computer Science (2:51)Graph Alignment (20:38) BioHuda Nassar is a senior computer scientist at RelationalAI working on building the graph algorithms library offered as part of RelationalAI's product. Previously, Huda obtained a PhD in Computer Science from Purdue University and was a postdoc fellow at Stanford's School of Medicine. Huda is also known for her "Julia for Data Science" course which had over 13,000 students and focused on Data Science methods including graph analytics. Connect with HudaHuda Nassar on LinkedinConnect with UsMargot Gerritsen on...
2024-10-1736 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideBeyond Borders: Elevating Women in Data Science and LeadershipLanguage as the access to different cultures (2:09)Career journey (8:23)People first in leadership style (23:19)BioHannah Pham is a seasoned data leader with experience building and scaling data teams at top tech companies like Airbnb and Pinterest. Hannah's expertise spans consumer and monetization domains. As the Head of Data Science for the consumer area at Pinterest, she leverages data to bring the best experience to Pinners and drive business growth. Hannah is also a successful startup founder with Skin AI, a personalized skincare company that she co-founded in 2018. Connect with HannahH...
2024-09-1836 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideFrom Internship to Impact: A Data Scientist’s JourneySydney Hazen, a Privacy Data Scientist at Ford, shares her journey from a college intern to a full-time role. She highlights how internships can lead to job offers and the importance of real-world experience and corporate navigation. Sydney emphasizes applying technical skills with a socially conscious approach, understanding problems before diving into data, and credits her professor and diverse classmates for shaping her perspective. She plans to pursue further education and explore different roles, underscoring the unique position of women in data science and the need for self-advocacy and finding mentors.HighlightsInternship at Ford (8:25)Time...
2024-07-1928 min
Women in Big Data Podcast: Career, Big Data & Analytics Insights16. Data Science & Presentation Skills - A Talk With Margot Gerritsen (Women in Data Science Worldwide & Stanford University)Listen and get insights into Data Science & Presentation Skills in this talk with Margot Gerritsen, (Founder & Former Executive Director Women in Data Science (WiDS) Worldwide, and Professor [Emerita] Stanford University).We talk about: presentation framing and motivation; understanding your audience and the 2 - 3 messages you want them to remember; similarities between your presentation and writing a newspaper article; ending your presentation with a memorable takeaway; explaining where your data is coming from and how you look at the data; overcoming your fear of public speaking - y...
2024-06-1330 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideThe Power of Linguistics in Large Language Models and AI HighlightsLLMs (1:46)AI systems (3:25)The need for humanness in AI (20:17)Transitioning to independent consultant (28:31)BioKarin Golde, is the Founder of West Valley AI. She helps businesses and technical leaders navigate the rapidly developing landscape of AI and Large Language Models by sharing her expertise which has ranged from executive leadership roles at multiple startups to heading the language engineering division for the AI Data team at Amazon Web Services. Her philosophy is to cut through the hype, collaborate with integrity, and keep a laser focus on providing value to your business.
2024-04-1942 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideApplying topological data analysis and geometry-based ML Highlights: 00:02:25 - Colleen’s motivation for writing a book, interdisciplinary collaborations, and explaining advanced mathematical tools in accessible ways.00:08:44 - Journey from biology and social sciences to data science, and the integration of different mathematical tools in solving data problems.00:14:13 - Overcoming imposter syndrome and the value of exploring beyond one's field.00:15:02 - The importance of mentorship.00:23:40 - Coping strategies for setbacks in academia and industry.About the Guest:Colleen Farrelly is an author and senior data scientist. Her research has focused on network science, topological data analysis, and geometry-based machine lear...
2024-02-2328 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideUsing Curiosity, Mentorship, and Education to Build a CareerSummary:Listen to the incredible and inspiring journey of Avalon Baldwin’s career journey. A self-described data nerd, she was not only the first in her family to attend college, she went on to get a graduate degree. Today she is an entrepreneur running her own consulting company. In conversation with Chisoo Lyons, Avalon shares how curiosity, mentorship, and coaching made a difference in her life. Highlights: (06:18): Exploring factors like how data is collected, the intention behind collecting a specific data point instead of another one, and how they can influence anal...
2024-01-2534 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideFighting Crypto Crime with Data ScienceIn this episode, Margot Gerittsen speaks with Kim Grauer. Kim is the Director of Research at Chainalysis, where she examines trends in cryptocurrency economics and crime. Listen as she talks about her obsession with fighting fraud in the cryptocurrency market.Highlights:What is crypto crimeTrust in stable coinMisconceptions around cryptocurrencyUsing data and data science in fighting fraud About the Guest:Kim is the Director of Research at Chainalysis, where she examines trends in cryptocurrency economics and crime. She was trained in economics at the London School of Economics and in politics a...
2023-11-2933 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideUsing Storytelling to Communicate with StakeholdersMichelle Katics, CEO and co-founder of BankersLab, discusses her journey in risk management training and the importance of integrating technical skills with business and soft skills. She shares her experience in helping banks navigate complex regulations and the need for training to improve understanding and decision-making. Katics emphasizes the importance of storytelling and simplifying complex concepts to effectively communicate with stakeholders. She also highlights the need for women to participate in data science and entrepreneurship, and encourages everyone to continue learning and collaborating to drive innovation and growth. Katics also discusses her involvement in volunteer work, including supporting migrants an...
2023-10-1940 min
Super Data Science: ML & AI Podcast with Jon Krohn719: Computational Mathematics and Fluid Dynamics, with Prof. Margot GerritsenIn this episode, Margot Gerritsen and Jon Krohn discuss the fundamentals of computational mathematics and its application in studying fluid dynamics. Margot also talks about how her synesthesia led to a lifelong interest in math, using computational mathematics to predict airflow, and why it is so important that underrepresented groups in data science become more visible through organizations like Women in Data Science.This episode is brought to you by the Zerve data science dev environment, by Gurobi, the Decision Intelligence Leader, and by ODSC, the Open Data Science Conference. Interested in sponsoring a SuperDataScience Podcast episode...
2023-10-031h 47
Women in Data Science WorldwideData Science Leadership: Creating Meaningful ImpactIn this episode, Mary Krone explores her career shift from a PhD in chemistry and biochemistry to data science, where she builds financial credit models. She highlights her work’s tangible impact and discusses the challenges of work-life balance.Mary’s passion for data science’s positive potential in finance shines through as she debunks misconceptions, talks about career paths, and dives into the evolving world of data science and generative AI.The episode also includes topics of the need for continuous learning and the blend of art and science in data science. Highlig...
2023-09-2943 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideKate Kolich on Mentorship, Data Ethics, and LeadershipKate Kolich serves as the Assistant Governor and the General Manager of Information Data and Analytics at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. With an extensive background in the financial sector, she also has significant public sector experience. Throughout her impressive career, she's delved into areas like data analytics, digital strategy, information management, data governance, business intelligence, and data warehousing, among others. Soon after the launch of Women in Data Science (WiDS) at Stanford, Kate became an active WiDS ambassador. She has organized numerous WiDS conferences in New Zealand, spotlighting nearly 100 female data scientists. Beyond this, Kate i...
2023-08-3031 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideBreaking Barriers to Entry & Success for Women in Tech with Telle WhitneyTelle Whitney began her career in the tech industry in 1986 after earning a Ph.D. in computer science from Cal Tech. Her journey into graduate studies was sparked by an encounter with graphics during her undergraduate studies at the University of Utah. Although she initially wasn't interested in graphics, the idea of computer-aided design fascinated her, and she was drawn to work with Ivan Sutherland, a co-founder of the computer science department at Cal Tech.Throughout college, Telle learned various programming languages, starting with C as an undergraduate and later delving into object-oriented languages like Simula and...
2023-07-2031 min
In Her EllementTraining Self-Belief with Women In Data Science’s Professor Margot GerritsenSelf-belief is a journey, and there will be bumps in the road. A lack of self-belief is something Professor Margot Gerritsen still experiences sometimes, even after achieving Professor Emeritus status at Stanford. Margot now dedicates her time to running Women in Data Science (WiDS)Margot began her career in computational science over thirty-five years ago, and she predictably found that she was one of the only women in her class at university. Unfortunately, she hasn’t really seen the number of women in STEM rise in her career. WiDS exists to help encourage more women into this fi...
2023-06-2620 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideSrujana Kaddevarmuth | Opening New Realms of Data Science and AISrujana Kaddevarmuth began her career near Bangalore, India after completing her master’s degree in engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University. She has had a successful career in the tech industry and currently holds the position of senior director at Walmart's Data and Machine Learning Center of Excellence.In her role as senior director at Walmart, Srujana leads the AI portfolio for various aspects of the company's retail business, including omni retail, new and emerging businesses in the consumer and tech space, data monetization, and membership. Her primary responsibility is to drive innovation and promote the democratization of da...
2023-06-2235 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideVeronica Edwards | The Bridge Between Dance and Data ScienceToday Veronica Edwards is a senior data analyst at Polygence, though her educational and career background encompasses a wide range – she has delved into everything from dance and choreography to physics, sociology, marketing, and most recently, data science. Polygence is a nonprofit that offers middle and high school students a 10-week research experience under the guidance of a professional mentor. As a senior data analyst at Polygence, Veronica uses data to help build and scale the company and to provide students and mentors with an optimal experience.Upon working at Polygence, Veronica was surprised to lea...
2023-05-1828 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideJane Lauder | Using Data Science to Create Aspirational ProductsAs Estée Lauder’s first-ever Chief Data Officer, Jane Lauder is combining data science with creativity to fuel the growth of the company. Jane has worked at Estée Lauder for 26 years – 24 of which she spent working on the brand and marketing aspects of the business. While working as the Global Brand President of Clinique, Jane saw the power of data to drive all aspects of the business, motivating her to transition into her current role. Estée Lauder Companies is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of luxury skincare, makeup, fragrance, and hair care p...
2023-04-2027 min
The Random SampleThe WiDS Global MovementThere's a global movement underway to tackle gender equity issues in Data Science. In 2015, Women in Data Science, or WiDS, was created. What started out as a conference at Stanford University has now grown into a worldwide initiative, with events in more than 200 countries, including Australia. In this episode, we chat with the Co-founder and Executive Director of the WiDS movement, Emeritus Professor Margot Gerritsen. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
2023-02-2851 min
Women in Data Science WorldwidePriya Donti | Using AI to Fight the Climate CrisisAn expert in climate change and the optimization of power grids, Priya Donti researches how to use machine learning for forecasting, optimization, and control of power grids to facilitate the integration of renewable energy. She first became interested in climate change during high school and studied computer science with a focus on environmental analysis as an undergraduate at Harvey Mudd College. After graduation, she spent a year on a Watson Fellowship, learning about different approaches for next-generation power grids in Germany, India, South Korea, Chile, and Japan. She went on to earn her PhD in power grid o...
2023-01-0441 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideLesly Zerna | Teaching and learning data science in Latin America (Spanish)Lesly Zerna earned her undergraduate degree in Telecommunications Engineering at the Bolivian Catholic University and then traveled to Brussels to complete a Masters in Computer Science. After returning to Latin America, she began teaching data science and AI both in universities and virtual platforms and today her courses have thousands of online students. She brings insights from her experiences working in large companies overseas to her students in Latin America. For those just starting in data science, she says you must first identify your personal learning style (e.g., visual or text) to improve your learning experience a...
2022-11-1047 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideLeda Braga | Applying data science to investment strategiesLeda Braga is the founder and CEO of Systematica Investments, a hedge fund that uses data science-driven models to support its investment strategies. Leda was born and raised in Brazil and found her way into the financial sector after getting her PhD in engineering and spending several years as an academic. Her financial career started with seven years in investment banking at JP Morgan and then she joined the hedge fund startup BlueCrest in 2000. She explains that while her funds did very well during the 2008 financial crisis, the time felt like an existential crisis because you didn’t k...
2022-10-1436 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideJessica Bohórquez | Using AI for leak detection in water pipelines (Spanish)A Colombian engineer, Jessica is fascinated by the processes and complexity of water supply systems in urban areas.In her post doc research in Australia, she brings together her expertise on the water hammer and transient flow waves to create an AI model that is able to identify where pipeline defects are faster and more accurately than existing techniques.She explains that in data science, the most important stage is understanding the problem. You need to bring in basic knowledge of the problem and expertise from other disciplines that are involved in a problem and combine that w...
2022-09-1546 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideKarolina Urbanska | Using data science to study human behaviorAs a quantitative social psychologist, Karolina has always been interested in using data to measure human behavior to try to understand it better. She has researched questions around political attitudes and polarization, particularly in light of Brexit and Trump’s election in 2016. She wanted to understand how people could arrive at completely different understandings of the world and reflect it in their voting decisions. One of her findings was that in the American two-party political system, people tend to identify as either Republican or Democrat and are more likely to agree with statements from their identified party. People use id...
2022-08-1147 min
Open||Source||DataDemocratization and Cognition with Margot Gerritsen, Rachel Chalmers, and Patricia BoswellThis bonus episode features conversations from season 1 of the Open||Source||Data podcast. In this episode, you’ll hear from Margot Gerritsen, Stanford Professor and Co-Founder/Director of WiDS; Rachel Chalmers, Partner at Alchemist Accelerator; and Patricia Boswell, Staff Technical Writer at Google.Sam sat down with each guest to discuss cognition and democratization in data. You can listen to the full episodes from Margot Gerritsen, Rachel Chalmers, and Patricia Boswell by clicking the links below.-------------------Episode Timestamps:(00:18): Margot Gerritsen(02:07): Rachel Chalmers(03:46): Patricia Boswell
2022-06-2905 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideWelcoming our new podcast co-host, Cindy OrozcoEPISODE NOTESWiDS Executive Director Margot Gerritsen welcomes her new co-host, Cindy Orozco, in a wide-ranging conversation about their career paths and valuable learnings along the way. Cindy is thrilled to be joining as podcast co-host and believes that showcasing women at all stages of their careers shows that we “share the same fears or experiences every day. It's just that some of us have been on the path a little bit longer than others.” Cindy is an applied mathematician who is currently working as a machine learning solutions engineer at Cerebras Systems. Originally from C...
2022-06-1551 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideTahu Kukutai | Advocating for indigenous data sovereigntyWhen Tahu Kukutai’s father went to school, he wasn’t allowed to speak his native language. If he did, he would be hit by his teachers. While the situation for the Maori people in Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand) has improved somewhat since then, Tahu has dedicated her career to advocating for the rights of Indigenous peoples to preserve their native language, identity, communities, and culture. In today’s world, power over data is a central component of indigenous self-determination. Government agencies decide what data gets collected on whom and how it gets used, shared, and...
2021-12-0938 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideAllison Koenecke | Researching algorithmic fairness and causal inference in public healthAllison Koenecke, who received her PhD from Stanford’s Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME), describes how her experiences in academia and industry shaped her decision to return to academia. Currently a postdoc at Microsoft Research in the Machine Learning and Statistics group, she starts as an Assistant Professor of Information Science at Cornell University next year. Her research interests lie at the intersection of economics and computer science, with projects focusing on fairness in algorithmic systems and causal inference in public health.Allison says in her career so far, she has always tried to keep as man...
2021-11-1127 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideKarina Edmonds | Building bridges between business and academiaThough Karina showed an early aptitude in math, her high school counselor advised her against pursuing an engineering degree. She ignored his advice and went on to earn her undergrad degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Rhode Island and a PhD in Aeronautics from Caltech. She landed her first job as a speech-to-text engineer at TRW where she was awarded her first patent. She then moved on to technology transfer as a patent agent at the Jet Propulsion Lab. She bounced back to academia, managing corporate partnerships for Caltech, and then returned to industry as Google’s Un...
2021-10-0738 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideFatima Abu Salem | Applying data science for the public good in LebanonFatima Abu Salem grew up in Lebanon and has focused her data science research on addressing critical challenges in the region, including problems around the Syrian refugee crisis, the water quality in Lebanon and their irrigation requirements for farmers. Fatima explains that her life journey is really enshrined in the conflict of the region. She was born to a Lebanese mother and a Palestinian father who had refugee status so she inherited this status. This meant there were many restrictions on what career she could pursue and her dream to become a doctor was out of reach. B...
2021-09-0933 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideLouvere Walker-Hannon | Gaining skills and overcoming barriers to a career in data scienceLouvere Walker-Hannon has worked at MathWorks (the company that makes MATLAB) for over 21 years, where she’s also a STEM Ambassador. She studied biomedical engineering as an undergraduate at Boston University and did graduate work at Northeastern University in geographic information technology with a specialization in remote sensing.She loved working with MATLAB as an undergraduate and when MathWorks came to the career fair when she graduated, she sought them out, got an interview, and has been working there ever since.She says there are both technical and non-technical skills that are valuable in the field of da...
2021-08-1248 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideMenglin Cao | Data science in fintech and financial servicesAfter she earned her BA, MA, and PhD in economics from the University of Maryland, Menglin Cao spent six years at Fannie Mae before joining Wells Fargo. Over the past 15 years, she has seen a major shift in how financial institutions use data to drive business decisions. In the past, many business decisions were based upon the experience and judgement of senior executives, but today every decision must be backed up by data and analytics. Many aspects of the financial services that leverage data are great candidates for AI and ML models, such as customer experience, revenue g...
2021-07-1529 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideKaren Hao | Covering AI and Ethics Washing in the Tech IndustryKaren Hao trained as a mechanical engineer and then joined a Silicon Valley startup, thinking that technology was the best means to create social change. While surrounded by smart people who were also passionate about using technology for social change, she soon discovered there were no incentives or pathways to accomplish this. “When you're inside a technology company and you're thinking this is going to help change the world, you're often blind to unattended consequences of your work,” she says.She decided to transition to a career in journalism where she could create social change by raising aware...
2021-06-1034 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideCecilia Aragon | Aerobatic Pilot, Author and Data ScientistThe multi-talented Cecilia Aragon is a data scientist, professor, author and champion aerobatic pilot. In this podcast, she explains how learning to fly gave her the confidence to pursue her career in human-centered data science and as an author.Her book, Flying Free: My Victory Over Fear to Become the First Latina Pilot on the US Aerobatic Team, is the story of how a timid daughter of immigrants who had terrible phobias overcame her fears to become a champion pilot. Learning to fly and excelling at it helped her overcome emotional barriers from childhood when she was...
2021-05-0632 min
Machine Meets WorldStanford’s Margot Gerritsen on Women in Data ScienceOur daughters aren’t doing data science. What’s the deal? Hear Margot Gerritsen on #MachineMeetsWorld.---Email the show: mmw@infiniaml.com---Video + transcript: https://bit.ly/3mhZ9KW
2021-04-0509 min
Practical AIWomen in Data Science (WiDS)Chris has the privilege of talking with Stanford Professor Margot Gerritsen, who co-leads the Women in Data Science (WiDS) Worldwide Initiative. This is a conversation that everyone should listen to. Professor Gerritsen’s profound insights into how we can all help the women in our lives succeed - in data science and in life - is a ‘must listen’ episode for everyone, regardless of gender.Sponsors:O'Reilly Media – Learn by doing — Python, data, AI, machine learning, Kubernetes, Docker, and more. Just open your browser and dive in. Learn more and keep your teams’ skills sharp...
2021-03-3056 min
Alter EverythingBONUS: Data Science Mixer Podcast | Episode 1Margot Gerritsen, Stanford professor and a founder of Women in Data Science, joins us for the debut episode of our new podcast, "Data Science Mixer.""Data Science Mixer" lives on it's own feed in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and the Alteryx Community, so in order to hear more incredible episodes like this one, you'll need to search specifically for "Data Science Mixer" and subscribe. As a special peak into the show, we wanted to share the debut episode with Alter Everything listeners. Enjoy!Check out the full show notes on the Alteryx Community, where you can...
2021-02-2548 min
Towards Data Science72. Margot Gerritsen - Does AI have to be understandable to be ethical?As AI systems have become more ubiquitous, people have begun to pay more attention to their ethical implications. Those implications are potentially enormous: Google’s search algorithm and Twitter’s recommendation system each have the ability to meaningfully sway public opinion on just about any issue. As a result, Google and Twitter’s choices have an outsized impact — not only on their immediate user base, but on society in general.
That kind of power comes with risk of intentional misuse (for example, Twitter might choose to boost tweets that express views aligned with their preferred policies). But while in...
2021-02-241h 22
Women in Data Science WorldwideKristian Lum | Applying Statistics to Promote Fairness and TransparencyKristian’s interest in statistics and algorithmic fairness has taken her on a winding career path from academia to business, to public service, and back to academia. As she has made different career changes, she didn’t decide between academia vs. industry vs. non-profit, it was more about the problem she was interested in working on at the moment, and what else is happening in her life. After she earned her PhD in Statistical Science from Duke University, she worked as a research professor at Virginia Tech where she did microsimulation and agent-based modelingin a simulation lab. After...
2021-02-0930 min
Open||Source||DataGlobal Connectivity: Share and Democratize Through Open DataCo Founder and Director of WiDS, and Stanford Professor Margot Gerritsen joins Sam Ramji in a conversation about how a data community provides global connectivity, and how learning is all about seeking discomfort with uncertainty and ambiguity. Learn how data is the new gold, but rather than sitting on the mine - share the wealth through a career in Data Science.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
2021-01-1432 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideLillian Carrasquillo | Using Human-Centric Data Science at SpotifyA data scientist by training, Lillian brings a passion for human-centric machine learning and algorithmic effects to her role leading Spotify’s Personalized Home team. She also talks about the experience of leading her team from home during the pandemic.Lillian’s team of data scientists and user researchers collaborate with a mixed-methods research approach to try to discern user needs and create the best matches between listeners and creators. They observe and analyze user behaviors to develop product insights. Her team’s user researchers develop qualitative insights about user needs and then work with the data scientists...
2020-12-0338 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideFemke Vossepoel | Applying Data Assimilation Tools to COVID Forecasting ModelsAfter earning her PhD in Aerospace Engineering at Delft, Femke spent several years in oceanography, climate research, and subsurface modeling. She developed an expertise in data assimilation that she's now applying to improve COVID-19 pandemic forecasting models. Femke explains that data assimilation originated in weather forecasting, where a model is updated with the current day’s weather observations to provide a more accurate forecast for the next day. Data assimilation tools tune the model to provide a more accurate forecast. This concept can be applied in many areas including financial markets, the oil industry, and for COVID-19 res...
2020-10-2739 min
Super Data Science: ML & AI Podcast with Jon Krohn407: How to Encourage Diversity in Data ScienceMargot Gerritsen joins us for a great discussion that was both technical and inspiring, on the topics of principal component analysis and linear algebra, as well as the importance of women in data science.In this episode you will learn:
Margot’s travels and background [7:29]
Margot’s position and work at Stanford [13:38]
What is linear algebra? [18:00]
Principle component analysis [23:02]
WIDS, Women in Data Science [32:08]
Margot’s diversity call to action [58:12]
How can men support their female colleagues? [1:05:55]
Additional materials: www.superdatascience.com/407
2020-10-081h 23
Women in Data Science WorldwideFrancesca Dominici + Rachel Nethery | Using Data Science to Study Air Pollution Effect on COVID-19 OutcomesWith the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Francesca Dominici and Rachel Nethery saw a way to connect the research they were doing on air pollution and health with the pandemic. They are studying the effects of air pollution exposure on different causes of hospitalization to see if pollution could increase a person’s vulnerability to COVID-19. While the research is at a preliminary stage, there is a lot of information that points towards the possibility that long-term exposure to air pollution could increase the mortality risk for COVID-19. Since this research is so important and timely, they hav...
2020-08-2034 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideManisha Desai | The Importance of Data Integrity in COVID-19 Clinical TrialsManisha Desai is a professor of medicine (research) and of biomedical data science, and director of the Quantitative Sciences Unit at Stanford University. She is an expert in the design and analysis of clinical trials and epidemiologic studies across multiple diseases, including COVID-19. In this podcast, she provides some insights into the challenges and progress of COVID-19 clinical trials.When COVID happened, Manisha knew her team’s expertise in clinical trials would allow them to get up to speed quickly to study this new disease. So, she augmented her team with additional data science experts to focus on...
2020-07-1638 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideNewsha Ajami | Improving Urban Water Systems Through Data Science, Public Policy and EngineeringNewsha Ajami is a hydrologist specializing in sustainable water resource management, water policy, the water-energy-food nexus, and urban water strategy.When she was studying hydrology in grad school, she took a water policy class that changed the trajectory of her career. “I would say that was one of the most important events in my professional career. I realized that laws and policies are what change the way we manage resources,” she says. All the data optimization and modeling means nothing unless you can understand the policy layer imposed on how our natural systems operate. This inter...
2020-06-0333 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideAndrea Gagliano | The Intersection of Arts and TechnologyWhen Andrea was studying math as an undergrad, she was required to take an arts class in order to graduate, and soon discovered that she loved poetry. She learned that the process of writing a poem was often similar to solving a complex math problem—just starting with one part, and then doing one more, and gradually the rest is revealed. She enjoyed it so much that her first machine learning project in graduate school was on poetry/sonnet generation. Andrea wanted to blend technology and art in her career and Getty Images turned out to be the...
2020-05-1431 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideYa Xu | Using Data To Create Economic Opportunities For All Members Of Global WorkforceYa Xu manages LinkedIn’s global team of data scientists that manage data science projects across the company’s products, sales, marketing, economics, infrastructure, and operations. She says the company takes active responsibility over the data they collect to ensure fairness and protect privacy. They are very proactive about how they maintain their members’ trust, either with how they share the data externally or leverage the data to create opportunities.LinkedIn’s fairness mission is that two people with equal talent should have an equal shot at opportunities. To reinforce this, they constantly test new products to determin...
2020-04-1540 min
NVIDIA AI PodcastStanford's Margot Gerritsen on Data Science and Women in Tech - Ep. 111On this episode of the NVIDIA AI Podcast, we interview Stanford Professor Margot Gerritsen about what’s next in data science, the growing role of women in data science, and how data science intersects with modern AI. For more, tune into Professor Gerritsen's Women in Data Science podcast https://www.widsconference.org/podcast.html
2020-03-2834 min
Talking MachinesPredicting the Decade and Distributing ConferencesIn episode one of season six we make some predictions about what will happen in the field in the next decade and talk with Margot Gerritsen about her work and WiDS
2020-02-061h 06
Talking MachinesPredicting the Decade and Distributing ConferencesIn episode one of season six we make some predictions about what will happen in the field in the next decade and talk with Margot Gerritsen about her work and WiDS You can listen to the WiDS podcast here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2020-02-061h 06
Women in Data Science WorldwideSusan Athey | Bringing an Economist’s Perspective to Data ScienceWith a prolific career spanning academia and industry, Susan’s research focuses on the economics of digitization, marketplace design, and the intersection of econometrics and machine learning. She received her PhD at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and taught at MIT and Harvard before returning to Stanford. She was consulting chief economist for Microsoft for six years and the first woman to receive the John Bates Clark medal for her contribution to economic thought and knowledge. Susan sits on the boards of Expedia, Lending Club, Rover, Turo, and Ripple, as well as the nonprofit Innovations for Poverty Action....
2020-01-1651 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideMontse Medina | Lessons Learned Building a Data Science StartupMontse Medina was pursuing her PhD at Stanford’s Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME) when she realized she had a great idea for a company. She left her graduate program to found Jetlore, a prediction platform that empowers retailers with AI-driven content, which was acquired by PayPal in 2018. Montse has since moved back to her native Spain as a partner for Deloitte where she is responsible for their advanced analytics and asset-enabled business.Montse discusses her lessons learned growing Jetlore with Stanford’s Margot Gerritsen, Stanford professor and host of the Women in Data Science podca...
2019-12-1236 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideBonus Episode: Margot Gerritsen | How to Get More Women Into Data ScienceIt was in 2015 when Margot Gerritsen was asked to speak at a data conference with not a single other woman on the program that she knew that something had to be done to get women into the field.As she was then Director of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME), Gerritsen knew more than a thing or two about data science and became determined to change the male-dominated culture.This determination led to the creation of the wildly popular “Women in Data Science Conference.” In putting the first agenda together, she was insistent that...
2019-11-1428 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideTimnit Gebru | Advocating for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethics in AITimnit recently completed her postdoc in the Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics (FATE) group at Microsoft Research, New York. Prior to that, she was a PhD student at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, studying computer vision under Fei-Fei Li. She also co-founded Black in AI, an organization that works to increase diversity in the field and to reduce the negative impact of racial bias in training data used for machine learning models.She was born and raised in Ethiopia. As an ethnic Eritrean, she was forced to flee Ethiopia at age 15 because of the war between Eritrea...
2019-10-2336 min
The Future of EverythingMargot Gerritsen: How to get more women into data scienceWomen face many roadblocks to careers in data science and other STEM disciplines. One Stanford professor is out to change perceptions and realities for women in these fields.
It was in 2015 when Margot Gerritsen was asked to speak at a data conference with not a single other woman on the program that she knew that something had to be done to get women into the field. As then-director of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME), Gerritsen knew more than a thing or two about data science and became determined to change the male-dominated culture.
This determination led to...
2019-10-1128 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideChristiane Kamdem + Lama Moussawi | WiDS Ambassadors Bring Education and Role Models to their CommunitiesOur WiDS Ambassadors in Paris and Beirut discuss the impact of the growing WiDS presence and communities in their countries. Christiane Kamdem, a native of Cameroon and WiDS Ambassador in Paris, is a senior data scientist at the French energy company Total where she analyzes data to create new services and improve market impact. WiDS Beirut Ambassador Lama Moussawi is an Associate Professor at the Olayan School of Business at the American University of Beirut (AUB) where she conducts research and teaches management science. Both women became WiDS ambassadors because they believe that role models, education, and com...
2019-10-0330 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideSherrie Wang | Applying Machine Learning to Solve Global Food Security ChallengesSherrie brings an interdisciplinary and entrepreneurial perspective to her research that she has developed through her work in the fields of computational finance, biomedical engineering, and computer vision. Sherrie explains that about 1 in 9 people do not have access to adequate food. She is using satellite imagery and machine learning to identify and map crops around the world, see where people are most vulnerable, and what interventions or policies have the greatest effect. “There are a lot of problems that technology alone can't solve and we still need to understand the roots of a lot of the...
2019-09-1231 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideMarzyeh Ghassemi | Applying Machine Learning to Understand and Improve HealthGhassemi explains how she is tackling two issues: eradicating bias in healthcare data and models, and understanding what it means to be healthy across different populations during her conversation with Women in Data Science Co-Director Karen Matthys on the Women in Data Science podcast.
She says that there are built-in biases in data, access to care, treatments, and outcomes. If we train models on data that is biased, it will operationalize those biases. Her goal is to recognize and eliminate those biases in the data and the models. For example, research shows that end-of-life care for minorities...
2019-08-2836 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideShir Meir Lador | Using Data Science to Keep Financial Data SecureIn addition to her job at Intuit, Lador is a WiDS ambassador in Israel, has her own podcast about data science, and is a co-founder of PyData Tel Aviv meetups.
Lador’s team at Intuit focuses on machine learning in security and fraud applications to protect customers’ sensitive financial data from fraudsters and hackers. She and her team use anomaly detection and semi-supervised methods to secure Intuit products and data. “In general, putting AI into products is not an easy task.” But she thinks we need to put a lot of effort into securing our data especially with rec...
2019-08-1535 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideNatalie Evans Harris | Creating A Shared Code Of Ethics To Guide Ethical and Responsible Use of DataDuring her career at the National Security Agency, Capitol Hill and the White House, Natalie Evans Harris saw that while we collected troves of data, we didn't have strong frameworks and governance in place to protect people in a data driven world. “Data has been used to intrude in our lives. Things are happening based upon data that nobody communicated to the public was actually happening,” she explained during a conversation with Stanford’s Margot Gerritsen, Stanford professor and host of the Women in Data Science podcast.
Data ethics and responsible use of data are essentially about buildi...
2019-08-0130 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideMeltem Ballan | Mission Impossible, Fingerprint Recognition, and Connected CarsBallan brings multiple perspectives to her current work on Connected Cars—drawing on expertise in data science and neuroscience gained during her ever-changing career in academia, entrepreneurship and consulting.
Ballan grew up in Turkey where it’s not unusual for women to pursue careers as scientists. In her youth, she was inspired by Mission Impossible TV shows where agents used futuristic technologies like fingerprint recognition and iris detection. She also loved cars. “Those were the things that I was really interested in. And I think my journey started from there,” she explained during a conversation with Stanford’s Margot G...
2019-07-1733 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideChiara Sabatti | Algorithms and the Human GenomeData science and genetics are closely linked and have been for some time. But now, data science is playing an even larger role in genetics, a trend that is prompting researchers to look hard at their ethical responsibilities, says Chiara Sabatti, a professor of biomedical data science and statistics at Stanford University.
As is the case in many other fields, geneticists have access to much more data than in the past, and because it is digitized, it can be mined. “Scientists rely on statisticians to mine this data and help them formulate hypotheses,” Sabatti said during an inte...
2018-12-1034 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideElena Grewal | From Education to Head of Airbnb Data ScienceCareer paths don’t always follow a straight line. Just ask Elena Grewal, whose education culminated in a PhD in education, but who became the head data scientist at Airbnb.
In some ways, the leap wasn’t quite as daunting as it might sound. Grewal’s training at Stanford was interdisciplinary, including statistics and econometrics. “Often it’s more about words being different than about skills being different,” Grewal said in an interview recorded for Stanford’s Women in Data Science podcast.
At one point, she began to study machine learning and initially thought it was very diffe...
2018-12-0343 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideSonu Durgia | Optimizing the Online Shopping ExperienceConsumers know Walmart as a retailing giant that has changed the face of retail in communities across America. But with a data store containing billions of queries and items, it’s also a laboratory for the company’s data scientists and IT professionals who mine and manage it. “We have data scientists embedded in every single team within the company,” says Sonu Durgia, group product manager for search and discovery at Walmart Labs. “Every function at Walmart, from the quality of groceries to the supply chain, has data science embedded in it,” she noted during an interview recorded for the Women in...
2018-11-2628 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideMegan Price | Data Science and the Fight for Human RightsData scientists are involved in a wide array of domains, everything from healthcare to cybersecurity to cosmology. Megan Price and her colleagues at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), however, are using data science to help bring human rights abusers to justice.
The nonpartisan group played a key role in the case of Edgar Fernando García, a 26-year-old engineering student and labor activist who disappeared during Guatemala’s brutal civil war. Price, the executive director of HRDAG, says the investigation took years, but their work led to the conviction of two officers who kidnapped Garcia and...
2018-11-2046 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideEileen Martin + Nilah Monnier Ioannidis | Data in Seismology and Genomics ResearchFiber optic cables that convey data at high speeds across the globe area is a well-known feature of modern technology. Now, university data scientists have found a unique use for them: monitoring earthquakes.Distributed across Stanford’s telecom infrastructure, the cables have become a seismic array that has already collected data on over 1,000 Bay Area earthquakes, says Eileen Martin, a recent alumnus of Stanford’s Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, now Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech, whose research is focused on seismology. Martin and Nilah Monnier Ioannidis, a postdoctoral scholar concentrating on data science and genomics at Stanford, sat...
2018-11-1237 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideJanet George | The Multifaceted World of Data Storage“Fail fast” has become something of a mantra in Silicon Valley. But Janet George, the chief data officer of data storage giant Western Digital, has an amendment to that conventional wisdom: “Fail privately.”She suggests that failing privately allows you to open yourself up to discovery and exploration in a safe setting where you are able to take risks. “Carve out time for yourself so you can fail privately. So, you take 20 percent of your time in big initiatives you feel you can really contribute to, but take 20 percent of your time [(where you can])fail privately.”
George, who...
2018-11-0531 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideJennifer Widom | Math, Computers, & MusicWhen Jennifer Widom began her career in computer science, it was a relatively narrow and specialized field. Three decades later, computer science has become an interdisciplinary field that touches on broad swaths of society and promises solutions to global problems such as healthcare and sustainability, she says. “Computer science used to be a niche. But (it) has become much more broadly used, broadly applicable across all fields. Instead of it just being a narrow study of software and hardware, it's now a lot about what you can use that software and hardware for in other fields,” says Widom.
In...
2018-10-1920 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideCaitlin Smallwood | Data-Driven Video ContentBe yourself” was just one of the many career tips Caitlin Smallwood shared during a conversation with Stanford professor and Women in Data Science podcast host, Margot Gerritsen. Smallwood, vice president of data science and analytics at Netflix, urges up-and-coming data scientists to explore “the avenues and nooks and crannies” of the discipline and avoid limiting themselves to the most obvious paths.
Smallwood is passionate about data-driven content and predicts that deep learning will continue to propel advances in applied data science in the future, specifically in the area of machine translation. It will take some time, she sa...
2018-10-1931 min
Women in Data Science WorldwideJennifer Chayes | Eliminating BiasAttaining tenured status at a major university is often the culmination of an academic’s career; giving it up is unthinkable for most. But after 10 years at UCLA, Jennifer Chayes was offered a job at Microsoft. The offer, she says,“scared me to death,” but she took the job and is now managing director for Microsoft Research in New England, New York and Montreal.
“There are brass rings that come along,and they always come along at the most inopportune times,and they look really scary, but I believe that we should grab them when they come along,”...
2018-10-1936 min