Women in Data Science Worldwide

Highlights Google’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) Bio Shir 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...

Highlights Time at Mathworks (17:27) Being a team leader (18:52) Staying in touch with the technical side (20:04) Advice (27:07) Bio Sohini 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,...

Predictive Modeling (4:15)  Human judgement and processes (14:06) Imperfection in models (21:40) Bio Claudia 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 mach...

Highlights Vulnerability and honesty in leadership (12:07) Finding leaders who are willing to take risks on talent (13:48) Bio Maritza 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...

Math and Computer Science (2:51) Graph Alignment (20:38)   Bio Huda 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"...

Language as the access to different cultures (2:09) Career journey (8:23) People first in leadership style (23:19) Bio Hannah 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...

Sydney 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...

  Highlights LLMs (1:46) AI systems (3:25) The need for humanness in AI (20:17) Transitioning to independent consultant (28:31) Bio Karin 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 headin...

  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. 0...

Summary: 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 lif...

In 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 crime Trust in stable coin Misconceptions around cryptocurrency Using data and data science in fighting fraud  ...

Michelle 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 comple...

In 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 th...

Kate 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 intellige...

Telle 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 Suther...

Srujana 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...

Today 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 men...

As 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...

An 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 Colleg...

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...

Leda 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...

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...

As 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 i...

EPISODE NOTES WiDS 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...

When 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 cu...