18 Inspiring Women in Data Science, AI, Big Data, and Machine Learning
Women are underrepresented in STEM fields – science, technology, engineering, and math. For instance, women made up 27% of people employed in computer and mathematical occupations in 1960. But instead of growing over several decades, as many more women participated in the workforce overall, that number had declined to 26% by 2013, according to a 2015 analysis of US Census data.
However, we hope that the number of women in STEM will increase and in honor of International Women’s Day, here are profiles of 18 inspiring women in AI, Analytics, Big Data, Data Science, Machine Learning, and Robotics.
Carrie Grimes Bostock, Distinguished Engineer at Google. Grimes has spent her career at Google, where she currently works on data-driven resource planning, cost analysis, and distributed cluster management software as part of the Technical Institute Group. Grimes holds a PhD in Statistics from Stanford University and an AB in Anthropology from Harvard University.
Jennifer Chayes, @jenniferchayes, is a Distinguished Scientist and Managing Director at Microsoft Research. Chayes said during the career panel discussion at the Women in Big Data event: “You shouldn’t let your fear about your own abilities or a fear that you might be an impostor or something have any bearing on the kinds of decisions that you make. You should just take that part of your brain and say thank you for sharing and just put it aside. We all have that part of our brain and if I’d listened to that part of my brain I would have had a very boring life.” Chayes holds a PhD in Mathematical Physics from Princeton University.
Jill Dyche, @jilldyche, VP SAS Best Practices at SAS Institute. She’s the author of several books, including the most recent one, The New IT: How Technology Leaders Are Enabling Business Strategy in the Digital Age. Dyche is currently working on a side project, an e-book that advocates for simple improvements to animal shelter practices to improve pet adoption rates.
Jana Eggers, @jeggers, CEO of Nara Logics, a neuroscience-inspired AI company, providing a platform for recommendations and decision support. Her career has taken her from 3-person business beginnings to 50,000-person enterprises. She opened the European logistics software offices as part of American Airlines, dove into the internet in 1996 at Lycos, founded Intuit’s corporate Innovation Lab, helped define mass customization at Spreadshirt, and researched conducting polymers at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Carla Gentry, @data_nerd, is one of the top data science influencers on social media. She is currently a Digital Marketing Manager at Samtec. She worked with many Fortune 500 companies. She is able to take huge complicated databases, decipher business needs and come back with intelligence that quantifies spending, profit and trends. Being called a data nerd is a badge of courage for this curious Mathematician/Economist because knowledge is power and companies are now acknowledging its importance.
Fei-Fei Li, @drfeifei, is an Associate Professor at the CS Dept.
