There are many excellent women working in the data science industry today. But we’ve rounded up a list of 10, with a mixture of both industry leaders and ones to watch.
The data science industry is thriving and as AI and machine learning continue to evolve, so too will the role of the data scientist. While this may create new and exciting opportunities in tech, there is still a gender gap in this sector that needs to be addressed.
A report from Boston Consulting Group earlier this year suggested that only about 15pc to 22pc of all professionals in data science-related roles are women. With this in mind, we at Siliconrepublic.com wanted to highlight just some of the incredible women in the data science industry who are leading the way.
Prof Maria Fasli
In 2016, Prof Maria Fasli became the first UNESCO chair in analytics and data science. Her key objective was to highlight the critical role that data plays in promoting equality, sustainable development and how it can enhance people’s lives.
Fasli is also the director of the Institute for Analytics and Data Science at the University of Essex. Her research interests include AI techniques for analysing and modelling complex systems and structured and unstructured data in various domains.
Cathy O’Neil
Cathy O’Neil is a mathematician who has worked as a professor, hedge-fund analyst and data scientist. She is the founder of algorithmic auditing company ORCAA and is the author of Weapons of Math Destruction.
In which I try to explain how recommendation algorithms work and can be manipulated:https://t.co/mJXnI63adl
— Cathy O'Neil (@mathbabedotorg) September 21, 2020
O’Neil has also written articles for Bloomberg, The Guardian and has given a TED talk on the challenges and dangers around big data.
Danai Koutra
A recipient of the 2020 Association for Computing Machinery’s SIGKDD Rising Star Award, Danai Koutra is an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan.
Danai Koutra, Morris Wellman assistant professor of Computer Science and Engineering at University of Michigan, and Jiliang Tang, assistant professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University, both received the first annual ACM SIGKDD honors of Rising Star pic.twitter.com/f1PgeeV1ob
— SIGKDD 2020 (@kdd_news) August 18, 2020
Her research in large-scale data mining focuses on principled, interpretable and scalable methods for network summarisation and multi-network analysis.
Medb Corcoran
Medb Corcoran leads Accenture Labs in Ireland, which is based at The Dock, Accenture’s global flagship R&D and innovation centre. In her role, Corcoran incubates and prototypes new concepts through applied R&D projects and drives the centre’s artificial intelligence R&D.
Medb Corcoran wins the Disrupter Award at #WITA18 pic.twitter.com/vhZXZFThDJ
— goosed.ie (@goosed_ie) November 22, 2018
Corcoran is also on the advisory board of the master’s in business analytics in UCD and plays an ongoing role in shaping the new bachelor’s degree in data science at DCU, which launched in 2016.
Naomi Hanlon
Naomi Hanlon is a data scientist who has experience working in many different areas and recently joined Liberty IT as a senior data scientist.
Hanlon has an educational background in mathematics and bioinformatics. Her current roles involves the use of problem-solving skills and analytical thinking and she enjoys using R for data analysis and visualisation when working with large datasets.
Sharvari Gujja
Having worked her way up from bioinformatician, Sharvari Gujja is now the director of bioinformatics at the advanced artificial intelligence laboratory in Genuity Science. In that time, she has contributed to a number of high-profile scientific publications, including research in Cell Stem Cell and Nature Metabolism.
Sharvari Gujja. Image: Genuity Science
Along with her team, Gujja applies proprietary, domain-specific AI algorithms to reveal novel patterns and causal dependencies to advance biological understanding of disease.
Domonique Hodge
Domonique Hodge is a lead data scientist at American analytics and advisory company Gallup, having joined the company in 2016. She previously worked as an analyst and statistician in various institutions, and obtained her PhD in biostatistics from Emory University.
Join Gallup Managing Consultant Dan Foy, Lead Data Scientist Domonique Hodge and Senior Consultant Stafford Nichols today as they explain how Gallup models COVID-19’s spread through the population. https://t.co/rPIHnogGFC
— Gallup Workplace (@GallupWorkplace) April 29, 2020
Hodge is passionate about leveraging big data to build tools and tell stories that drive impact and create actionable insights.
Emily Glassberg Sands
As the head of data science at Coursera, Emily Glassberg Sands and her team build the statistical models and machine learning algorithms that power content discovery and help scale the learning experience at the online course provider.
Inspiring day! Talking #AI for #education w/ @drfeifei & @aaker’s fascinating ‘Designing AI for Wellbeing’ class at @StanfordGSB, hearing from @ken_goldberg, then w/ 200+ amazing women for @WiDS_Conference #SF at @Airbnb. So many learnings — incl that baby kicks A LOT on stage 👶 pic.twitter.com/ZJtRZQH3HA
— Emily GlassbergSands (@emilygsands) March 7, 2019
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a PhD from Harvard, both in economics. Her academic research blends experimentation, econometrics and machine learning to better understand labour markets and consumer decision-making.
Rama Akkiraju
Rama Akkiraju is an IBM fellow and a director at the IBM Watson division, where she leads the AI operations team with a mission to scale AI for enterprises. She holds a master’s degree in computer science and in 2017 was named as one of the top 20 women advancing AI research by Forbes.
How can AI help to better manage IT Operations? Read on in this article.. https://t.co/YPodQjAU7z #ai-infusion #AIOps #WatsonAIOps #AIforIT #AI4IT
— Rama Akkiraju (@rama_akkiraju) August 5, 2020
Prior to her work at IBM, Akkiraju worked on agent-based decision support systems, electronic marketplaces and semantic web services. She has also written more than 100 technical papers.
Monica Rogati
Monica Rogati is a technical and strategic data science adviser, working with companies across several different industries.
If you're confused about all the data tools out there, this post is uniquely good at identifying what they do & don't. It does NOT suggest a tool stack to fit your needs. Meta-jokes aside, this is an excellent resource by @sarahcat21,@AbeGong & @petesoder: https://t.co/v2DPOwbuUG
— Monica Rogati (@mrogati) May 14, 2020
She previously worked as Jawbone’s vice-president of data, where she built and led a team of data scientists and engineers. She was also one of the early members of LinkedIn’s data science team.
