LATEST NEWS

Talitha Washington Elected President of the Association for Women in Mathematics

Talitha Washington Elected President of the Association for Women in Mathematics

Feb 1, 2022 | ,

Taking office Feb. 1, 2022, Dr. Talitha Washington continues to support women and girls in mathematics as the President-Elect for the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM). She will become president of the association in 2023 and will serve for two years. Currently, Washington is a Professor of the Mathematical Sciences at Clark Atlanta University and the Director of the Atlanta University Center (AUC) Data Science Initiative. 

The AWM is a professional society that encourages women and girls to study and have active careers in the mathematical sciences and promotes equal opportunity and the equal treatment of women and girls in the mathematical sciences. Washington says, “I am honored to follow in the footsteps of past AWM President Cora Sadowsky, who was a faculty member at my former institution, Howard University.”  As the first Black to be AWM President-Elect, her path has been guided by the AWM community. One of her goals is to advocate for broad engagement and participation which strengthens the entire mathematical community and our nation. 

 We are proud to recognize her leadership and commitment to service!

ASA Awarded $1.5M NSF Grant to Boost Underrepresented Students

ASA Awarded $1.5M NSF Grant to Boost Underrepresented Students

Dec 14, 2021 | ,

The American Statistical Association has been awarded a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to ensure students from underrepresented groups have access to cutting-edge data science courses, research opportunities, and industry partnerships.

The grant will allow the ASA to work with partners to create a National Data Mine Network, which will provide opportunities for students to do hands-on work on data science challenges of relevance to industry. This network will expand Purdue University’s Data Mine program to include students at minority-serving institutions across the United States.

The project—led by Mark Daniel Ward (Purdue University), Katherine Ensor (Rice University and American Statistical Association), Monica Jackson (American University), Donna LaLonde (American Statistical Association), and Talitha Washington (Atlanta University Center Data Science Initiative)—will create an educational ecosystem that makes data science knowledge and skills accessible and attractive to students.

“Data science is exceedingly interdisciplinary, and this gives us a great opportunity both to engage students and also address the need for diversity in the workforce,” said Mark Daniel Ward, director of The Data Mine and professor of statistics at Purdue University. “I am enthusiastic about scaling up our Purdue program to a larger level that engages diverse college students and their faculty mentors in real-world data science problems. Like the initial program, this national program will promote learning from data, using it as a tool to help solve problems in a data-driven society.”

“The mission of the ASA is to promote the practice and profession of statistics, and we are committed to ensuring that students have the opportunities to develop the skills and knowledge needed to become statisticians and data scientists,” said Kathy Ensor, the 2022 president of the American Statistical Association and Noah G. Harding professor of statistics at Rice University. “It is undeniable that the more diverse our community is, the greater the contributions, so we are excited to collaborate on building and sustaining the National Data Mine Network.”

“The Atlanta University Center Data Science Initiative works with four historically black colleges and universities—Spelman, Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Morehouse School of Medicine—to increase opportunities for students to become trained in data science,” said Talitha Washington, director of the AUC Data Science Initiative. “We are excited about providing opportunities for students at minority-serving institutions to create data-driven solutions for data science projects informed by industry partners.”

Students in the National Data Mine Network will use high-performance computing to solve data-driven challenges that arise in every sector of industry, including biomedical engineering, health care engineering, image processing, manufacturing, supply chain management, and transportation. The network will directly fund 300 undergraduate students at a cross-section of minority-serving institutions with 100 research stipends per year.

Source Article: https://www.amstat.org/ASA/News/ASA-Awarded-NSF-Grant-to-Boost-Underrepresented-Students.aspx