This article has been updated on Women’s Day, 2019.
Introduction
This women’s day, we at Analytics Vidhya are celebrating the power of women in data science.
Women around the world are blazing a trail in the data science world and what better day to honor and appreciate them than today? There are a lot of women data scientists (but still not enough in our opinion) and leaders out there who are inspiring both women AND men.
Women excel at communication, nurturing a positive atmosphere in the team, problem solving, asking the right questions (among a whole host of other things!). These are all primary leadership qualities and we hope to see a lot more women in data science leadership roles in 2019.
Let’s take a look at the women who are doing it all and inspiring us to be a better version of ourselves every single day. I encourage you to follow them on social media and read more about their accomplishments.
And to all the women, Happy Women’s Day!
Emily Glassberg Sands
In her role as the Head of Data Science at Coursera, her mission is to build a better learning platform through data-drive decisions and products. She is a Ph.D in Economics from Harvard University. She has an impressive list of awards and honors she won while at Harvard. You can hear her on our DataHack Radio podcast here.
Carla Gentry
Carla is currently working as the Digital Marketing Manager at Samtec Inc. She has over 20 years worth of experience working for companies like Johnson & Johnson, Hershey, Kraft, among others. She is a very popular and active social media user and her posts are always worth reading for their invaluable knowledge. Carla was one of the earliest guests on our DataHack Radio podcast.
Monica Rogati
Monica is an independent data science and AI advisor. She helps companies make the most of their data – both technically and strategically. She has previously worked as the VP of Data at Jawbone, a Senior Data Scientist at LinkedIn and is also currently a guest lecturer at Stanford University.
Yael Garten
Yael is the Director of Siri Analytics, Evaluation and Data Engineering at Apple where her mission is to improve Siri by using Data as the voice of their customers. Previously, she has worked as a Director of Data Science at LinkedIn. She also works as an advisor at various startups and is a leading voice at various conferences.
Sarah Nooravi
Sarah is currently working as the Senior Data Scientist at Operam. She is one of the most popular and helpful personalities on LinkedIn. Sarah regularly posts content aimed at helping aspiring data scientists break into the field and is always available for helpful and insightful advice.
Cassie Kozyrkov
Cassie is the Chief Decision Scientist at Google. She is a well-known speaker in the data science sphere, and often pens down her thoughts in articulate fashion in this field. In her DataHack Radio podcast episode, she takes us on a journey into her life at Google and how she went from being a Statistician at Google to her current role.
Kate Strachnyi
Kate is a data visualization master and a leading data science voice on LinkedIn. She has inspired countless aspiring data science professionals to take up storytelling with data. I’m a huge fan of her Tableau skills and her willingness to give back to the community through her knowledge. Make sure you check out her course – Tableau Visual Best Practices: Go for Good to GREAT!
Dr. Jeannette Wing
Dr. Jeannette Wing is the Avanessians Director of the Data Science Institute and Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. She has over 4 decades of experience in academia and the industry, and there is no one better to give a perspective on how computer science has evolved, and how it meshes with the data science world. And that’s we talk to her about in this DataHack Radio episode!
Kristen Kehrer
Kristen is a data scientist with 9 years’ experience who delivers innovative and actionable machine learning solutions in business. Like Kate, she is a leading data science voice on LinkedIn and is always sharing her rich knowledge with the community. She has interviewed numerous data scientists over the years and has drawn on her experience to create the ‘Up-Level your Data Science Resume‘ course.
Vivian Zhang
Vivian is the CTO and Chief Data Scientist at the popular NYC Data Science Academy. She has almost a decade’s worth of experience in the field of research and data science. She was featured in the list of “9 Women Leading the Pack in Data Analytics” by Forbes in August 2016.
Rachel Thomas
The co-founder of fast.ai, Rachel was selected as one of the “20 Incredible Women in AI” by Forbes. Fast.ai has created courses taken by over 100,000 students from around the world. She’s also a very popular writer and keynote speaker and her articles have been translated into various other languages.
Dr. Elena Grewal
Dr. Elena is the head of Data Science at Airbnb. She is leading a team of 100+ data scientists. She did her graduation in economics and political science from Yale and spent a year in India working on a project to bring clean water to children who had acute diarrhoea.
Jana Eggers
Jana is the CEO of Nara Logics, an AI company focused on turning big data into smart actions. She has over 25 years experience in the business industry and is an active speaker, and contributor at various AI startups.
Caitlin Smallwood
Caitlin is the Vice President of Science and Analytics at Netflix. Her team develops new models and algorithms that directly improve the Netflix service. At Netflix, she was previously leading a team of mathematicians, statisticians and data scientists who worked on algorithms research, development, predictive modeling to bring to you a seamless experience while using Netflix. She is one of the leading figures in the data science community.
Daphne Koller
Daphne is co-founder of the ultra popular online learning platform Coursera. She has also part of the Stanford University faculty for almost 19 years. Her research areas include AI and it’s applications in biomedical sciences. She has been felicitated with various awards & accolades which include ACM Infosys Awards, MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and many more.
Professor Melanie Mitchell
Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University and the author of multiple books on artificial intelligence. She has over three decades of experience in academia, computer science and artificial intelligence. She spoke to us about artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the challenges we face to get there.
Fei-Fei Le
Fei-Fei Li is a Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. She is truly one of the most influential people in technology and data science. She has previously worked as the Chief Scientist of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at Google Cloud. Check out her brilliant TED Talk on Computer Vision.
Anima Anandkumar
Anima Anandkumar is the Director of ML Research at NVIDIA and a Bren Professor at Caltech. She has spearheaded research in tensor-algebraic methods, non-convex optimization, probabilistic models and deep learning.
Women in the AV Community
In this section, we celebrate some of the women who are regular contributors to our AV community.
Pavleen Kaur
Pavleen is a data visualization wizard. Her Tableau series, from beginners to advanced, has been incredibly well received in the community. She is a final year undergrad and a major data science enthusiast. The future of data science is very bright with her!
Shilpi Bhabhra
Shilpi leads Retail and Marketplace analytics practice at Flipkart. Her expertise is in driving data-based decisions for product and business. During her 14 years of work experience, she has led several data sciences projects for implementation in the field of Retail and Marketing.
Parul Pandey
Parul is one of the best writers you’ll come across in the machine learning and artificial intelligence space. She writes comprehensive articles and breaks complex concepts into easy-to-digest information. One of the most approachable and knowledgeable personalities to follow on LinkedIn for data science.
Divya Choudhary
Divya Choudhary is a data scientist, currently pursuing her MS in Data Science from the University of Souther California. With 4 years of work experience before starting her Master’s, Divya is a computer science engineer who has traversed her professional career from being an analyst to a decision scientist to a data scientist.
Srishti Gupta
Srishti works on training deep learning models and building end to end ML pipelines to deploy them at Hike for a variety of data science problems such as recommendations, image stylisation, growth and more. Srishti has a Masters in Machine Learning from Georgia Tech and used to work at Apple before joining Hike in her current role.
Mathangi Sri
Mathangi is the Head of Data Science at PhonePe. She has 15+ years of proven track record in building world-class data science solutions and products. She has extensively worked on building chatbots and productizing text mining insights. She has 5 Patent grants and 20+ patents pending in the area of intuitive customer service, indoor positioning and user profiles.
Prathrna Bhat
Prarthana Bhat is a Data Scientist at Flutura Desicion Science and Analytics. Prarthana is skilled in SQL, R and Business Intelligence. She is an active contributor on Analytics Vidhya and was the first female data scientist to secure a rank in top 3 on Analytics Vidhya. She has over 5 years of experience in the data industry.
Anchal Gupta
Anchal is a Data Scientist at Paisabazaar.com. She is a regular participant in the Analytics Vidhya hackathons and can often be found contributing to AV’s Slack channel.
Preeti Agarwal
Preeti is the Assistant Vice President at JP Morgan Chase & Co.. She is also a Analytics Vidhya Data Science Volunteer in Mumbai. She has 11+ years of experience in Telecom & Banking domain. She loves data science and wants to spread her knowledge to the world. Preeti is a graduate from Nagpur University.
Tanvi Purohit
Tanvi Purohit is working as a Consultant with Deloitte. She is skilled in RDBMS and passionate about the field of data science. She has a working experience of over 5 years, out of which 4 have been spent working with data. She has worked in data warehousing and data analytics, and is a trained strategist. Tanvi is also a AV Volunteer in Mumbai.
Aishwarya Singh
Aishwarya joined Analytics Vidhya as an intern and has bloomed into her data science role. She loves reading and learning, and that dovetails nicely into her daily role as a data science professional. Aishwarya is also an excellent writer and has penned down plenty of articles on various data science techniques, primarily focusing on time series analysis.
And finally, please note that this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are so many wonderful women leading the way in data science and if you know of them, please post their names and links in the comments below.
Learn, compete, hack and get hired.
Senior Editor at Analytics Vidhya.Data visualization practitioner who loves reading and delving deeper into the data science and machine learning arts. Always looking for new ways to improve processes using ML and AI.
Cheers to all the women out there leading the world with their skills and ability!
Great article about leading personalities in data world.
Thank you for the sharing of these brilliant women in data science field, really inspiring! One comment: Would you kindly change Ms. Li Feifei's name in title from "Fei-Fei Le" to "Fei-Fei Li"? Thank you!