The Women & Data Science scholarship
The story so far…
In June 2017, the Women & Data Science scholarship was created for Data Science Retreat. It was designed to address gender imbalance at Data Science Retreat. The overall mission is to contribute to equality and empowerment in the tech industry by making the statement that industry is missing out by not searching for talent wide and well enough.
A year has passed, so it is time to present the track record so far. At Data Science Retreat, we have moved from a male-to-female participant ratio of about 95/5 to 70/30. Also, the ratio among teachers and mentors improved significantly, with 5 out of 18 teachers now being female.
The scholarship program has enabled us to do better than the tech industry at large in one year only. Moreover, we are empowering core talent that will shape and invent the data-driven products of the 21st century.
To my mind, the scholarship recipients have been among the most ambitious and successful partcipants, and go on to be highly valuable Data Scientists and Machine Learners. Allow me to present the recipients of the scholarship in chronological order:
Rachel Berryman is Data Scientist at Tempus Energy, utilizing Machine Learning to optimize energy use for flexible assets. Before joining Data Science Retreat, she was a senior energy analyst using a SQL database, creating bespoke reports for clients, and customizing a SaaS platform. In 2017 she upskilled to Machine Learning and moved on to predictive modeling. Rachel holds an MSc in Sustainable Development from the University of St Andrews and a BA from the State University of New York. Rachel is now teaching and mentoring at Data Science Retreat.
Lacin Ulas is Data Scientist at TEB BNP Paribas using Machine Learning techniques to improve financial services like credit scoring and default prediction. Also, she utilizes Deep Neural Networks on GPUs for prototyping. Before joining Data Science Retreat in 2017, she was a data modeler in the financial services industry. Lacin holds a BSc in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. Lacin now runs for Data Science Retreat a regular workshop on the Numerai competition for reinventing stock markets based on crowd-sourced Machine Learning.
Dr Setareh Sadjadi is Data Scientist at Fresh Energy building more and better products using energy consumption data from smart meters. She is a chemical engineer (Sharif University of Technology, Tehran), also holding a PhD in process engineering from TU Berlin. Before joining Data Science Retreat in 2018, her university career had led her to acquire very strong project management capabilities. While at DSR, she a member of ‘Volt Kraft’, the team winning the Connected Living Hackathon 2018.
Dr Macarena Beigier-Bompadre is Data Scientist at Ancud, deploying machine learning for consultancy clients seeking to transform their business. Macarena holds a PhD in biology (University of Buenos Aires), and for 7 years was a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology (Berlin), specializing in infectious diseases. She joined Data Science Retreat in 2018. In moving from science to data science, Macarena solves problems through data, analytic thinking, and visual representations.
Teresita Guerrero completed her training as Data Scientist in July 2018. Before, Teresita was a software engineer for Intel in Mexico. Her role included handling data pipelines, a variety of databases, and cloud computing infrastructure. While working, she took herself through an MA program in data science and data processing (2015).
Dr Lisa Heße is completing her training as a Data Scientist in September 2018. Lisa holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics (University of Regensburg), and has prior strong skills in Python, SQL, and data analysis and visualization. At Data Science Retreat she is involved in a larger project on unpaved road detection that includes imagine processing and deep learning approaches.
Dr Franziska Schmitt is completing her training at Data Science Retreat in September 2018. She holds a PhD in Neurobiology (University of Würzburg). After defending her thesis, Franziska on her own commenced her training in Machine Learning, utilizing online course and resources. At DSR she is combining her ability to contextualize data with hands-on expertise in the most relevant machine and deep learning technologies.
Here is a list of more successful female participants at Data Science Retreat since June 2017
Dr Francesca Diana is Data Scientist at Codecentric AG. She holds a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Regensburg.
Carmen Iniesta López is Data Scientist at CodeControl and NLP developer. She is a computer scientist by training (Universidad de Murcia).
Dr Juanjiangmeng Du is a Data Scientist and Geneticist at the University of Cologne.
Rita Tapia Oregui is a NLP engineer at Verne AI. She was educated in Arabic philology at the Universidad de Granada.
Alice Martin is completing her training at Data Science Retreat in September 2018. She holds a MSc in Financial Engineering from ISAE-Supaero.
Finally, here are the important contributors to the practitioner-led teaching and training at Data Science Retreat
Dr Amelie Anglade is a freelance Data Scientist consulting for corporates and startups. She teaches Python.
Dania Meira is Data Scientist at MYTOYS Group. She teaches Data munging and SQL.
Nour Karessli is Data Scientist at Zalando SE, She teaches Machine Learning with small samples.
Sandra Yojana Meneses is a Machine Learning Engineer at Data Science Retreat. She teaches Git and supports GitHub projects by DSR participants.
Rachel Berryman is a Data Scientist with Tempus Energy (see above). She teaches Model pipelines.
Acknowledgement: All photos by www.tatyanakronbichler.de
Reaching the author: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisarmbruster/
