Celebrating Rising Undergraduate Women in Statistics and Data Science

Featured in the poster pull-out in the print issue of Amstat News are the following four up-and-coming undergraduate women in statistics and data science:

Taneisha Arora

University of California, Irvine
Major: Data Science

Who I’d invite to a dinner party:
1. Jessica Utts
2. Michelle Nuno

How I’d describe the feeling of solving a statistics/data science problem:
1. Skepticism/Disbelief
2. Amazement
3. Excitement (to share the approach/solution)

Dream Job: A data engineer, optimizing the training of models using techniques like parallelization and distributed computing and working on efficient retrieval of data from data storage systems. However, after getting my hands dirty in industry, I am dead set on going to grad school for statistics and would eventually want to work on developing statistical models to solve everyday problems with solutions that lie in the proper analysis of data.

Audrey Bertin

Graduation: 2021
Major: Statistical and Data Sciences
Minor: Public Policy

Who I’d invite to a dinner party:
1. Florence Nightingale
2. Mollie Orshansky
3. Katherine Johnson

How I’d describe the feeling of solving a statistics/data science problem:
1. Rewarding
2. Satisfying
3. Thrilling

Dream Job: Data journalist, writing about important and meaningful stories/ideas—preferably those where sharing the information will better the lives of people or connect with them emotionally—at a major newspaper or journalism site (e.g., The New York Times, ProPublica, or FiveThirtyEight).

Ziwei “Crystal” Zang

Smith College
Graduation: 2020
Major: Mathematics
Minor: Statistics and Data Science

Who I’d invite to a dinner party:
1. Jaya Satagopan
2. Stephanie Hicks

How I’d describe the feeling of solving a statistics/data science problem:
1. Excited
2. Frustrated
3. Amazed

Dream job: Principal investigator of a computational lab in a cancer center

Sarah Zimmermann

Duke University
Graduation: 2018
Major: Statistical Science

How I’d describe the feeling of solving a statistics/data science problem:
Hungry for more

Who I’d invite to a dinner party:
1. Melinda Gates
2. Michelle Obama

Dream job: Every day, I daydream about data and think more people should do the same. My dream job is spending my days creating data visualizations, specifically data comics, in hopes of providing more data and statistical accessibility to all audiences.