Ann began her government career at the US War Production Board during WWII. Early in her career, she also worked for the United States Navy and Air Force. She was one of the early “Government Girls,” a term coined during WWII when the federal government hired women to fill roles during a labor shortage. Not only was Ann a woman in the workforce during the 1940s and ’50s, she was also the first professional African American to work in several government agencies.
Celebrating Black History Month
Celebrating Black History Month 2022
In celebration of Black History Month, we recognize the innovative mathematical statistician Annie T. Randall, along with 11 individuals from the Black/African American collective who have made tremendous contributions to the statistics field. The 12 featured individuals have achieved success as professors, researchers, volunteers, and health care professionals.
Loni Philip Tabb
Loni Philip Tabb, originally from Philadelphia, started college as a business major but later changed to math. While earning her graduate degree, she was introduced to biostatistics and in awe of how such a field could exist that blended her love of numbers and storytelling. After completing her PhD, Tabb returned to Drexel University as an assistant professor of biostatistics and, in 2017, was promoted to associate professor and awarded tenure, reflecting her dedication to excellence in teaching, service, and cultivating a diverse and inclusive environment, in addition to her research. She is the first recipient of the Annie T. Randall Innovator Award.
Brittany Dane Green
Brittany Green grew up in a rural town in Alabama and had a phenomenal teacher who piqued her interest in math. She wrestled with how to combine her interest in math with her passion for social justice until she discovered data science and statistics. After observing media and academia tout the benefits of machine learning models without regard for how they can negatively affect certain populations, she was drawn to exploring how these models can be used to positively affect society. Now, she contributes to the field of digital technologies and social justice as an assistant professor in information systems, analytics, and operations.
Rhonda D. Fitzgerald
Rhonda followed in her father’s footsteps and earned her undergraduate degree in mathematics. After a family friend told her about this ‘new’ field called biostatistics, she propelled her journey forward and became the second African American to complete her PhD in biostatistics from Virginia Commonwealth University. Rhonda has received many awards and accolades as a tenured professor, but she is most proud of the relationships she has formed with her students and the impact she has made on their lives.
Melody S. Goodman
Melody Goodman began her undergraduate studies as a pre-med student. During her first semester, she heard senior pre-med students talking about cat lab, where you dissect a cat, and she dropped the pre-med major the next day. After a long period of being undecided, she changed her major to applied mathematics and statistics. She fell in love with combinatorics and game theory and eventually landed a job on Wall Street; she didn’t like it. After googling “math in health,” she learned about biostatistics and went to graduate school. She is now the associate dean for research and an associate professor of biostatistics at the NYU School of Global Public Health and working to educate the general public about quantitative public health data literacy and expose racial and ethnically diverse students to biostatistics and data science.
Therri Usher
Therri Usher always enjoyed mathematics, even competing in competitions during high school. Despite this, others encouraged her to pursue a career as a medical doctor, so she entered college as a pre-med student. However, when she was offered the opportunity to work in a biology lab researching sickle cell disease and conducting data analysis, she changed her major to biostatistics with a specialization in statistics. After completing her PhD, Therri joined the US Food and Drug Administration, where she applies statistical theories and methods used in the regulation of drug products to treat viral infections and rare diseases.
Celebrating Black History Month 2021
In celebration of Black History Month, we recognize 10 individuals from the Black/African-American collective who have made tremendous contributions to the field of statistics.
Emma Benn
Emma Benn has collaborated on a variety of health disparities-related research projects and teaches a graduate-level course, “Race and Causal Inference,” aimed at increasing the methodologic rigor by which health disparities are investigated, with a goal of finding effective causal targets for intervention. Benn’s contributions to diversity and inclusion in statistics and STEM have been celebrated by various organizations, including Mathematically Gifted and Black.
Simone Gray
After graduating from the University of Miami, Simone Gray became aware of the critical shortage of math and science teachers in high schools across the United States and became a tutor and mentor before going on to become a full-time mathematics teacher at a low-performing high school in southwest Florida. Gray wanted to continue learning about both math and science, however and decided to leave teaching to pursue a PhD in statistical science at Duke University. Today, she is a senior statistician in the Epidemiology and Applied Research Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control.