Broadening Participation in Data Science for Social Justice (feat. Uma Ravanasamudram)

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“Just like how doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, I would hope data scientists would take a similar oath and have the mantra 'first do no harm.'”

In this episode, we sit down with Professor R. Uma to discuss her work in broadening participation in data science for social justice. Professor Uma shares her journey from teaching computer science at a historically black university to using data science as a tool to make STEM education more inclusive. She talks about her innovative approaches to teaching data science to students from diverse backgrounds, her recent NSF grant to develop a data analytics certificate for non-computing majors, and the importance of ethics and inclusivity in the field of data science. Join us for an insightful conversation on the future of data science education and its potential to create a more equitable and just society!

“Many of [students] come from high schools where they had no exposure to computer science courses. And the only exposure to computers that they've had is to create some PowerPoint presentation or a Word document. They come here, they take the first CS course, which for us is a C+ class, and they're like, “No, this is not what I thought computer science was about.” And so that obviously led to huge attrition and retention problems.”