2021 Keynote Address: Dr. Talithia Williams

Dr. Talithia Williams

Data-Driven Decision Making, Now and Imagined

Technology has a history of being a catalyst of change in training and education. We’ve seen it with desktop computers and, more recently, with the emergence of smartphones. But those shifts, substantial as they were, pale in comparison to the next big technological disruption: Data. In this fascinating talk you will discover how the advancing world of data analytics is forever changing the future of learning and work. You will explore the full landscape of data analytics, looking at both the expanding ways in which data is generated, and the advancements in analytics that make that data actionable. You will hear examples of data being used to better understand performance in both education and enterprise, and learn how those insights are being used to inform decision making and transform society.  

Biography:

Statistician Talithia Williams is an innovative, award-winning Harvey Mudd College professor, a co-host of the PBS NOVA series NOVA Wonders and a speaker whose popular TED Talk, “Own Your Body’s Data”, extols the value of statistics in quantifying personal health information. She demystifies the mathematical process in amusing and insightful ways to excite students, parents, educators and the larger community about STEM education and its possibilities.  In 2015, she won the Mathematical Association of America’s Henry L. Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Beginning College or University Mathematics Faculty Member, which honors faculty members whose teaching is effective and extraordinary, and extends its influence beyond the classroom.  It is this excellence that attracted the attention of online educational company The Great Courses, which selected Williams to produce “Learning Statistics: Concepts and Applications in R,” a series of lectures in which she provides tools to evaluate statistical data and determine if it’s used appropriately.  She is the author of “Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics”, a full-color book highlighting the influence of women in the mathematical sciences in the last two millennia.

Williams is a proud graduate of Spelman College (B.A., math), Howard University (M.S., mathematics) and Rice University (M.A., Ph.D., statistics). Her research focus involves developing statistical models that emphasize the spatial and temporal structure of data and applies them to problems in the environment. She’s worked at NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the National Security Agency and has partnered with the World Health Organization on research regarding cataract surgical rates in African countries. Faith and family round out a busy life that she shares with a supportive husband and three amazing boys.  Through her research and work in the community at large, she is helping change the collective mindset regarding STEM in general and math in particular, rebranding the field of mathematics as anything but a dry, technical or male-dominated but, instead, a logical, productive career path that is crucial to the future of the country.