Board
Meet our board members
Emily Dodwell (Organizer)
Emily Dodwell is a Principal Inventive Scientist in the Data Science and AI Research organization at AT&T Labs, where she currently focuses on predictive modeling for advertising applications, the creation of interactive tools for data analysis and visualization, and research concerning ethics and fairness in machine learning. Emily is an R enthusiast committed to promoting gender diversity in the community, and she is a member of Forwards, the R Foundation task force on women and other underrepresented groups. Prior to joining AT&T Labs in 2015, Emily taught high school math for three years at Choate Rosemary Hall. She received her M.A. in statistics from Yale University and B.A. in mathematics from Smith College.
Alejandra Gerosa
Alejandra works in fundraising in social organizations (now at the ACLU, previously at TECHO and Doctors Without Borders). With the goal to become more data-driven in her work, she earned an MBA from Duke University. There, she discovered R and fell in love with all things related to business intelligence and marketing analytics. Since then, she has been learning R and statistics through friends, online classes and the wonderful R-Ladies community. Alejandra is from Argentina, lived in Spain for 5 years, and now lives in Queens.
Ayanthi Gunawardana
Ayanthi Gunawardana (she/her/hers) is a Data Analytics Manager at the Wunderkind. Previously, Ayanthi worked at the NYC Department of Transportation where she analyzed crash and other transportation data to inform street design and transportation policy across all five boroughs. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Emory University and a Master of City and Regional Planning from Rutgers University. Ayanthi enjoys training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, running, taking all forms of public transportation, and cooking/eating spicy food.
Erin Grand
Erin works as a Data Scientist at Uncommon Schools where she trains coworker in R as well as maintaining two R packages. Prior to Uncommon, she worked as a Data Scientist at Crisis Text Line while and a software programmer at NASA while completing her Data Science Masters at Columbia University. Before data science, Erin researched star formation and taught introductory courses in astronomy and physics at the University of Maryland.
Emily Halford
Emily Halford works at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and currently focuses on evaluations of suicide crisis services and suicide prevention media campaigns, as well as examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on suicidality. She is enthusiastic about all things R, and is keenly interested in applications of data science in mental health. Emily received her MPH in Epidemiology from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and her BA in Biology and Environmental Studies from Bates College.
Angeline Protacio
Angeline Protacio (she/her) is a Data Scientist at Quartet Health, where she uses healthcare claims and product data to improve access to mental health care, and builds tools to support value based care for mental health providers. She has worked with data in a variety of settings, previously leading mental health data surveillance for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, as well as dabbling in freelance data science consulting. She has an MPH in Epidemiology, and is passionate about health equity, social determinants of health, and data for social good. She moved to New York ten years ago from California, and remains perfectly happy with her decision to trade driving cars for riding the subway. When she’s not playing with data for work, she’s still playing with data to help her fantasy baseball team win, while trying to eat everything NYC has to offer.
Kristin Akey
Kristen Akey (she/her) is a Data Analyst at Civitech, where she helps build tools to increase civic participation. She graduated with a master’s degree from Columbia University in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences and received her BA from Barnard College in Political Science. She has previously worked on projects related to political redistricting, campaign finance, and NYC buildings. In her free time, she enjoys biking, rollerblading, and playing fetch with her cat, Sybil.
Mei Guan
Mei Guan is a Lead Data Analyst at New Visions for Public Schools where she helps build an academic planning data product used by every district public school in New York City. Previously, Mei has worked as high school science teacher in Brooklyn and as a data analyst at the New York City Department of Education. She holds a B.S. in Biology from Cornell University and a M.S. in Applied Urban Science and Informatics from New York University.
Dorota Rizik
Dorota (she/her) is a data analyst with a passion for programming, automating repetitive tasks, and workflow efficiency. She has a masters in applied statistics from NYU and currently works at MDRC, a nonprofit policy research organization. She loves fries, dogs, and going to the cinema.
