Catherine is the CEO & Founder of Veura, a people analytics and employee experience design consulting firm, bringing nearly 20 years of experience in People Analytics, Data Science, and Business Strategy. Her educational background consists of four bachelor degrees in Business Administration (Human Resources Management), Economics, Chemistry, and Biochemistry from the University of Washington, complemented by intensive Data Science training from Metis. She is also passionate about helping foster educational/career opportunities for underrepresented and underprivileged communities. Along with being a Board Member for DiDS, she has enjoyed serving as a WiDS ambassador since 2019, a past co-chair for WiDS Puget Sound Conferences, and as a Board Member for Accessifiers.

Kristin is a data scientist at Pfizer where she leads a team of programmers implementing data pipelines to automate biomarker data quality control, enhancing data accessibility and expediting decision-making processes in clinical trials. While she believes the potential for machine learning and AI is remarkable, so are the challenges that we face with our data. It is often unstructured, scattered, incomplete, and frequently varies considerably between different sources. Kristin is passionate about data standardization, streamlining the aggregation process, and ensuring that data is not only accessible but also primed for analysis. Her goal is to create a conducive environment where data-driven decision making can thrive and to bridge the gap between raw data and the scientists eager to translate it into breakthroughs. In her remaining free time, she enjoys gardening, painting, reading, and board games.

Kelly joined the data science field after 6 years working with environmental nonprofits. Since her passion for volunteering still needs an outlet, she leaped at the opportunity to get involved with Data Circles and the Women in Data Science Puget Sound conference. After DS boot camp and a year of consulting, she joined the small, but mighty team of data scientists at Trupanion. Her dog greatly appreciates his insurance benefits. She’s excited to experience another year of knowledge sharing with WiDS!

Rebecca Grollman is a board member of the Diversity in Data Science non-profit and a Senior Data Scientist at Zillow where her work focuses on experimentation and research to help home buyers connect with agents. Before jumping into data science, Rebecca earned her Ph.D. in physics at Oregon State University. Rebecca first got involved in the Women in Data Science Puget Sound Conference as a speaker, and has been a volunteer for the last six years. She has enjoyed seeing the conference grow and create a supportive community for women in science and technology. Rebecca also enjoys playing the flute and running.

Dana is a retired Data Scientist, Program Manager, Lean Practitioner, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineer. She has been involved in the planning committee for the WiDS Puget Sound conference since 2022. She’s passionate about supporting young people, particularly women, as they start their careers in Data Science.

Rachel Wagner-Kaiser has 15 years of experience in data and AI, entering the data science field after completing her PhD in astronomy. She specializes in building NLP and AI solutions for real-world problems constrained by limited or messy data. Rachel leads technical teams to design, build, deploy, and maintain NLP solutions, and her expertise has helped companies organize and decode their unstructured data to solve a variety of business problems and drive value through automation. Rachel is also the author of the recent book "Teaching Computers to Read" (http://amazon.com/dp/1032484357) and corresponding code companion.