July 8th, 2015

So this group started with me whining, “I hate being the only girl on the team.” My boss then asked for suggestions of places to recruit women data scientists, saying “We would love to hire some, but are having a hard time finding them.” I then went looking. He was right, we are hard to find. I googled women in data science and found a few meetup groups, in San Francisco and New York, but not one in DC. One of my coworkers suggested I start one. So I walked into my boss’s office and asked if my company, L-3 Data Tactics would sponsor my new Meetup group, and not only did they offer to sponsor it, but they put me in contact with other meetup leaders and mentioned they had just met a woman data scientist who might be excited to co-found my group. So I emailed the data scientist, and Jackie is just as excited about founding this group as I am! So in a week, I go from being the only woman data scientist on my team to co-leading a meetup for women data scientists in DC…

Our first meeting is in 6 weeks and I can’t wait to meet the Women Data Scientists of DC!!!!!