>> Hello, I'm Dr. Ben Vinson III, the 18th president of Howard University.

And it is my pleasure to welcome you to this program, one of many we plan to bring to you as part of the @Howard series.

Howard University has the distinct pleasure of being the only HBCU to hold the license of a public television station across the country.

This special relationship allows WHUT to have unique access to the breadth and depth of academic content that is being produced on our campus.

From stimulating lecture series and panel discussions on a wide range of topics to one-on-one conversations with captains of industry and international leaders of business, politics, and the arts.

From time to time, WHUT will broadcast some of that content in the form of full programs to short excerpts that we believe will surely stimulate and engage you.

So sit back and enjoy.

We're proud to share with you some of what makes Howard University so special.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Steve Weintraub, I am the AMS Associate Secretary for the Eastern Section.

And I'm very pleased to invite you all to the 2024 AMS Einstein Lecture.

The Einstein Lecture is one of the AMS's premier events.

It's a lecture that's always given at a sectional meaning.

And we're here today at Howard University for our spring 2024 Eastern Sectional meeting.

I will remark that Howard was the first institution -- sorry, the first HBCU to host.

We have a long list of institutions that have hosted meetings, but Howard was the first HBCU to have hosted a meeting several decades ago.

And we're glad to be back at Howard today.

And so it is my great pleasure to introduce Dr. Talitha Washington, who will give the 2024 Einstein Lecture.

Dr. Talitha Washington -- [ Applause ] Dr. Talitha Washington is the director of the Atlanta University Center Data Science Initiative, a tenured professor of mathematics at Clark Atlanta University, and an affiliate faculty in Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Spelman College.

She is the lead principal investigator of the National Data Science Alliance, funded by the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Washington is the president of the Association for Women in Mathematics and has research interests in applied mathematics, dynamical systems, non-standard finite difference schemes, data science, artificial intelligence, and education.

Dr. Washington is a former program director at the National Science Foundation who worked in the Convergence Accelerator in the Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships.

Previously in the Division of Undergraduate Education, she led the development, implementation, and management of NSF's first Hispanic-Serving Institutions Award, co-authoring two solicitations totaling $85 million.

She was elected to honor societies Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi and mathematics honor societies Kappa Mu Epsilon and Pi Mu Epsilon.

She is a recipient of the 2019 BEYA STEM Innovator Award, the 2019 Outstanding Faculty Award from Howard University, and the 2020 NSF Directors Award for Superior Accomplishment.

She is a fellow of the African Scientific Institute, the American Mathematical Society, the Association for Women in Mathematics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Washington completed her undergraduate studies in mathematics at Spelman College and studied abroad at the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara in Mexico.

She earned her master's and doctoral degrees in mathematics from the University of Connecticut.

She received an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Connecticut.

She was an assistant professor -- research associate in the Department of Mathematics at Duke University.

She held assistant professorships at the College of New Rochelle and the University of Evansville, an associate professorship at Howard University, and most recently, a full professorship at Clark Atlanta University.

Dr. Washington, the floor is all yours.

>> Good evening.

It's great to be here back at "The Mecca" here at Howard University.

So, as he said, my name is Dr. Talitha Washington.

And I'm going to talk about the data revolution.

But first, before I get started, I just want to give my disclaimer that anything I say are my opinions and don't recommend -- don't represent the views of any organization.

And as he said, I've kind of been around the block.

I guess it's a couple of times.

I started out at Spelman College, which is a women's college in Atlanta -- in Atlanta, Georgia, and then I went off to the University of Connecticut, earned my PhD.

And then one thing led to another and then I find myself here not having one job, but multiple jobs.

Why not?

Right.

So I'm the director of the Atlanta University Center Data Science Initiative, also the National Director of the National Data Science Alliance and a professor at Clark Atlanta.

So it's been a fun journey and it's been very delightful.

And also delightful working with the AMS, the American Mathematical Society.

And so with this Einstein Lecture, I thought it'd be fitting to also introduce Einstein and introduce Einstein from the view of W.E.B.

Du Bois.

So back in the day, Du Bois and Einstein were, I suppose, friends or maybe colleagues.

And Du Bois was a professor at Atlanta University, and he writes to Einstein and writes about Einstein, and he says, "Albert Einstein is a Jew of German nationality.

He was born in Wurttemburg in 1879 and educated in Switzerland.

He has been professor of physics at Zurich and Prague, and is, at present, director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Physical Institute at Berlin.

He is a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Science and the British Royal Society.

He received the Nobel Prize in 1921 and the Copley Medal in 1925.

Einstein is a genius in higher physics and ranks with Copernicus, Newton, and Kepler.

His famous theory of relativity, advanced first in 1905, is revolutionizing our explanation of physical phenomenon and our conception of Motion, Time, and Space.

But Professor Einstein is not a mere mathematical mind.

He's a living being sympathetic with all human advance.

He's a brilliant advocate of disarmament and world peace.

And he hates race prejudice because, as a Jew, he knows what it is.

So as the Einstein lecturer, I wanted to bring Einstein along with us.

But through the words of Du Bois, and as we know, Einstein was an advocate for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

And here is an image of him with the president, where he received an honorary doctorate degree from Lincoln.

So Lincoln University, It's a Historically Black College and University just as Howard University.

So HBCUs were established prior to 1964, whose principal mission was and is the education of Black Americans.

There are over 100 HBCUs.

And even though we make up only 3% of all institutions of higher education, and graduate 24% of black students with a STEM degree, and also are the places of origin of almost 30% of Black graduates in STEM doctorate programs.

It's not uncommon for me to go to conferences and sit around the table with other PhDs, African-American, and most people are from HBCUs.

Just happens that way.

I went from Evansville, Indiana, to Atlanta, Georgia, as I said before, to Spelman College, and I really enjoyed it.

Yeah, there I am in the Morehouse marching band.

So Morehouse College is all men's college, which is literally right across the street.

Clark Atlanta University, right across another street.

We also have Morehouse School of Medicine, Morris Brown College, and the Interdenominational Theological Center.

So six HBCUs co-located right there, and we call ourselves the Atlanta University Center.

And it was a great place to grow up mathematically and start a budding career.

When I was a senior.

My advisor strongly encouraged, which means he told me to apply to graduate school, so I did.

And then I was encouraged or rather told to apply for funding.

And I became a Packard fellow.

So through really the encouragement of my undergraduate professors, I went on and became a graduate student at the University of Connecticut, where I studied dynamical systems, looking at cellular dynamics through the lens of partial differential equations, and also developing theories around that.

While there I ran into, luckily, Dr. Willena Kimpson Price, who was also a Spelman alum.

She was at the African American Cultural Center.

And, so, on the upper right, that's me as a graduate student.

Mathematical CONNections.

So as we go through our lives and go through these different places, it's great to have these connections of support.

The year I graduated was 2001.

I learned, probably towards the end of my graduate program, that I was the -- in 2001, I was the first US Black to earn a PhD in mathematics from the University of Connecticut.

And when I first arrived at the institution, people questioned what country I was from because I was not the norm.

In the year that I graduated, six Black females in this country earned a PhD in mathematics.

Those numbers are very small.

I think I know all of them.

And if we think about the preparation of students, this graph, if you look at the top line, that's approximately plus or minus -- sigma or epsilon -- the US Black population proportion.

But when you go underneath there you see the yellow bar is going down and it's significantly lower, the master's bar significantly lower.

And the doctorate, as well.

These downward trends disturb me as an academician, as a mathematician.

And so when we think about being a mathematician, we've seen the movie "Hidden Figures," right, with Katherine Johnson being the only one, being the first, and myself being the first from University of Connecticut.

And sometimes it can be very isolating.

When I was editor and formerly also vice president of the National Association of Mathematicians, I would have titles for the newsletter.

So I'm not advocating for Kanye West, but he made a song, "We Ball So Hard," and the remix was "We Math So Hard."

They want to find us because we're not supposed to be here.

And so it was our way, having the images, having us be there.

We are supposed to be here.

We are doing mathematics.

So our country is also looking at who's in STEM, who's in math.

The United States is on track to be about 3 million STEM workers short by 2030.

And so there's a national need to expand STEM education at all levels, in all ways you can imagine.

And as my introducer so eloquently noted, I was in the TIP Directorate at the NSF and they're looking at translational science.

How can we take science and then translate that to the market so we can provide true value to society?

My question as mathematician is how can we mathematicians participate and engage in that translational science, going from lab to market and societal value?

So in thinking about how this employment and how the skills are changing, the expectation of skills are changing, we're seeing that data, knowledge, acumen, understanding, expertise is becoming more and more prevalent, more and more needed.

So this is a Burning Glass report.

Data science is for everyone.

And this figure, it shows a change in employment by a broad occupation type.

The top line that's going wildly up.

It says more data-intense professional occupations.

So we're seeing that our students and even us as faculty, as academician researchers, we are using more data.

We're presented with data.

We need to do something with that.

Well, it's fun to do something with it.

Let me say it that way.

We also have the National Institute of Health.

They have a strategic wide plan to look at how can we use data science to enhance analytical capacity, because these capacities are informing how we are -- how we receive health care both from the providers and from the insurance companies.

Many algorithms, many technologies are informing that and informing how you receive care.

So data is really starting to determine or strongly influence health care.

If we get a job, if we get a house loan, do we get into that college?

Uh, you know, sharing with your friends your health metrics and competing -- I always lose.

So we're seeing a lot of need for data.

Harnham put out a study, and it noted that African-American individuals account for 12% of the US population as a whole, but only 3% of data analytics professionals.

So for me, that underrepresentation presents a problem.

And as a mathematician, I like to solve problems.

How do I solve them?

As an applied mathematician.

I like to think through mathematical modeling.

So I think about problems.

It could be that problem and thinking about it in a mathematical way.

How do I investigate the dynamics of the system?

Looking at education, looking at content, looking at research, looking at expectations in industry, what's happening in government and policy, and trying to create, in my mind, a dynamical system.

I'll let you know when I build it.

And the reaction rates are still to be determined.

But how are they all connected?

How do they work with each other or not?

And so I really think about this, these problems and creating programs and national we'll say initiatives from a dynamical systems point of view.

So I came into data science literally by my students pulling me by the ear when I was here as a professor at Howard University.

I remember a student would come up and say, "Dr. Washington, we have to do some data science."

"Like, okay, why do we need to do it?"

"Because I need to get a job."

Right?

And they were like, "You're all we have, so let's do it."

I said, okay.

So an independent study with one turned into an independent study with three turned into a, you know, going to workshops, learning more, doing a topics course with Todd Drumm, who was a geometer.

I pulled him into it, too.

Misery loves company.

And so -- And then it turned out to -- I was launching the first data science program for the NSF IUSE program IUSE is Improving Undergraduate STEM Education.

and then going on to the NSF Convergence Accelerator.

How can AI help develop workers on the manufacturing plant floor?

And, so, just this curiosity about how things work and how things relate to one another just kind of led me down a journey that I had not anticipated.

So, currently, I'm the inaugural director of the Atlanta University Center.

And the motto for Atlanta University is "I'll find a way or make one."

And in February of 2023, I became the president of the Association for Women in Mathematics.

And I just want to give a short infomercial with AWM.

So AWM is a professional society that advocates for women and girls in mathematics and really looks at how do we address the gender disparities as one goes through the profession as females or women, those who identified as being female as they go through the math profession?

How do we create equitable systems so that we can all thrive and contribute meaningfully?

And so when I think about data science and programs, I'm thinking, how do we bring gender equity for all gender identities?

And then also for all racial identities, both in math and data science?

So the Atlanta University Center Data Science Initiative, it's a presidential initiative.

The four presidents of the Atlanta University Center got together, as they regularly do, and said, we need to have our students skilled in data.

All disciplines need it.

And we want you -- that's me -- my homework assignment to create a program not only for the four Historically Black Colleges in Atlanta University Center consortium, but for all HBCUs.

So I was like, okay, yeah, how hard could that be?

So, you know, you just start building.

But it's been a really great pathway from the president's identifying the need in 2018.

I came on in 2020.

We've held workshops, symposiums.

We collaborate with industry.

2022 we were funded at 10 million to stand up the National Data Science Alliance from the National Science Foundation.

And then this past fall, for Mastercard, they awarded 6.5 million to even push our work further.

So we do work and people say, "No, that's not enough, do more."

And so that's what we do.

We grow.

I'll show a short video about some of our work that we're doing.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Data science!

>> ...and data science.

>> Data science!

>> Data science.

>> For the W.E.B.

Du Bois Data Science Symposium hosted by the Atlanta University Center.

>> Data science.

>> Data.

>> Data science.

>> Checking in at the block party.

Want to say shout-out to UnitedHealth Group.

Inspiration that drives performance in your life.

Let's get it.

♪♪ ♪♪ >> Hello, I'm Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens.

Welcome to the W.E.B.

Du Bois Data Science Symposium.

♪♪ >> Donating, offering resources to institutions, higher institutions in particular so that we're able to continue to grow and then also develop.

[ Applause ] >> So we stay busy.

Oh, thank you, thank you.

If I can get this clicker to work.

There we go.

No.

There we go.

And as they say, teamwork makes the dream work.

I could not do this work alone.

We have a team.

We have three more people coming on Monday.

We're still hiring, if anybody needs a job.

Uh, and so it's great.

It's a real team with a strong commitment to be responsive to the needs of the communities in Atlanta and also beyond.

So with the AUC Data Science Initiative, we have two goals in mind.

One is to develop talent, that's developing talent at all levels, and then also creating new knowledge generating and cultivating new research and new research directions.

And so we do this through our curriculum, through our research, and through our engagement.

So at the AUC, we have a data science and analytics framework that guides how we think about data science and also education, training, research.

So it stands on six different items.

Mathematics and statistics, programming, modeling, data curation, ethics, and communication.

And so our aim is to provide these experiences, these learning outcomes for our students, for our faculty, and for our community.

We do our work with our industry partners who collaborate with us.

We push them, they push us.

And it's really a fruitful relationship to understand, what are they seeing in the workforce, so that when we develop our students, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, there is a continuity, there's a continuum where students can enter into the workforce because, as we know, in mathematics, about half of our students, they're not going into the academy anymore.

They're going into industry, they're going into government.

And so having these partnerships really helps us understand how do we support that development of our students, both in their research and professional science?

I have a couple boards.

I have a faculty advisory board, advisory board of deans, provost council.

A lot of people tell me what to do and it's great.

But with our most recent faculty advisory board, and this is made up of faculty and staff from across the AUC, we brought in one of our partners from the Home Depot and said, "What do students need to know to enter data science related jobs?

Have at it?

Let us know."

And when he started talking and saying how they use data, AI, analytics, when somebody put something in the search bar, if you go to the Home Depot website, you've searched for something, your entry then gets mapped to different sort of characteristics through a probabilistic model.

And, oh, this is what you really want, what you really mean.

Even if you have typos.

I always have typos.

And then he said, if you're trying to buy a sink, you have these AI and art-generated images to kind of figure out, well, how does that sink look like in different scenarios.

He said all of that is built on technology platforms, and all the faculty are going, wow.

I mean, I was wowed.

It was so great.

So it's neat to understand and see what is happening industry.

So we can bring that back to the classroom so we can bring, let's say, AI earlier on in the curriculum.

And as we know, artificial intelligence is becoming widely more popular.

And recently the Department of Commerce launched an artificial intelligence safety institute consortium, cooperative research and development agreement.

And we are one HBCU who entered into it.

And our goal really is to connect us into stewarding AI, to develop the technology and develop it in a responsible way.

Also with the CHIPS and Science Act, if you haven't read it, read it.

CHIPS and Science Act is a national initiative, not for potato chips, which I love -- microchips.

I love those, too.

Microchips are in your phone, your car, your computer.

And so the idea is to bring the production of microelectronics back into the United States.

Taiwan produces most of them at the moment, and in the CHIPS and Science Act, it's to really spur the innovation both on the research, the technology side, the workforce side, the development side, the actually building buildings.

So there's education, workforce.

And in the CHIPS and Science Act, they identified ten key technology areas -- artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, biotech, materials science, quantum technology, high-performance computing.

When I see all of these components, I see algorithms, I see mathematics.

And so we as mathematicians, I think will be the driving force for this.

We were awarded a grant from the Mastercard to expand what we're doing.

And, yeah, you see the black card in the middle.

I was like, that's probably the only one I'll get, right, but I'll take it.

And so with this funding, we'll be launching workshops with industry to figure out, well, how can we connect what's happening in industry with what's happening either in our education and research and then also supporting innovation in computer science, working to expand computer science departments and programming, and also expanding some of our ongoing programs, one of which is our pre-freshman summer experience program, and also establish an HBCU Data Science Career Hub to connect students to industry opportunities.

So the pre-freshman summer experience this summer is our fourth run of it, fourth year.

And it will be open to all HBCUs.

Last summer we had about I think 87 students complete.

This year, we anticipate that we'll have 150 incoming HBCU students complete the program.

It's a one week research based program where the students will delve into a research project that focuses on data for social impact.

Any HBCU incoming student is welcome to apply.

We also need research mentors.

So if you're a student, current HBCU student either upper level like sophomore, junior, senior, or freshman I guess, and also or graduate student if you like to be a research mentor, applications are open.

And we're also looking for instructors, HBCU faculty, staff.

Each of them are paid positions, all three.

So there's stipend there.

And when we do our work in programming, we always do it with asking, is this what we should do?

Not guessing.

I don't like to guess.

I guess, and then I say, okay.

I guess it's kind of like the predictor-corrector method where you predict and then you correct.

We do that.

We like that in numerical analysis.

And so this working group from across AUC, from different disciplines, helps us, has really been stewarding this program to make sure that it's grounded.

And at the end of the program, the student participants receive an electronic credential.

Last summer, as I said, 87 students completed and we were partnered with the PFxplus C computing program.

But you'll see that we had majors from all different disciplines -- journalism, arts, media, chemistry, aerospace, biology, psychology.

And we welcome everyone to the table of data science.

We're also launching a Microsoft AUC Data Science mini grant program.

When I was at the NSF, I helped bring the National Academy of Sciences to the foundation to talk about the MSI report that talked about developing different on ramps for institutions, for minority serving institutions to do this thing of grant funded research.

So when you hire a former program officer, they're going to develop a grant program, right.

Or two.

And so for this program really is targeted for HBC faculty and staff who's received little to no funding.

And it features a professional development series where we'll meet once a month.

And we'll also have site visits where we go and help them and the organization do this thing of of grant funded research.

And then we'll have a podcast towards the end to help disseminate their work, to talk about their research.

Deadlines still open.

And this mini grant program focuses on two tracks.

One focuses on education and then one focuses on advancing data driven discovery.

So we're really excited about this program as an on ramp to other grant funded programs.

I'm thankful for Microsoft for funding it.

Also another project we have is the National Data Science Alliance.

And you can see Du Bois there on the right-hand side.

Du Bois was a data science visualization innovator.

As a sociologist, he created these interesting drawings that talked about the data experiences of Black Americans.

And he's a graduate of Fisk University and professor at Atlanta University.

So I hope that when he looks down on this project, having all of his institutions come together, that he's somewhat happy.

And so the National Data Science Alliance is an NSF-funded initiative funded by the Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Program to bring a national network of HBCUs to advocate for the building of institutional data science capacity, both on the education side and the research side, and with this collaboration across the institutions Clark Atlanta, Fisk, Howard, Morehouse, Atlanta University Center Consortium, we really are working together to bring new innovations.

And the leadership team has just been phenomenal in carrying out the work.

When I got to Atlanta in August of 2020, I quickly realized that the other, the Sloan-funded data science institutes, all got together.

I said, well, I need a crew.

So we started meeting in October of 2020 and the first meeting went like this.

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know, what do you want to do?"

One thing led to another.

We got a conference grant for like 99,000 and then 10 million.

So you just never know.

We just kept meeting monthly, and we figured it out.

And it's been a really great, fun project.

We have three regional hubs.

The northeastern hub is here at Howard University.

The south central hub is at Fisk, and the southeastern hub is at Clark Atlanta.

So just exciting.

Dr. Justin Ballenger at Morehouse College leads our research efforts to develop insights on how should we structure academic programs in data science that contribute to student retention, persistence, and degree attainment?

And also, can we -- how do we identify these techniques that address bias, ethics, fairness and validity in data science relevant to the Black experience?

And we also want to generate insights on strategies that can be applied to build institutional capacity.

What are those levers?

And we do that through a participatory action research model.

So as we said, we have a hub model with the northeastern, south, south central, and southeastern hubs.

And we have three main strategies.

One is to host faculty staff workshops, another curriculum development workgroups.

And the third is research affinity cohorts.

And we also have a number of committees that help inform and guide our work.

So if you're -- We had last year before we launched our programming, we wanted to listen.

Like I said, in everything that we do, we have ideas, but how should we do it?

I always invite others to help form our programming, our work into something bigger and better.

The themes that surfaced were representation that there's a need for demographic inclusivity, participation in decision making, addressing biases, and ensuring accurate representation and data.

Interdisciplinarity highlighted the applicability of data science across all disciplines.

Resources.

We need resources to do this work both with hardware, software, financial, buy in, professional development.

And then also hands-on learning or maybe what some would call experiential learning.

The role of data science and bridging that classroom knowledge with real world industry application and bringing those two together.

We are continuing to have listening sessions and we have a few more, uh, they're open to the public.

You can join in and tell us what to do.

As I said today, we have had eight workshops for 153 participants from 36 different HBCUs from across the disciplines, anywhere from Tableau to navigating the data science landscape with AR, and we have more that will be coming up this summer, so stay tuned.

Our second area is curriculum development work groups, where we meet with institutional teams of three to help them develop and think through an academic program proposal, either for -- this year we're focusing on minors and another work group focuses on majors, and by the end, people will have developed a well-thought-out workgroup.

And I act as the coach and I'll call people out and say, "Now what is that?"

And we're able to share different ideas, making sure that we don't have prerequisites that, we'll say, weed people out or don't have unintended consequences.

Also ensuring we have ethics embedded throughout the curriculum.

And what should that look like and how do we assess that?

And then I think FAMU is really infusing AI throughout the whole program.

And so if you have a certain flavor theme, how do you make sure that that is aligned through the program?

Bowie State is looking at data analytics.

And how do we do data analytics versus data science and how are those different?

So I really enjoyed those groups.

In June, we have a two-week program that is modeled after the adjoint program that's hosted at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, created by Dr. Edray Goins.

I participated in it.

I don't know if I was a good participant, but I loved it.

And I said, we have to -- we have to bring that.

So we took his model with his permission, I hope, and we're going to host that this summer and it's going to be great.

It's one of those things like are we going to get housing?

Are we going to get, you know, we're at that stage, but it's going to be great.

We have the applicants.

We have five amazing technical advisors who are going to talk about algorithmic impact on Black communities, credit card frauds, and evaluating equitable energy access, looking at the relationship between adverse child experiences and adolescent opioid usage, and unveiling disparities, looking at health experiences.

So we're going to have five, I think, amazing projects that will bring some new insights.

Our program directors from the Research Affinity Cohorts are really stewarding guiding the program.

Professor Elycia Daniel, who is a criminal justice instructor.

Jaye Nias, who's here at Howard, she's a senior research faculty in computer science and human centered AI.

And Lei Quian, who's at Fisk University.

And the three of them are really stewarding the program to making sure that we are thoughtful in providing a research experience that results in publications and all that good stuff.

So as we continue our work, we're always looking at what are the needs, what are the obstacles, and what are the benefits?

What's the ROI, return on investment, to building institutional data science capacity?

And how do we do this across all HBCUs?

So a lot of our work is bringing folks together, providing them with some degree of either information, data, opportunity, ways to collaborate, ways to kind of go further in their research progression, and then also making trips.

On the lower right, we visited Tuskegee University where we could just do a knowledge share.

If you're in Atlanta on April 19th, we have our end of year celebration, which is like our data science graduation.

So welcome to come by.

And tickets are selling fast.

It's at the Georgia Aquarium.

It's going to be great.

So I started with W.E.B.

Du Bois, and I mentioned that he's a data science visualization innovator.

If you don't have his book, you can get it on Amazon.

It's great, where he talks about the story of Black Americans using these visualizations.

And you can see him there at his desk at Atlanta University.

So Du Bois, back in the day, uh, I like him because he was a little bit rambunctious, I should say.

He almost got fired, like, from the president's.

Who does that?

I don't know, that's probably why I like him.

He had ideas and, um, pushed the envelope sometimes in a harsh way.

But he pushed it in the way he thought was right.

And so he's a co-founder of the NAACP.

And when he asked Einstein to write for "The Crisis" magazine of NAACP, I will finish now by reading the words of Albert Einstein with what he responded with.

So Albert Einstein said, "It seems to be a universal fact that minorities, especially when their individuals are recognizable because of physical differences, are treated by majorities among whom they live as an inferior class.

The tragic part of such a fate, however, lies not only in the automatically realized disadvantage suffered by these minorities in economic and social relations, but also in the fact that those who meet such treatment themselves, for the most part, acquiesced in the prejudiced estimate because of the suggestive influence of the majority, and come to regard people like themselves as inferior.

This second and more important aspect of the evil can be met through closer union and conscious educational enlightenment among the minority, and so emancipation of the soul of the minority can be attained.

The determined effort of the American Negroes in this direction deserves every recognition and assistance."

So I'm hoping that through our work in data science, through our work in mathematics, that we are creating an emancipation of the soul through mathematics, through data science that really does support everyone and lead to new advancements.

So if you ever come by Atlanta, our home is at the Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs.

Yes, we live amongst entrepreneurs where they ask the question, what's your big idea?

What's the next?

And I really enjoyed giving this presentation and I'll be open to take any questions.

Thank you.

[ Applause ] >> So thank you, Talitha, for this -- for your presentation on the challenges and the issues facing -- brought upon us by Du Bois and the and the extremely impressive set of activities that you're doing to meet those challenges.

And is there anybody who has any questions?

>> Does anyone have any questions?

We have a mic in the middle of the aisle for you if you have any questions.

The mic does not bite.

>> Hi, Dr. Washington.

>> Hello.

>> Hello, my name is Devin.

I'm a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University.

But I want to big shout-out to my colleague Bryant Best, who just got hired as an HBCU faculty at Morgan State University.

>> The great Morgan State.

Right?

Yeah.

>> So we might be interested in applying for your mini grant soon.

>> Yes.

>> So would you have any advice for some HBCU faculty in here who might be interested in applying to that?

>> So apply.

The QR code goes to our newsletter.

And on there, I'll be holding a director's drop in where you can drop in -- it's an office hour.

But you can always reach out, but read through it.

It really is a planning grant.

So thinking about piloting, think about developing, thinking about what's the timeline for completion.

And then when you're done, what is that product deliverable value add.

Right.

And then making sure that's articulated.

I think it's six pages so it's not that long.

Use Grammarly, you know, or some sort of spell check.

Y'all know I can't type.

So you know, hey, but just read through the solicitation.

Not solicitation, through the RFP.

If something is not clear, let me know.

If you're excited about the project, let that come across in the writing.

So... >> All right.

Thank you, Dr. Washington.

>> Thank you.

>> All right.

Um, hello, Dr. Washington.

Thank you so much for your wonderful presentation.

Um, so I have one question just based off of your initiatives that you listed earlier.

I believe Bob Moses wrote before he passed away that, um, movements like these with education are supposed to be grassroots movements where, um, the individuals involved are the ones that are charging the movements.

So it seems that there's a lot of resources, trainings, uh, public lectures that you have made available to students.

But I'm wondering, um, if you could speak on the ways that your program has also made, uh, students in charge of taking these resources, empowering themselves to learn more and to pursue more innovation.

>> Yeah.

So recently, he posted it on LinkedIn.

Uh, Shane Brooks, he graduated from Morehouse.

He's a computer science major.

We kind of lured him into data science.

Why don't you come and do this?

Why don't you come do that?

And students will kind of look.

He's now entering the master's program in data science at UC Berkeley, and he posted it on LinkedIn saying it was "because the AUC Data Science Initiative provided opportunities for me to engage and kind of figure out what this is," and really, one step can lead to another.

We've also had, uh, for the pre- freshman summer experience, I ran into a student who was like, "Yeah, I did the program."

I said, "Okay, tell me what you really think.

Was it terrible?"

Because I always think the worst.

"It was terrible, right?"

He was like, "No, no, no, it was great."

I said, "Okay, what did you do?"

Because remember, that's a one-week virtual program.

So I'm like, "Okay, what did you do?

How did it help you later, now that you're a junior?"

He said, "Well, our project used Excel.

And I got into a lab course where we had to use Excel and do all this data analysis, but I was the only one that knew how to do it because of the program.

And then my mother" -- He threw his mom under the bus.

"My mom, she didn't know Excel for her job.

So I had to help her out too."

So sometimes just providing that initial start, a skill, it leads one thing to another and letting students kind of grow.

So the pre-freshman summer experience I was very adamant.

No grading.

You show up, you do your best, you learn something, and everybody presents.

And we support each other and we encourage each other.

Right.

It's summertime.

Let's have fun.

They'll have enough grading during the academic year.

So providing grade lists, we'll say, experiences for students to kind of take a dive and see and learn and do, I think, can help certain students who get, I think, tense, we'll say, about performance, tense because they have to achieve a certain grade or certain level, but just providing the opportunities for students to explore and to learn and just to kind of grow in an organic, guided sort of way.

>> It helps them to believe in themselves.

>> Say it again.

>> It helps them to believe in themselves.

>> Oh, yeah, oh yeah.

Because I tell them they're going to do it.

I say, you're going to do it and you're going to do it well, and you're going to be nervous, and it's going to be weird, and it's going to be unsettling.

So let me give you the whole spectrum, right.

And I think when we're just kind of open and honest, helping them navigate these different, we'll say, social dynamics, it helps them say, okay, I have the context, I know how to participate and engage.

>> Thank you very much.

>> Yeah.

>> Thank you, Dr. Washington, for such a great presentation.

Uh, the quick question that I have is I noticed you have, uh, a lot of -- you have data center.

What is being done to reach out to students who are not in college?

We're like, they usually say, around 5 or 6 years old.

That's either you get them or you lose them.

What is being done to actually bring them in through this long project from you?

>> Are you talking about like -- >> For children K-12, yeah.

>> Ah.

So if you go to our newsletter link, you'll see Dr. Ballenger.

He's my deputy director and his research area is K-12 education, STEM education.

And I've lured him into K-12 data science education.

Right?

And so he's been really leading efforts at different Atlanta schools to engage students in hands-on data science projects.

So that QR code goes to our latest newsletter that actually shows some photos of him doing those projects.

When he first came on -- Now I'll back it up to say how it started.

We always like to listen to folks and say, okay, what's needed, what's there?

So he's leading an AUC-wide working group on data science education, pulling together those who are working in K-12.

Morehouse School of Medicine has a huge, we'll say, army of folks that work with building and doing health programs at the K-12 schools.

So pulling them in, pulling in Spelman, Clark Atlanta.

Then he pulled them all in the fall.

And then in the spring time, they held a listening session where about half the participants were from the K-12 schools.

They were from the district level and then half were from the AUC, saying, what is needed for data science in K-12?

Because in Georgia, we are now required to teach data science in K-12.

And so I remember at the listening session, you know, I can be a little slow on the uptake and linking things together.

So I said, let me get this straight.

You all are expected to teach data science in the fall.

No professional development, no content, no nothing.

Uh, am I hearing this correctly?

They were like, "That's right."

Yeah, I was -- I was like, oh, no, this is not going to go very well.

However, to my delight, so Valerie Bennett, Dr. Valerie Bennett, at Clark Atlanta, has developed a credential program in the School of Education at Clark Atlanta to help upskill in-service teachers in computer science with data science as a concentration.

And there are other folks around the AUC who are building programs.

Either there's engaging teachers, engaging students, and really working with the different communities and bringing more data science into the K-12 realm.

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