Ayana Ledford
Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Heinz College & Dietrich College and Executive Director of PROGRESS

As the Executive Director of the Program for Research and Outreach on Gender Equity in Society (PROGRESS) and Director for Diversity and Inclusion for two colleges at Carnegie Mellon University, Ayana Ledford is an expert in developing innovative strategies to promote equal opportunity.

Ledford specializes in influencing women’s long-term career success with a particular focus on women of color. She developed an innovative capacity-building curriculum, Speak Up!, whose goal is to minimize the wage and leadership gap between genders. Ledford has over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit sector working with women, girls, and economically challenged communities.

Ledford holds a Bachelor of Arts from Dickinson College and a Masters Degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

Melanie Lucht
Associate Vice President & Chief Risk Officer, Enterprise Risk Management

Melanie Lucht oversees the following Organizations: Environmental Health and Safety, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, Emergency Preparedness, and Risk Operations.

Lucht oversees the development and deployment of risk management tools and practices across the university, and leads a cross-functional group to provide risk intelligence to university leadership and inform strategic decision making. Prior to her years at Carnegie Mellon, Lucht was the Vice President for Enterprise Business Resiliency at PNC Financial Services, and has an extensive background in the insurance industry. 

Lucht is a Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP), a member of the Business Continuity Institute (MBCI), a Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC), and Certified Continuity Manager (CCM). In 2017, she was recognized internationally by the Business Continuity Institute as Continuity and Resiliency Professional of the Year for the private sector.  In 2018, she successfully completed the first offering of the Chief Risk Officer (CRO) Executive Education Program at the Heinz College. 

Lucht received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and master’s degree in administration of justice from Mercyhurst College.

Rebecca Nugent
Stephen E. and Joyce Fienberg Professor of Statistics & Data Science and Associate Head, Statistics & Data Science

Rebecca Nugent is the Stephen E. and Joyce Fienberg Professor of Statistics & Data Science, the Associate Department Head and Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Carnegie Mellon Statistics & Data Science Department.

Nugent has won several national and university teaching awards including the American Statistical Association Waller Award for Innovation in Statistics Education and serves as one of the co-editors of the Springer Texts in Statistics. She recently served on the National Academy of Sciences study on Envisioning the Data Science Discipline: The Undergraduate Perspective and is the co-chair of the current NAS study Improving Defense Acquisition Workforce Capability in Data Use. She is the Founding Director of the Statistics & Data Science Corporate Capstone program, an experiential learning initiative that matches groups of faculty and students with data science problems in industry, non-profits, and government organizations.

Nugent has worked extensively in clustering and classification methodology with an emphasis on high-dimensional, big data problems and record linkage applications. Her current research focus is the development and deployment of low-barrier data analysis platforms that allow for adaptive instruction and the study of data science as a science. 

Nugent received her PhD in Statistics from the University of Washington in 2006. Prior to that, she received her B.A. in Mathematics, Statistics, and Spanish from Rice University and her M.S. in Statistics from Stanford University.