Carnegie Mellon University

Women+ in Data Science

Women+ in Data Science

On Tuesday, November 8, 2022, Metro21 Executive Director Karen Lightman joined a panel discussion with other Heinz Women+ in Data Science to discuss how to overcome and understand barriers faced by women+ in data careers.

While microaggressions against women in the workplace are common in most fields, they are significantly pronounced in STEM fields like data science. Evidence suggests that women in STEM careers face gendered microaggressions such as sexual objectification, and being silenced and marginalized, regardless of their career positions.

Today, the field of data science is witnessing a surge in interdisciplinary work that involves deriving insights from data and utilizing them to solve various societal and organizational challenges. In this context, a growing area of research deals with the ethics of Artificial Intelligence, particularly algorithmic fairness and sources of ‘bias’ in datasets and algorithms. Biases in data or algorithms can greatly undermine the effectiveness of solutions based on them. While there could be multiple sources of bias in data science, one often overlooked likely source is the lack of diversity among data practitioners, especially in terms of gender. As per various surveys from the World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report, and BCG research, it seems that women+ constitute about 15% to 22% of all data science professionals in the world. Given this gender imbalance, it is not unreasonable to expect that the workforce which works with data and makes decisions based on them is likely to have a less diverse perspective.

This panel sought to bring together women from diverse fields to discuss the following aspects of career barriers faced by women+ including recognizing gender bias and microaggressions, possible ways of dealing with these obstacles, and ensuring career growth despite these barriers.