This year we have the great honor of hosting Margot Gerritsen – Data Science Icon – professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University. The jury of the TOP100 Women in Data Science decided to award Margot Gerritsen a special award for overall research, scientific work, and social impact in data science.
The jury of the TOP100 Women in Data Science chaired by Dominika Bettman – General Manager at Microsoft Poland, including experts:
Edith Elkind – Professor at the University of Oxford,
Katarzyna Szymielewicz – President of the Panoptykon Foundation,
Bianka Siwińska – President of the Perspektywy Education Foundation,
Piotr Sankowski – CEO at IDEAS NCBR.
Decided to award an additional distinction – Data Science Icon – for overall research, scientific work, and social impact to Margot Gerritsen, professor (emerita) in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University, interested in computer simulation and mathematical analysis of engineering and natural processes. From the beginning of her career, Gerritsen was determined to change the male-dominated data science environment and created the hugely popular "Women in Data Science Conference", which highlighted the contributions of women in this field around the world. Get to know the outstanding figure of this Data Scientist!
Gerritsen – born and raised in the Netherlands – after receiving an MS degree in Applied Mathematics at the University of Delft, Gerritsen moved to the U.S., where she received her Ph.D. in Scientific Computing and Computational Mathematics at Stanford University. From 2010 to 2018, Margot Gerritsen directed the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering. Since 2015, she has been the Senior Associate Dean for Educational Affairs in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences, as well as the co-director of Women in Data Science and the host of the WiDS podcasts.
Her primary interests are in sustainability, and renewable and fossil energy production. She’s also active in coastal ocean dynamics and yacht design, as well as several areas in computational mathematics including search algorithm design and matrix computations. Her latest research projects include traffic congestion and emissions simulation and mitigation, and wildland fire prediction and mitigation.
Gerritsen is devoted to work in computational analysis of fluid dynamics, but has led many initiatives in education and research to ensure that women are appropriately attracted to data science and find good career opportunities in it.
Her pro-women activities began in 2015 when she was asked to speak at a data science conference, where there was no other woman apart from her. It was then that Gerritsen realized that this situation was as strange as it was unacceptable and that something had to change in this male-dominated field.
Gerritsen decided that she would organize a "revenge conference" and that she would prove to the university that it is possible to get outstanding women talking about outstanding work, really focusing on the technical work.
One of my frustrations has always been that women are invited to be part of the conversation, but then they are often forced to talk about how hard it is as a woman in this field.
Or what they can do for other women to enter the field. And I always thought if we just talk about the technical work that we do and show that we can perform really well and do outstanding work just like any of the men. These questions may now actually be irrelevant.
One of the reasons I think why a lot of women don’t enter the field and where a lot of men still have bias against women, is because they simply do not see enough very strong technical work done by women promoted.
Today the popularity of this "revenge conference" – Women in Data Science Conference (WiDS) – is beyond her wildest expectations. With more than 100,000 participants worldwide, online and at satellite events spreading into six continents, Margot Gerritsen has inspired women across the planet world to enter the sciences and provided a platform for them to highlight their work.
The conference organizers emphasize that they strive for a future in which women are fully integrated and represented in all areas of Data Science, including AI, and share equally in Decision Making, Economic Prosperity, and Opportunities. Their mission is to change the field of data science across the globe by elevating and empowering women to achieve 30% representation in education, innovation, and leadership by 2030.
