Senior Mentors
Dr. Lisa L. Harlow
Dr. Harlow received her Ph.D. in Psychometrics from UCLA and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Rhode Island. She is a recipient of the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 5 Jacob Cohen Distinguished Teacher and Mentor Award, two Scholarly Excellence awards, and a past president of the APA Division 5 and the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology. Her main focus is on increasing interest, diversity, understanding, and retention in quantitative science. She has 90+ publications and $8,300,000+ in grants on advancing science, health, and minority training in quantitative science. She is Editor of the Taylor & Francis/LEA Multivariate Application Book Series and the Psychological Methods journal; and co-organizer of Quantitative Training for Underrepresented Groups, funded by NSF (Grant #0720063). Previously, she was a Co-PI on NSF grants to Advance Women in STEM Disciplines (Grant# 0245039) and on Multidisciplinary Science and Engineering Learning Communities.
Asya Spears
Asya Spears is a program manager and researcher who creates a more diverse data workforce by infusing inclusive STEM practices into training opportunities. She is the founder of Rose Data Studio, LLC, a data education consultancy focused on teaching STEM and public health professionals of all backgrounds the non-coding skills needed to effectively collaborate and create data-informed solutions through workshops, coaching, and professional speaking. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
Dr. Laura Stapleton
Dr. Stapleton is chair of the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology and a professor of Measurement, Statistics and Evaluation. She is the Director of the NSF-funded Quantitative Research Methods Scholars Program, which trains 20 early career scholars who focus on STEM education equity and access.
Dr. Kimberly Williams
Dr. Kimberly Williams is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental and Health Sciences Program at Spelman College. She attended Johnson C. Smith University where she majored in Biology and minored in Chemistry. She received her PhD in neuroscience from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. After graduate school, Dr. Williams completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. As a viral neuroimmunologist, Dr. Williams’ research investigates how HIV and stress affect the brain during aging, with hopes of creating new targeted therapeutics for mental health disorders influenced by neuroinflammation such as HIV associated neurocognitive disorders and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Dr. Williams has over 10 publications and she received multiple grants for the National Institute of Health and private agencies. Dr. Williams was honored with the young investigators award twice from the Society on Neuroimmune Pharmacology and the International Society for Neurovirology. She is highly involved in community outreach and has been the featured scientist at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Dr. Williams has devoted her career to mentoring young scientist while increasing diversity in the sciences and developing novel therapeutic options for those living with neuroinflammatory disorders.
Dr. Miesha Williams
Dr. Miesha Williams is an Associate Professor of Economics at Spelman College. Her research is focused on macroeconomic policies in Africa and the U.S as well as disparate outcomes impacting race. She’s obtained grants and scholarships from Title III, NSF, USDA, Carnegie Foundation, Koch Foundation and NIH. She’s published in AEA Papers and Proceedings, Southern Economic Journal, Journal of Economics Race and Policy, Review of Black Political Economy, and co-edited a special issue on Social Justice with the Agricultural and Resource Economics Review. She is a National Economic Association board member, secretary to the African Political Economic Association, and Research Associate with University of New Orleans Entrepreneurship Center. Williams’ Economics’ B.S. (2007) is from Florida A&M University, while her M.A. (2010) and Ph.D. (2014) is from University of Alabama.
Junior Mentors
Victoria Rivera Nazario
Victoria is a rising junior at the University of Dayton College of Arts and Sciences, pursuing a major in Criminal Justice Studies with a minor in Women and Gender Studies, and a Pre-law concentration. After graduating, she plans to pursue a Juris Doctor degree to become a criminal lawyer. Victoria was an INSPIRE U2 2022 Scholar. Read about her experiences in this blog post.
Valeria Sanchez Estrada
Valeria is an incoming Computational Biology and Biostatistics MS candidate at St. John’s University in New York City. She is a future bioinformatician and lifelong learner, deeply interested in genomics, micro and reproductive biology, and the way in which tech can be used to improve public health. Victoria was a 2022 INSPIRE U2 Scholar.
RStudio Mentors
Jess Kunke
Jess Kunke is a PhD student in statistics at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her research focuses on developing survey and spatial methods to address sampling and selection bias. Jess is primarily motivated by applications in violence prevention and environmental protection, and she is passionate about involving stakeholders in the research process. Jess loves both using and teaching R and R Studio! She has co-designed and instructed workshops on R and R Studio for the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals among other audiences within and outside academia.
Dr. Shane Lubold
Dr. Lubold is a Research Mathematical Statistician at the U.S. Census Bureau. He received his PhD in statistics in June 2023 from the University and Washington, and previously was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Luxembourg. Before that, he received his BS in math from Arizona State University. His research focuses on network analysis, survey methodology, and causal inference, and he is passionate about using statistics and R to answer questions in economics and public policy.
Dr. Anna Neufeld
I just finished my PhD in statistics at the University of Washington in Seattle. One of my favorite parts of graduate school was getting to serve as a TA and instructor for introductory statistics classes. I especially like teaching students to use R and empower them to analyze their own datasets. This summer, I am starting as a postdoctoral researcher at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle, where I will be working broadly on statistical methods for analyzing genomic data.
Dr. Rrita Zejnullahi
Dr. Zejnullahi is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Statistics at the University of Washington, working on the development of a decision-making framework for policy decisions based on predictions from statistical models. Previously, she earned a PhD in Statistics from Northwestern University, where she focused on the formulation of effect sizes and effect size estimators in randomized and quasi-experiments when adjusting for covariates and extensions of meta-analysis methods to small sample situations, with applications to education, medicine and the social sciences. She has extensive experience with R and RStudio through teaching / mentoring students in how to explore, visualize and analyze data, and communicate findings with transparency via reproducible code and reports.