Talithia Williams

Recognized for her innovative teaching and inspiring outreach to promote the power of a STEM education, Williams shares how to cultivate the STEM mindset, effectively aiding students, parents, and educators in seeing themselves as future scientists and engineers. Employing the rousing and highly informative speaking style of her hit Ted Talk "Own Your Body's Data," Williams shows how much STEM affects our daily lives — and how numbers can leap off a page or screen, infuse us and our surroundings, and help us better understand and actively engage the world in which we live.

Meeting the demands of a 21st century STEM workforce requires that we look beyond traditional talent pools to recruit and train individuals typically underrepresented in math, science and engineering. Noted for her work in STEM outreach, Dr. Williams explores how disruptive innovation can motivate girls of color and other underrepresented groups to embrace technology, become open to pursuing STEM degrees, and envision themselves as future STEM leaders. By challenging the status quo, we allow for ongoing innovative contributions to our society and the world in general.

K-12 systems and college campuses are microcosms of our increasingly diverse society. We must all respond appropriately and sensitively to this diversity, work diligently to close achievement gaps, and become inclusive agents of change. In this lively, interactive presentation using role playing and case studies, Dr. Williams proposes solutions to equity and diversity issues that include deploying data to make unbiased decisions. Taking on a challenging issue with humor and valuable insights, Dr. Williams inspires educators to become change agents that ensure that our educational institutions remain welcoming and supportive of future generations of students.

When it comes to inspiring the future productivity and innovation of our nation, educators are the on the front lines. Mathematical learning experiences that incorporate real world data are important tools for student learning and improve student retention of course material. In this talk, Dr. Williams discusses how we can incorporate innovative technology, along with best practices in and out of the classroom to better facilitate teaching and learning while also mitigating the mathematics achievement gap.  Through the use of technology and data analytics within the classroom, we can connect students to mathematical ideas in rich and meaningful ways, giving rise to their success in mathematics and beyond.

The college experience thrives on relationships. Administrators, staff and faculty frequently make tough decisions that can have an incredible impact on our student’s lives. But, what data should our campus community have access to? And how can data be used effectively to shape the student experience, whether at community colleges, private liberal arts, public or research universities? In this talk, we’ll explore the changing culture of higher education data analytics and discuss effective techniques for engaging campus constituencies.

Dr. Williams makes a compelling case that healthcare providers should encourage patients to measure and record simple data about their bodies daily. Based upon her hit TED Talk, “Own Your Body’s Data,” Dr. Williams shares how patients should be monitoring their personal data by using both everyday technologies and high-tech wearables. With these devices, healthcare consumers can easily quantify everything from heart rate and sleep patterns to body temperature and fertility. However, what is the average patient to do with the massive amounts of data being collected? Dr. Williams believes empowered patients sharing this information with their healthcare providers not only strengthens doctor-patient dialog, but also enhances patient outcomes.

When considering factors such as race, gender, income and geography, various U.S. populations face higher rates of disease and mortality. In spite continuing efforts to reduce health disparities, they remain a persistent challenge in our communities. However, using a data driven approach to target these populations will help to develop interventions and track progress over time. In this talk, Dr. Williams discusses how data is essential for understanding social determinants of health and provides suggestions for improvement.

From rocket scientists and code breakers to computer programmers and data scientists, discover the incredibly inspiring stories of more than 30 women who fought through the obstacles, shattered the stereotypes, and embraced their STEM passions. Loaded with more than 200 photos and original interviews with several amazing women in mathematics, this is your chance to be moved, to be inspired, and to celebrate the women who have turned the male-dominated math world upside down!