 Hey, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of WIDS 2023, the eighth annual Women in Data Science Conference. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. We are at Stanford University, as you know we are every year. Having some wonderful conversations with some very inspiring women and men in data science and in technical roles. I'm very pleased to introduce Tracy Jung, my co-host, who is in the data journalism program at Stanford. And Tracy and I are pleased to welcome our next guest, Rhonda Krait, principal data scientist at Boeing. Great to have you on the program, Rhonda. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Were you always interested in data science or STEM from the time you were young? No, actually. I was always interested in archeology and anthropology. That's why you have an interesting, we were talking about that, anthropology, interesting. We saw the anthropology background, not even a bachelor's degree, but also a master's degree in anthropology. So you were committed for a while. I was, I was. I actually, I started college as a fine arts major, but I'd always wanted to be an archeologist with the last minute leaven credits in the left. And to switch to anthropology, and then when I did my master's, I focused a little bit more on quantitative research methods and then I got my stat degree. Interesting. Talk about some of the data science projects that you're working on. When I think of Boeing, I always think of aircraft. But you are doing a lot of really cool things in IT, data analytics. Talk about some of those intriguing data science projects that you're working on. Yeah, so when I first started Boeing, I worked in information technology and data analytics and Boeing at the time had cored up data science in there. And so we worked as a function across the enterprise, working on anything from shared services to user experience in IT products to airplane programs. So it has a wide range. I worked on environment health and safety projects for a long time as well. So looking at ergonomics and how people actually put parts onto airplanes along with things like scheduling and production line, part failures, software testing. Yeah, it's a wide spectrum of things. But I think that's so fantastic. We've been talking Tracy today about just what we often see it with, which is this breadth of diversity and people's background. You talked about anthropology, archeology, you're doing data science, and also all of the different opportunities that you've had at Boeing to see so many facets of that organization. I always think that that breadth of thought diversity is, can be hugely impactful. Yeah, so I will say like my anthropology degree has actually worked to my benefit. I'm a huge proponent of integrating liberal arts and sciences together. And it actually, it helps me, I'm in the technical fellowship program at Boeing, so we have different career paths. So you can go into management, you can be a regular employee, or you can go into the fellowship program. So right now I'm an associate technical fellow, and part of how I got into the fellowship program was that diversity in my background, what made me different, what made me stand out on projects, even applying a human aspect to things like ergonomics. It's silly as that sounds, but how does a person actually interact in the space along with, here are the actual measurements coming off of whatever system it is that you're working on. So I think there's a lot of opportunities, especially in safety as well, which is a big initiative for Boeing right now, as you can imagine. I can't go into two specifics. No, because we were like, I think a theme for today that kind of like we brought up in all of our talks is like how data is about people, how people understand the world, and how these data can make impact on people's lives. So yeah, I think it's great that you brought this up, and I'm very happy that your anthropology background can tap into that and help in your day to day like data work too. Yeah, and currently right now I actually, I switched over to strategic workforce planning. So it's more how we understand our workforce, how we work towards retaining that talent, how do we get the right talent in our space, and making sure like overall that we offer a culture and work environment that is great for our employees to come to. That culture is so important. I was looking at some AnitaB.org stats from 2022 and talking about, we always talk about the number of women in technical roles. For a long time it's been hovering around that 25% range. The data from AnitaB.org showed from 22, it's now 27.6%. Little increase, but one of the biggest challenges still and Tracy and I and our other co-hosts, Hannah have been talking about this, is attrition, attrition more than doubled last year. What are some of the things that Boeing is doing on the retention side because that is so important, especially as there's this pipeline leakage of women leaving technical roles. Tell us about what Boeing's, how they're invested. Yeah, sure. We actually have a publicly available global diversity report that anybody can go and look at and see our statistics for our organization. Right now, off the top of my head, I think we're hovering at about 24% in the US for women in our company. It has been a male majority company for many years. We've invested heavily in increasing the number of women in roles. One interesting thing about this year that came out is that even though with the great resignation and those types of things, the attrition level between men and women were actually pretty close to being equal, which is like the first time in our history, usually it tends on more women leaving right. Yes, that's a good sign. And we've actually focused on hiring and bringing in more women in diversity in our company. Yeah, some of the stats too from anitabee.org talked about the increase that I have to scroll back and find my notes. The increase in 51% more women being hired in 2022 than 2021 for technical roles. So the data, pun intended, is showing us, I mean the data is there to show the impact that having females in executive leadership positions make from a revenue perspective. Companies are more profitable when there's women at the head or at least in senior leadership roles. But we're seeing some positive trends that especially in terms of representation of women technologists. One of the things that I found interesting and I'm curious to get your thoughts on this Rhonda is that the representation of women technologists is growing in all areas except interns. So I think we've got to go downstream. You teach, if I go back to my notes on you, did my due diligence, our programming classes through Boeing's Ed Wells program, this is for WSU College of Arts and Sciences. Talk about what you teach and how do you think that intern kind of glut could be solved? Yeah, so they're actually two separate programs. So I teach a data analytics course at Washington State University as an adjunct professor and then the Ed Wells program is a SPIA which is an aerospace union focused on bringing up more technology and skills to the actual workforce itself. So it's kind of a couple of different audiences. One is more seasoned employees, right? The other one is our undergraduates. I teach a capstone class so it's a great way to introduce students to what it's actually like to work on an industry project. We partner with Google, Microsoft and Boeing on those. The idea is also that maybe those companies have openings for the students when they're done. Since the senior capstone, there's not a lot of opportunities for internships, but the opportunities to actually get hired increase a little bit. In regards to Boeing, we've actually invested a lot in hiring more women interns. I think the number was 40% That's great. That's fantastic. That's a good point. Yeah, it is about average. That's from my memory. Is this your first WIDDs or have you been before? I did virtually last year. Okay, one of the things that I love, I love covering this event every year. The CUBE's been covering it since its inception in 2015, but it's just the inspiration, the vibe here at Stanford is so positive. WIDDs is a movement. It's not an initiative and an organization. There are going to be, I think annually this year, there will be 200 different events. Obviously today we're live on International Women's Day. 60 plus countries, 100,000 plus people involved. So this is such a positive environment for women and men because we need everybody underrepresented minorities to be able to understand the implication that data has across our lives. If we think about stripping away titles and industries, everybody is a consumer, not everybody, most of mobile devices. And we have this expectation. I was in Barcelona last week at Mobile World Congress. We have this expectation that we're going to be connected. 24 seven, I can get whatever I want, wherever I am in the world, and that's all data driven. And the average person that isn't involved in data science wouldn't understand that. At the same time, they have expectations that depend on organizations like a Boeing being data driven so that they can get that experience that they expect in their consumer lives in any aspect of their lives. And that's one of the things I find so interesting and inspiring about data science. What are some of the things that keep you motivated to continue pursuing this? Yeah, I will say, along those lines, I think it's great to invest in K through 12 programs for data literacy. I know one of my mentors and directors of the data analytics program, Naranjana Descupta, Dr. Naranjana Descupta, really familiar with each other. So she runs a WSU program for K through 12 data literacy. It's also something that we strive for at Boeing and we have an internal data literacy program because believe it or not, most people are in business, right? And there's a lot of disconnect between interpreting and understanding data. For me, what kind of drives me to continue data science is that connection between people and data and how we use it to improve our world, which is partly why I work at Boeing too, because I feel that they produce products that people need, like satellites and airplanes and everything. Well, it's tangible, it's relatable, we can understand it. Can you do me a quick favor and define data literacy for anyone that might not understand what that means? Yeah, so it's just being able to understand elements of data, whether that's a bar chart or even in a sentence, how to read a statistic and interpret a statistic in a sentence, for example. Very cool. Yeah, sounds like Boeing's doing a great job in these programs and also trying to hire more women. So yeah, I wanted to ask, do you think there's something that Boeing needs to work on or where do you see yourself working on, like say, the next five years? Yeah, I think as a company, we always think that there's always room for improvement. Right. It never stops. I know workforce strategy is an area that they're currently really heavily investing in along with safety. How do we build safer products for people? How do we help inform the public about things like COVID transmission in airports? For example, we had the Confident Traveler Initiative, which was a big push that we had and we had to be able to inform people about data models around COVID, right? So yeah, I would say our future is more about an investment in our people and our culture from my perspective. That's so important. I always think that culture, one of the hardest things to change, especially for a legacy organization like Boeing is culture. You know, when we talk about, when I talk with CEOs or CIOs or COOs about what's your company's vision? What's your strategy? Especially those companies that are on that digital journey that have no choice these days. Everybody expects to have a digital experience, whether you're transacting an Uber ride, you're buying groceries or you're traveling by air. That culture sounds like Boeing is really focused on that. And that's impressive because that's one of the hardest things to morph and mold, but it's so essential. You know, as we look around the room here at WIDDS, it's obviously mostly females, but we're talking about women underrepresented minorities. We're talking about men as well, who are mentors and sponsors to us. I'd love to get your advice to your younger self. What would you tell yourself in terms of where you are now to become a leader in the technology field? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of an interesting question because I always try to think, like live with no regrets to an extent. I like that. But there's lots of failures along the way. I don't know if I would tell myself anything different because honestly, if I did, I wouldn't be where I am. Good for you. Start it out and find out. I always say- It didn't end up there. That's good. We've been talking about that and I find that a lot at events like WIDDS is women have these zig-zaggy patterns. I studied biology. I have a master's in molecular biology. I'm in media and marketing. But there's transport, we talked about transportable skills. There are things, there's a case I made many years ago when I got into tech about, well, in science, you learn how the art of interpreting esoteric data and creating a story from it. And it's not, that's a transportable skill, but I always say, you mentioned failure. I always say failure is not a bad F word. It allows us to kind of zig and zag and learn along the way. And I think that really fosters thought diversity. And in data science, that is one of the things we absolutely need to have is that diversity and thought. We talk about AI, AI models being biased. We need the data and we need the diverse brains to help ensure that the biases are identified, extracted and removed. Speaking of AI. I've been geeking out with chat GPT. So I'm on it yesterday and I ask it, what's hot in data science? And I was like, is it going to get that, what's hot? And it did, it came back with trends. I think if I ask anything what's hot, I should be to Paris Hilton, but I didn't. And so I was geeking out. One of the things I learned recently that I thought was so super cool is the CTO of open AI is a woman, Mira Morati, which I didn't know until over the weekend. Because I always think, if I had to name top females in Tuck, who would they be? And I always defaulted at Sheryl Sandberg, Carly Fiorina, Susan Wojcicki running YouTube. Who are some of the people in your history and your current that are really inspiring to you? Men, women, indifferent? Sure, I think Boeing is one of the companies where you actually do see a lot of women in leadership roles. I think we're one of the top companies with a number of women executives actually. Susan Doniz, who's our chief information officer, I believe she's actually slotted to speak at a Woods event come fall. So that will be exciting. Susan's actually relatively newer to Boeing in some ways. Boeing timescale is like three years is still kind of new. Okay, so, but she's been around for a while and she's done a lot of inspiring things, I think, for women in the organization. She does a lot with Latino communities and things like that as well. For me personally, you know, when I started Boeing, Amadeya Gubi was one of my mentors in my technical lead. He came from Iran during a lot of hard times in the 1980s. His brother actually wrote a memoir. Just a fun, interesting fact. Wow! You know, and so I kind of gravitate to people that I can learn from that's not in my sphere that might make me uncomfortable. Yeah. And you probably don't even think about how many people you're influencing along the way. No. It's one of the things, we just keep going and learning from our mentors and probably lose sight of, I wonder how many people actually admire me? And I'm sure there are many that admire you, Ronda, for what you've done, going from anthropology to archeology, you mentioned before we went live, you were really interested in photography and keep going and really gathering all that bread because it's only making you more inspiring to people like us. We thank you so much for joining us on the program and sharing a little bit about you and what brought you to WIDS. Thank you so much, Ronda. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah. For our guests and for Tracy Zhang, this is Lisa Martin live at Stanford University covering the eighth annual Women in Data Science Conference. Stick around, next guest be here in just a second.