We’re excited to announce the newest members of the NumFOCUS Diversity and Inclusion in Scientific Computing (DISC) Committee for the term 2024–2026. These individuals bring experience, dedication, and passion for fostering diversity and inclusion within the open-source data science community.
The DISC Committee Members for 2024–2026
Anita Ihuman
Anita is a Developer Advocate in Nigeria who has led significant efforts around open source DEI, Documentation, Community growth, and sustainability. She proudly serves on the CHAOSS board of directors and the DevNetwork Cloud Advisory board. Her hobbies are hiking, bowling, and painting. She is passionate about empowering Underrepresented Voices, educating on the topic of DEI, and ensuring the accessibility of Information to everyone. Her favorite superhero is Wonder Woman because she is a diplomat who uses her strength and speed to help people.
Emma Saroyan
Emma lives in Yerevan, Armenia. She graduated with a BS in Computer Science and is currently a developer advocate with a focus on developer products, platforms, and APIs. She is the co-author of the book “Generative AI for Web Development: Building Web Applications Powered by OpenAI APIs and Next.js”. She loves traveling, teaching, and giving tech talks.
She is most passionate about the creation of educational initiatives and community work to promote and increase diversity, equity, and inclusion within the NumFOCUS ecosystem.
Her favorite superhero is Wonder Woman — she’s fearless, focused, and courageous. She likes her Lasso of Truth because it’s a powerful tool that helps discover the truth.
Eloisa Elias Tran
Eloisa was born and raised in Mexico. She is a data scientist and open source community lead in Seattle. Eloisa is the founder of the PyData Seattle meetup and chair of PyLadies Seattle. She is founder of Women in Data Science and Women conferences in Seattle, and she is also a Women Techmakers Ambassador. As an active member of the Seattle tech community, Eloisa collaborates with multiple nonprofit and tech organizations to promote diversity and inclusion programs to support women and minorities in the tech field. Find her on social media at @eloeliasds.
Her passion is to collaborate with nonprofit tech organizations, city and state governments, and enterprises to promote diversity and inclusion programs to support women and minorities in the tech field. She organizes and hosts world-class events for the open-source community, with 123 events and over $1.4 million of funds raised to date. We record all our large events and provide free online access for everyone in the world. She develops scholarship programs to increase the participation of women and minorities at these events and has provided 730 scholarship grants to date.
Her favorite superhero is Lee Kuan Yew, he actually has a comic book! 🌟 For her, the three big challenges for humanity are corruption, poverty, and injustice. She believes that by firmly reducing corruption and poverty we will minimize injustices. Singapore is a great example of reducing corruption and poverty. LKY transformed a third-world country into a first in one generation. He represents a hero for her because she believes that poverty is the worst form of violence, and he lifts up a nation and its population wealth to what Singapore is today. She wishes that one day another hero appears, let’s say in Mexico, and with her/his superpowers would lift the nation to a first world in one generation as well.
Kweyakie Blebo
Kweyakie is a data scientist and machine learning engineer with close to four years of industry experience with a background in Technology auditing, specifically, cybersecurity governance, risk, and compliance.
She is also the Co-founder and Programs Director at Because She Can (BSC), an NGO dedicated to empowering African women in Technology.
Her engagement with BSC has kindled a passion for exploring the Social Aspects of Machine Learning, focusing on safety, fairness, and mitigating biases to ensure ML systems do not perpetuate existing societal inequalities.
Based in Ghana, she is passionate about promoting gender equity in technology and advocating for systemic change and grassroots initiatives to reduce barriers for women entering the tech industry. She creates tech and lifestyle content on Instagram in her spare time via @lifeof_kweyakie.
Interesting fact: she has never watched any superhero movies or shows, but from the little reading she did, the character of Wonder Woman resonates with her personality a lot.
Rashid Mvk
Rashid is currently with Enea as a System Analyst, based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and is passionate about designing scalable systems. Additionally, he is a certified blockchain consultant as well. Before this role, he was a Machine Learning Researcher at Panasonic Global R&D and a Senior Software Engineer at Bitroxy. Outside of work, he’s into organizing events, networking, and playing chess. He is excited to work closely with the open source projects and find ways to implement DEI best practices. His grandfather is his superhero since he has contributed to me in every aspect of life.
Melissa Mendonça
Melissa Medonça is in her second term on the DISC Committee, following her 2022–2024 term. She is a Senior DevEx Engineer at Quansight, working on NumPy, SciPy, and other open source projects. She cares deeply about teaching and mentoring and has been involved in the Python community for some time. You can find most of her talk slides on GitHub. Her favorite superhero is Leia Organa.
Kamila Stępniowska (Staff): Kamila joins the committee as a non-voting member, bringing valuable insight from the NumFOCUS staff. Her favorite superhero is One-Punch Man.
Thank you to our outgoing 2022–2024 committee members
We want to say thank you to the previous committee members who chose not to renew their terms. Thank you for your impact in making our community more diverse and accessible!
The 2022–2024 committee members:
- Tania Allard (Co-chair)
- Ana Ruvalcaba
- Tereza Iofciu
- Noa Tamir
- Rachel Malbin
- Mark Mikofski
- Mariana Meireles
- Melissa Mendonça
- Katrina Riehl (Board of Directors)
We also want to thank staff member Arliss Collins for their service during the 2022–2024 term!
Note: According to the DISC Committee Charter, Committee members have an option for unlimited renewal.
DISC Committee Achievements from 2022–2024
During the previous term, the DISC Committee achieved significant milestones, including:
- DISC Unconference 2023: Thirty-six leaders came together to create DEI-focused guidelines and educational materials for the open-source community. Major outcomes included the development of six projects aimed at fostering inclusivity within open-source communities.
- Update of the DISCOVERY Cookbook: The DISCOVERY Cookbook received updates to better support event managers in promoting diversity and inclusion at their events.
About the DISC Committee
The NumFOCUS DISC Committee is committed to fostering diversity and inclusion within the open-source data science community. Through initiatives like the DISC Unconference and the DISCOVERY Cookbook, the committee aims to increase the participation and inclusion of underrepresented individuals in scientific computing.
For more information on NumFOCUS’s stance on diversity in the community, please refer to the Diversity Appendix.
Help us welcome the newest members to the DISC Committee as we continue to work toward positive change within the open-source data science community!
