I am firmly committed to efforts to increase the diversity of Statistics as a field. We as statisticians benefit from and value the tremendous intellectual diversity in our field, but we must do more to improve the representation of minoritized racial and gender identities among our ranks. I strive to foster a more welcoming, inclusive culture in Statistics which supports and centers the contributions of Black, Indigenous, and Latino/a statisticians.
I believe statisticians have a unique ethical responsibility in the movement for racial justice, both in the United States and beyond. The increasing ubiquity of so-called artificial intelligence has the potential to entirely change the world, and yet we too often see it being used to reinforce and reify existing social structure. I have committed myself to a process of continual learning about the way these structures are created, strengthened, and maintained in order to understand my role in the perpetuation of racial injustice, and work to correct it.
In 2020, I completed the Rackham Professional Development Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Certificate at the University of Michigan, and co-founded a graduate student working group on DEI in our Statistics department.