We are thrilled to promote the Women in Data Science Initiative, pushing forward one of the visions of Amrapali Zaveri.

The Women in Data Science (WiDS) initiative aims to inspire and educate data scientists worldwide, regardless of gender, and to support women in the field. The initiative started as a one-day technical conference at Stanford in November 2015. Currently, it became a global movement including a global conference with more than 150 regional events worldwide in more than 60 countries, reaching 100,000 participants annually online and in person. Furthermore, WiDS includes a global datathon, a podcast series, and an educational outreach program to encourage high school students to consider careers in data science, artificial intelligence, and related fields.

Amrapali Zaveri was an AKSW research group member. She passed away after a brief illness on 24 January 2020. Her many colleagues and friends around the world are shocked and saddened by the sudden loss.

In 2010, Amrapali joined the Agile Knowledge Engineering and Semantic Web research group at Leipzig University as a Ph.D. student. Her research focused on Linked Data for healthcare, educational and economic research. After receiving her Ph.D. in 2015, she joined the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research at Stanford University as a post-doctoral researcher under Prof. Michel Dumontier. Amrapali Zaveri was one of the first members of the Institute of Data Science at Maastricht University in 2017. She worked to promote women in data science and was organizing together with Visara Urovi the this year Women in Data Science Maastricht event.

Global Women in Data Science (WiDS) Initiative: https://www.widsconference.org/
Women in Data Science Maastricht: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/events/women-data-science-maastricht
In Memoriam Amrapali Zaveri: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/memoriam-amrapali-zaveri