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Talithia Williams
Talithia Williams, Ph.D., is a big data expert, award-winning math professor, speaker, and the co-host of the PBS series “NOVA Wonders.” Her popular TED Talk, “Own Your Body’s Data,” extols the value of statistics in quantifying personal health information. Williams demystifies the mathematical process in amusing and insightful ways to excite students, parents, educators, and communities about STEM education and its possibilities.
In 2015, Williams won the Mathematical Association of America’s Henry L. Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Beginning College or University Mathematics Faculty Member, which honors faculty members whose teaching is effective and extraordinary, and extends its influence beyond the classroom. This excellence attracted the attention of online educational company The Great Courses, which selected Williams to produce “Learning Statistics: Concepts and Applications in R,” a series of lectures in which she provides tools to evaluate statistical data and determine if it’s used appropriately. Williams is the author of Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics, a book highlighting the influence of women in the mathematical sciences in the last two millennia, and has narrated several science documentary films, including; “Hindenburg: The New Evidence,” “Our Beautiful Planet,” “Secrets in our DNA,” and the joint BBC and NOVA five-part series “The Universe Revealed.”
Williams holds a bachelor’s in mathematics from Spelman College, a master’s from Howard University, and a master’s and doctoral degree from Rice University. Her research involves developing statistical models that emphasize the spatial and temporal structure of data, and applying them to problems in the environment. She’s worked at NASA, National Security Agency, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and has partnered with the World Health Organization on research into cataract surgical rates in African countries. Through her research and community work, she’s helping change the collective mindset regarding STEM in general and math in particular, rebranding the field of mathematics as anything but dry, technical, or male-dominated but, instead, a logical, productive career path that is crucial to the future of the country.
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