The Washington, D.C. chapter of Women in Big Data recently hosted its first event of 2018, “Applications of Analytics in the Field of Natural and Technological Disasters.” East Coast Region Director Gunjan Sharma opened the evening with a brief presentation about WiBD, the field of data analytics, and careers within the field.

Next, attendees heard from Pratima Damani, the founder and CEO of SP Group. Damani discussed the consulting firm’s use of data analytics in advising the government on how to effectively target aid in the wake of natural disasters. SP Group’s approach identifies those neighborhoods that overlap in disaster impact and economic disadvantage rather than disaster impact and property value.

Kate Highnam, from the Center for Machine Learning at Capital One, wrapped up the evening with a discussion of machine learning and its application in a cybersecurity use case. Highnam and her team developed a model to examine Internet traffic from a computer and detect malicious websites that malware on that computer were trying to access.

Thanks to all those who attended and stay tuned for more events!