2019

2019 was special for a lot of reasons. It was one of the best years yet in terms of personal and professional growth. It’s also been a year when my convictions were challenged and my resolve was tested. I still don’t have or know all the answers. I still have more ideas that I didn’t act on or died prematurely than the ones I did something about. And, while I’m nursing my reading habit back to health, my exercise/dance habit is still non-existent. I worry that even as my English vocabulary shrinks, my Tamil is getting worse. And, yet, despite it all, I’ve somehow grown more comfortable with not knowing and going with the flow, on occasion. I suppose the lack of choice helps. Baby wins—I’ll take them! 

January - I started the second and final term of my Fellowship. I had two articles published and one in the works. My goal was to graduate with four articles published. Come April, I’d graduate with five. As J.K. Rowling says achievable goals are the first step to self-improvement. 

February - After three months in the making, I published an article in the “Ideas” section of the Boston Globe on the lack of diversity in AI and what it could mean for the field. I got to interview Rediet Abebe for the story who I couldn’t have known at the time but has since become a close collaborator since. The article attracted comments such as “dreadful” by “forechek”, “If Artificial Intelligence has a diversity problem, does artificial diversity have an intelligence problem?” from “Awaterguy”, “liberal screed” from “Impartial_Observer”. I suppose the story hit a nerve?! 

March - For international women’s day, the company I work for decided to run a short profile on me upon a recommendation from the CEO. 

April - A data investigation I was working on under the guidance and mentoring of an acclaimed Canadian investigative journalist came to fruition. And, I got lucky when the story ran on the front-page. Dylan and I got to give a three-minute speech each to my cohort of Journalism Fellows at our graduation. In all, this turned out to be a lucky month!

May - I spent May catching up on reading for fun. Long ago, I had mistakenly decided to only read non-fiction which turned to be a decision that nearly killed my reading habit. I read Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, Michael Lewis’ The Fifth Risk, Thich Nhat Hanh How to Fight, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, and abandoned Tara Westover’s Educated. 

June - I got to co-write a poster that was presented by Bikalpa and Sara at the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) conference. Had I not met Rediet, this would not have happened. 

July - I dread July. It being my birth month never fails to bring with it trepidation about life being fleeting, dull and ordinary. This July was no different but the feeling is starting to abate a little. A lot of change happened at work with a non-trivial reorg. 

August - With Sara, I started co-organizing a multi-institutional research group on “Data markets and data economies”. This sits under the umbrella of the organization Rediet had started. Sara and Rediet would become people I look up to. 

September - A paper I co-wrote with Sara, Rediet, Sekou, George and Kehinde was accepted as an invited talk for a workshop at NeurIPS, the largest machine learning conference in the world. Fun fact: the conference was called NIPS until 2018, one of the things I covered in my story from February. 

October - I worked through a very hard project at work. It was yet another reminder of how fragile human relationships are, even or especially in a professional setting. Separately, after the project ended, I moved into a new role at work. 

November - I’m learning and growing into the role of a manager. I feel stretched and challenged at work. I saw Rediet defend her thesis as the first Black woman to graduate with a PhD in computer science from Cornell University. The department has been around for more than 65 years and yes, this is 2019. Our joint work was accepted to a workshop organized by data and society, an organization started by danah boyd—someone I deeply admire. 

December - My mission this month has been to get my niece to say the word F. We are making progress and I’m excited for when she’ll say fox. Yes, we’re now reading Fox in Socks every night.

2019 came with a lot of change—some I was prepared and others that caught me by surprise. I am wishing for more stability in 2020 barring which I hope for the strength to navigate change.