2019 Women of Color in STEM award winners were recognized for innovation in a range of new technologies from artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) to cloud platforms, cybersecurity, data science, drone tech, machine learning, open-source, and virtual reality (VR).

The Outstanding Technical Contribution in Government Award went to Dr. Carla Cotwright-Williams, Chief of Data & AI at the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.

Dr. Cotwright-Williams is a senior data scientist with the Department of Defense (DoD). She is currently detailed to the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), the DoD Center of Excellence that provides expertise to help the department harness the power of AI.

When she joined the JAIC in 2019, she was the first data scientist to work in the center and has helped to develop data and AI standards. In a short amount of time, she has advanced the mission and focus of the JAIC.

Before joining the DoD, Dr. Cotwright-Williams did academic research with NASA on random graphs, their direct relationship with a graphical model that encodes probabilistic relationships, and autonomous vehicles.

Additionally, her work with the U.S. Navy involved research in statistical measures of uncertainty to create information security and cryptologic techniques for use with data integrity problems.

She was the first African American to be awarded the American Mathematical Society (AMS) Congressional Fellowship, which is part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Fellowship program.

During her time on Capitol Hill, she served as a congressional staffer on the majority staff of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, reporting to and advising the committee chairs on policy changes.