Imani Maliti is a data scientist and activist with a passion for educational and reproductive justice. Her résumé is packed with evidence of her drive to make a positive impact through research and youth empowerment efforts.

Maliti, who has Nigerian and Kenyan roots, grew up in The Bronx, N.Y. She moved to Atlanta in 2018 for undergraduate studies in mathematics and computer science at Clark Atlanta University. Today, she is enrolled in Columbia University’s M.S. in Data Science program and a recipient of the JPMorgan Columbia University Data Science Institute Master’s Diversity Fellowship.

“My objective is to be a data scientist for the people,” Maliti said. “I want to do research and work that has an impact and includes the community in how the story is told.”

As an undergraduate student researcher, Maliti leveraged machine learning for sentiment analysis of student attitudes on Twitter. She also participated in the Georgia Alabama Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP), a National Science Foundation-funded program that aims to increase underrepresented populations in STEM careers. That opportunity allowed her to analyze spatial disparities affecting Mississippians’ access to in-state reproductive health care; her work won second place at the regional LSAMP symposium.

During the summers, Maliti participated in Research Experiences for Undergraduates at the University of California, Los Angeles and American University. She worked on coding, topic modeling, and word embedding with data from the California Innocence Project and a student-led, spatial-statistical project on the social determinants affecting COVID-19 case and death rates in New York City. The results of the American University project were published by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Maliti has also excelled in empowerment and leadership initiatives. She worked for Access Reproductive Care Southeast, volunteered with Brave Girl in South Africa, launched a scholarship for Black first-year college students, and partnered with bookstores to provide books by Black authors to Black youth. 

An ELLA fellowship through the Sadie Nash Leadership Project helped Maliti establish “a safe space” for her fellow African students. “I realized that the spaces I felt comfortable being Black in were under-resourced, and in the spaces where I had more resources, I encountered a lot more microaggressions or blatant racism,” she said. “Being able to be yourself and be proud of who you are, that all affects your ability to learn.” 

It’s no wonder that Maliti had her pick of graduate programs—Columbia, Stanford, Rice, and Brown—but her conversations with the Data Science Institute and recent graduates of the M.S. in Data Science program convinced her that Columbia would be the right choice. “These conversations validated my experiences as a Black person in STEM, an aspiring Black data scientist, and a Black person who cares about the stories of Black people. I didn’t get that vibe from anywhere else.”

Maliti hopes the opportunities offered at Columbia and through the JPMorgan fellowship will change her life so she can impact others’ lives. “I’ve had a lot of challenges on my path here. Imagine what I can do with the resources and a community that wants to see me succeed!”

— Karina Alexanyan, Ph.D. and Shane Tan