| Full Name | Affiliation | Statement |
Senior Data Scientist at CVS Health. Founding board member of Women Who Do Data | Astha is a Senior Data Scientist at CVS Health, where she designs the recommendation engine for digital platforms to help customers find the right products and patients find the right health services and support. She also leads AI initiatives including generative AI and oversees the entire search portfolio across the app and web.
With nine years of experience in data science at tech companies like Oracle and Twilio, Astha is now applying her expertise to healthcare. She has a background in healing and alternative therapies and is researching how to integrate AI, health, and healing. Astha is passionate about empowering healthcare professionals with the knowledge and tools they need to excel. She recently published book chapters in collaboration with the Indian Fertility Society, focusing on AI in counseling in Assisted Reproduction Technology. As one of the 19 members of the national core team in India, she is leading the technology and AI platform for Counselor Empowerment Program (CEP) with a mission to provide data driven AI systems to support counselors and patients in IVF centers across the country.
Her work is unique in that it merges traditional healing therapies and psychotherapy with artificial intelligence, using Python-based models built on anonymized data combined with technology like OpenAI, Gemini etc. using architectures like RAG to ensure contextual and reliable AI. This approach allows for hyper-personalized treatment plans for individuals while maintaining data privacy and accountability. In the context of IVF patients, this method aims to prevent additional burdens like depression, ensuring they receive comprehensive support during their challenging journey.
In addition to this Astha is a speaker, author, and mentor. She helps women advance in data science as a founding board member and vice president of Women Who Do Data. Astha has been recognized among the top 250 women globally in AI and ML and has received the Indian Achiever Award, Global Recognition Award, and Excellence in Applied Research Award.
Astha has a master's in Analytics from University of Minnesota and a B.Tech in Electronics and Communication. |
I have been working closely with NumFOCUS since 2016, and I am a lead organizer for 6 inclusive data science communities. I am the founder of PyData Seattle meetup by NumFOCUS (since 2016), chair of PyLadies Seattle (since 2016), lead organizer of Seattle Spark + AI meetup (since 2022), a Women Techmakers Ambassador (since 2022), lead organizer of Google Developer Group Bellevue (since 2023), and Databricks Beacon (since 2024). | I believe that open source software is important to the advancement of humanity. I come from a very humble beginning, born and raised in under extreme poverty in an undeveloped area of Tampico, Mexico. It is my dream that open source software can be as well known and used as Microsoft Excel, so that a young child from the jungles of Mexico can have the same access to the same powerful software and tools used by the top technology organizations in a first world country.
I am a data scientist and lead organizer for 6 inclusive data science communities, with an active, vibrant, and growing membership of 9500+ software engineers and data science enthusiasts. I collaborate with nonprofit tech organizations, city and state governments, and enterprises to promote diversity and inclusion programs to support women and minorities in the field.
• Founder of PyData Seattle meetup with 2900+ members (since 2016). Built the community from the ground up, from zero members. PyData Seattle focuses on helping data science enthusiasts learn in the areas of data science, data management, processing, analytics, and visualization. One goal of PyData Seattle is to increase the awareness of NumFOCUS. • Chair of PyLadies Seattle with 2200+ members (since 2016). Grew the community from ~80 members. PyLadies is a worldwide group of women developers who use the Python programming language, with local presence in Seattle. • Lead Organizer of Seattle Spark + AI meetup with 3,800 members (since 2022). • Founder of Women Techmakers Seattle (since 2022), a Google's program that provides visibility, community, and resources for women in technology. • Lead Organizer of Google Developer Group Bellevue (since 2023). • Lead Databricks Beacon, Seattle chapter (since 2024).
In addition, I organize and host world class events for the open-source community, with 128 events and over $1.4 Million of funds raised to date. I develop scholarship programs to increase participation of women and minorities at these events, and have provided 730 scholarship grants to date. |
Currently Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford University Editorial Board of Reviewers, JMLR Editorial Board, JOSS
2024-2025: Visiting Scholar, Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna 2025- : Assistant Professor, UMass Chan Medical School | I am interested in serving on the technical steering committee for two reasons: my personal interest in open-source software, and my previous productive experiences with NumFOCUS. I have been involved in the open source ecosystem for over a decade now. During that time, I have served as a core developer for scikit-learn and also developed several widely used software packages of my own (apricot, pomegranate, tangermeme, ledidi, with the second two being more focused toward the genomics community). These works were supported by several small development grants from NumFOCUS, and the features implemented through these proposals are what made the projects successful. I have given dozens of talks on these works at conferences such as PyData, ODSC, and scipy, and recently won the Stanford Open Science Innovator Award (https://datascience.stanford.edu/cores/awards) for my cumulative effort. In addition to writing general purpose packages, I have taken several projects written in a research setting and converted them to easy-to-use production code (tfmodisco-lite, bpnet-lite).
My view is that developing good software is a community effort and that this community thrives when everyone contributes; I would not be where I am today without open source software tools and aim to give back to this community whenever I can. The community response to my projects has solidified in my mind that open-source tool development is crucial for swift progress in every domain. As an incoming professor at UMass Chan Medical School, I plan to continue my development of tools and share my views with the next generation of students. I believe that I have the technical experience to contribute meaningfully to the committee and it would be an honor to be a part of the team. |
Monash University, napari Steering Council, scikit-image Steering Council | I have been working in scientific open source since 2012, including serving on the steering council of two NumFOCUS sponsored projects, scikit-image and napari. And I have been thinking about open source sustainability for half that time, at least since co-organising a "Funding Open Source" birds-of-a-feather session at SciPy 2019. One of the great paradoxes of open source is that companies and universities will pay millions for proprietary software such as MATLAB, but will do nothing to support Scientific Python — where they are getting equally capable software and the source code, which gives them further capabilities and assurances. Instead, funding for scientific open source generally comes from various forms of "begging".
If I am elected to the technical steering committee, I will work to build mechanisms to help projects raise sustainable, recurring funding that comes from people willingly paying for the value provided by the project. I hope to put fundraising tools in the hands of projects, and projects in charge of their own destinies. (Well, let's be real — I will work on these even if I'm not elected. 😅 But I hope I can be more effective in this work as part of the Technical Steering Committee!) |
Anaconda, Jupyter, IPython | Kyle Kelley has been a long term Jupyter, IPython, and nteract maintainer. At Netflix he led the company towards embracing notebooks and python more fully. Within a personal capacity he has been involved in policy making both as an advocate and now the school board for Santa Cruz City Schools. |
Latest information in https://www.linkedin.com/in/pragyansmita Affiliated with AFCEA, Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC), Data Community DC apart from various other professional organizations. | Dr. Pragyansmita Nayak is the Chief Data Scientist at Hitachi Vantara Federal (HVF). She explores the ""Art to the Science"" of solution architectures orchestrating data, APIs, algorithms and applications. She has over 25+ years of experience in software development and data science (Analytics, Machine Learning and Deep Learning). She has led multiple projects for different Federal Government agencies (DoD/Civilian) in the domain of Federal Accounting, Operational Analytics, Data Fabric, Object Storage, Metadata management, Records Management and Data Governance.
She holds a Ph.D. in Computational Sciences and Informatics from GMU (Fairfax, VA) and Bachelors of Science in Computer Science from BITS Pilani (India). Her doctoral thesis focused on the application of Machine Learning techniques to estimate galaxy redshifts based on photomorphic information. She has published and presented at various technical events including AFCEA West, AFCEA TechNet Cyber, NLIT, BrightTalk summits, guest lecture at GMU and GWU and organizer of the NOVA Deep Learning meetup. She lives in the DC Metro area with her husband and enjoys cooking, travel and photography.
For more information on Pragyan's professional experience, please visit her LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/pragyansmita and Twitter profile at https://twitter.com/SorishaPragyan. |
Numfocus DISC Committee Secretary, Mozilla Foundation OSC, Algorand Blockchain OSC. Pydata Contributor since 2021, Offchain Riyadh Chapter Contributor. | I’m deeply committed to the open source scientific community because I believe that shared knowledge is key to driving innovation. My involvement in the NumPy and SciPy communities, along with contributions to various open source projects, reflects my dedication to fostering a collaborative and inclusive environment. I’ve been actively engaged as the NumFOCUS DISC Committee Secretary and have contributed to the Mozilla Foundation OSC, Algorand Blockchain OSC, and the PyData community since 2021. Additionally, I’ve been involved with the Offchain Riyadh Chapter. While my contributions to NumFOCUS have mostly been through organizing and participating in events like sprints and workshops rather than direct technical work, I’ve focused on supporting and amplifying the efforts of others. I’m motivated to join the NumFOCUS Board to help shape its strategic direction and ensure continued support for open source contributors. I’m especially passionate about increasing diversity and inclusivity within the community, as I believe diverse perspectives are crucial for innovation. My experience at Enea, including strategic planning, financial management, and overseeing legal and compliance matters, along with my work with marketing and fundraising teams, has prepared me to contribute effectively to NumFOCUS governance. |
Zarr, Scientific Python, OSSCi, PyData Delhi | I have been involved with the NumFOCUS and PyData community for the last eight years. I have been super active with the community building and fostering of PyData culture throughout the Indian region. I'm currently leading the efforts over at PyData Delhi. PyData Delhi organised the first PyData conference in India in 2017, which led to the foundation of many new PyData chapters throughout the country. Since 2017, I have co-chaired 6 PyData conferences (Delhi and Global) and organised 40+ meet-ups in collaboration with startups and organisations throughout Delhi-NCR — helping raise over $300k+ for projects under NumFOCUS. I have been involved with NumFOCUS for an extended period and was awarded the NumFOCUS Community Leadership Award in 2022 for my efforts.
Throughout the years, I have transitioned from using the PyData stack to contributing. Currently, I take care of all things OSS and the community at Zarr (sponsored by NumFOCUS). I also serve on the SPEC (https://scientific-python.org/specs/steering-committee/) and OSSCi steering committees.
Working with Zarr has exposed me to the inner workings and intricacies of the OS ecosystem —certain projects function on a similar lever (maintainer and contributor needs, codebase management, packaging and versioning, governance structure and CoC, etc.) and their technical/non-technical needs (CI/CD resources, infrastructure resources, grant funding, organising sprints/hackathon) can be fulfilled if we can create specific processes and mechanisms to address them. Contributing to many projects within the Scientific Python ecosystem has taught me a great deal about taking the necessary steps to address issues. |
Mistral AI | Sophia Yang is the Head of Developer Relations at Mistral AI, a leading open-source AI lab. In this role, she leads developer education, developer ecosystem partnerships, and community engagement. Deeply passionate about the open-source Python and AI community, she has contributed to numerous open-source projects and regularly speaking at events focused on open-source initiatives. She is committed to empower open-source community growth and learning.
She is also a strong advocate for NumFocus, having volunteered with the organization for several years. Her contributions include serving on the steering committee for the NumFocus project HoloViz, being a member of the project incubator team, participating in the small development grants review committee, co-chairing SciPy tutorials, and co-chairing PyData Global. She looks forward to continuing her contributions to open-source and NumFocus. |
AdKDD Data Since committee since 2019, Association for Computing Machinery speaker 2022 Grace Hopper Data Science Committee 2019 and 2022, Women In Machine Learning speaker 2017 | Hi I am Sri Sri Perangur, the Global Experimentation Manager at Just Eat Takeaway HQ Amsterdam Netherlands. I have been in the Data Science domain for 10+ years and in the experimentation domain for 5+ years working at HBO, Lyft, Netflix and Spotify in the California U.S.A and U.K.
Across the companies, my teams have developed scientific computation libraries for experimentation at scale. The design of Experimentation methodology, computational speed, efficiency and easy of use have always been critical to our success and I would like to bring the same school of thought to NUMFocus and support the cause for open source projects in the data science and experimentation space. Through understanding of the e-commerce industry, and experimentation in particular, I hope to also contribute a lens to the user cases and features that make a difference to these domains.
I’m also on the AdKDD Data Science committee and 2022 speaker/member of Association for Computing Machinery, 2022 and 2019 Grace Hopper Data Science committee and Women in Machine Learning ( WiML) to name a few. You can find out more about be here : https://www.perangur.com/
Thank you for your consideration. |
Developer team of PyVista, SciPy Conference tutorial chair, NumFOCUS election committee | I am a software engineer in Japan. I am interested in scientific computing and visualization with computer graphics. They are one of the main developer of PyVista project. They are passionate about open source conference management and support, serving on the SciPy Conference management staff and volunteering on the NumFOCUS election committee. They are particularly interested in working with other Python ecosystems due to the need for PyVista projects and are thrilled to be able to contribute to the overall Scientific Python benefit. There is something that I feel strongly about. That is that investment in open source is still not sufficient in Asia. At last year's PyCon, it was a big topic of conversation that only 1% of PSF investment was being made in Asia. The same is true of NumFOCUS, and the opinions of people in Asia are not being fully reflected. This is not a problem with PSF or NumFOCUS themselves, but rather, in my opinion, it is because the Pythonistas living in Asia are not able to deliver their opinions. For this reason, I decided to run for election in this area, where I can make use of my own expertise. |
Oracle (software engineer), National Kapodistrian University of Athens (affiliate researcher), GeomScale (org admin, maintainer and contributor) | The candidate has more than a decade of experience in research and development of algorithms in both academia and industry. His interests lie at the intersection of geometric computing, optimization, statistical computing, mathematical software and algorithm engineering. He holds a PhD in computer science, more than 20 scientific publications in top rank journals and conferences, more than 40 talks in international conferences, seminars with invitation and technological events. Co-author, maintainer and contributor in several open-source projects (including Boost C++ libraries and MySQL). Co-funder and main contributor of GeomScale open source organization affiliated with NumFOCUS. Editor in Journal of Open Source software. Admin and mentor of GeomScale in its participation to Google Summer of code program (5 years). |
prefix.dev, conda-forge, conda | I have been involved with many open source projects, as hobbies or professionally and have always been driven by a (scientific) curiosity and the ability to have an outsized impact through open source. Since I believe in the outsized impact by open source, open science and open knowledge, I also believe that we should allocate funds as efficiently as possible to maximize this impact.
I have helped the NumFOCUS community by setting up the new (and novel) PackagingCon conference under the NumFOCUS umbrella, I have served as a conda-forge core member for the past ~4 years and as a inaugural member of the conda community (where I am most involved).
I can also rely on my experience at QuantStack (a small open source consulting business where I was CTO) and my experience at prefix.dev, a startup, where I am the founder and CEO. |