Coming Soon...

Today is the start of Black History Month. This month I’ll have the privilege of speaking with Dr. William Sermons, who has a history of leveraging data and statistics to advocate for various marginalized communities in the United States. As someone planning to study Data Science and Political Science in college, a mentor recommended that I speak with him about intersections between those areas in his own leadership, teaching, and practice. Check out his bio and feel free to submit questions in the blog post that I can integrate into my interview. Stay tuned for an update about the date.

M William Sermons, PhD is the Vice President for Research & Evaluation for Volunteers of America and Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. Dr. Sermons, who earned his PhD in Civil Engineering from Northwestern University and Masters of Social Work from Catholic University, has extensive experience in the nonprofit sector, working in both national advocacy organizations focused on policy, such as the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the Center for Responsible Lending, and in National human service organizations, like his current work with Volunteers of America and former role with Catholic Charities USA. He teaches the course Using R for Policy Data Analysis, which focuses on the use of public data and open source tools to document racial disparities in public policy