Biography:Nashlie Sephus
Nashlie Sephus | |
|---|---|
| Born | Jackson, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Mississippi State University Georgia Institute of Technology College of Engineering |
| Occupation | Computer engineer, entrepreneur, technology evangelist |
| Awards | Ada Lovelace Award (2019) |
Nashlie H. Sephus is an American computer engineer and entrepreneur specialized in machine learning and algorithmic bias identification. She is a technology evangelist at Amazon Web Services. Sephus is cofounder and chief executive officer of Bean Path, a nonprofit startup company developing Jackson Tech District, a planned community and business incubator in Jackson, Mississippi.
Life
Sephus was born in Jackson, Mississippi, where she was raised in an all-female household. She attended a two-week sleep away engineering camp for girls that introduced her to computer engineering.[1] Sephus graduated from Murrah High School in 2003.[2] In 2007, she completed a B.S. in computer engineering at Mississippi State University.[3][1] After graduating, Sephus won a GEM fellowship, which provided her a full-tuition graduate scholarship, internships, and a job placement at Delphi Electronics & Safety upon finishing her Ph.D.[4] She earned a master's degree and Ph.D. (2014) in electrical and computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology College of Engineering.[3] Her dissertation was titled A framework for exploiting modulation spectral features in music data mining and other applications. Sephus' doctoral advisors were Aaron D. Lanterman and David V. Anderson.[5]
In 2013, Sephus, then a doctoral student, began working part-time for the all black women startup[1] Partpic, where she developed visual recognition algorithms and prototypes.[4] Sephus later worked as a software engineer at Exponent in New York. In 2015, she joined Partpic full time as their chief technology officer.[4] In 2016, Amazon acquired Partpic, and Sephus became leader of the Amazon Visual Search team in Atlanta.[3][4] Sephus later became a machine learning and applied science manager at Amazon Web Services Artificial Intelligence.[3] Her team develops tools for bias-identification for machine learning models.[1] She is currently a technology evangelist at Amazon.[6]
In 2018, Sephus began plans to create a technology community and business incubator in Jackson, Mississippi as part of her nonprofit startup company Bean Path.[7] She is the company's cofounder and CEO.[3] In 2019, Sephus and Julie Cwikla were awarded an Ada Lovelace Award.[8] On September 11, 2020, Sephus purchased 12 acres next to Jackson State University to create the Jackson Tech District.[3][9][10]
See also
- African-American women in computer science
- Women in engineering in the United States
References
- ↑ Jump up to: 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Pretz, Kathy (2021-01-13). "This AWS Machine Learning Manager is Rooting Out Bias in AI Programs" (in en). https://spectrum.ieee.org/this-aws-machine-learning-manager-is-rooting-out-bias-in-ai-programs.
- ↑ "Dr. Nashlie H. Sephus" (in en). 2022-10-29. https://www.jackson.k12.ms.us/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=33601&ViewID=7b97f7ed-8e5e-4120-848f-a8b4987d588f&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=37047&PageID=642&Comments=true.
- ↑ Jump up to: 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Rhinehart, Charlene (2021-03-07). "Meet The Black Woman Transforming 12 Abandoned Acres Into $25 Million Tech Hub in Mississippi" (in en-US). https://www.blackenterprise.com/black-woman-transforming-abandoned-acres-tech-hub-mississippi/.
- ↑ Jump up to: 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "DISRUPTIVE: Nashlie H. Sephus, the Brains Behind the Tech Startup Sold to Amazon" (in en-US). 2018-05-22. https://www.ebony.com/life/disruptive-nashlie-h-sephus-the-brains-behind-the-tech-startup-sold-to-amazon/.
- ↑ Sephus, Nashlie H. (2014-05-15). A framework for exploiting modulation spectral features in music data mining and other applications. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/52243. Retrieved 2021-09-17.
- ↑ Webb, Natalie (2021-06-02). "Black in Tech: Meet Two Amazon Employees Blazing Trails in the South" (in en). https://afrotech.com/black-in-tech-amazon-employees-blazing-trails-south.
- ↑ Perkins, Njera (2021-03-04). "Amazon Scientist Nashlie Sephus is Building a $25M Tech Hub in Her Mississippi Hometown" (in en). https://afrotech.com/amazon-scientist-nashlie-sephus-is-building-a-25m-tech-hub-in-her-mississippi-hometown.
- ↑ "Dr. Nashlie Sephus and Dr. Julie Cwikla Honored at Ada Lovelace Awards • Innovate Mississippi" (in en-US). 2019-04-03. https://www.innovate.ms/dr-nashlie-sephus-and-dr-julie-cwikla-honored-at-ada-awards/.
- ↑ Hensley, Erica (2020-10-10). "Jackson native disrupts downtown with new tech hub plans" (in en-US). https://mississippitoday.org/2020/10/10/jackson-native-disrupts-downtown-with-new-tech-hub-plans/.
- ↑ Carr, Teneshia (2021-02-23). "She's a Black AI Scientist at Amazon. Her Next Move Is a $25 Million Tech Hub on 12 Abandoned Acres in Jackson, Mississippi" (in en). https://www.inc.com/teneshia-carr/nashlie-sephus-jackson-mississippi-bean-path-tech-hub.html.
External links
- Nashlie Sephus's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (Subscription content?)
- The Why and How of Diversity in Tech | Nashlie Sephus | TEDxJackson on YouTube
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