Celebrating Women in March: Alumni Spotlight with Esra Alshammari

March 15, 2023
Categories: General News Tags: General News

To honor Women’s History Month in March, we’re highlighting one of our female alumni!

Esra Alshammari graduated from the School of Data Science at UNC Charlotte in 2017 with her Master’s degree in Data Science and Business Analytics. Esra also came to SDS as a Fulbright Scholar! During her time as a student, she was the President and co-founder of the Data Science Initiative (DSI) Student Organization in 2017 (The School of Data Science was previously DSI up until becoming a School in 2020).

Esra currently works as the Head Strategy & Data Analytics at BNET – Bahrain Network, which is the national broadband network in Bahrain; connecting the Kingdom through ultra-fast fiber-optic internet. Esra became the first data scientist in the country of Bahrain after graduating from UNC Charlotte!

Some more of Esra’s achievements are listed below!

Data science talks and workshops:
  • Data Analytics – BIBF and ISACA Bahrain Chapter, 2022
  • Data Science for Fintech – Guest Speaker at Masters of Fintech Program, University of Bahrain, 2022
  • Data Science for Lean Startups – Business Incubation Center, University of Bahrain, 2021
  • Storytelling with Data- Community session with ila Bank in Bahrain, 2021
  • Demystifying Data Science – GDG Manama, 2020
  • Data Science Mentor – Startup weekend Bahrain , 2019
  • State of Data Science – GDG Manama, 2019

Esra was a guest speaker at this event Data Analytics – BIBF and ISACA Bahrain Chapter, 2022

Awards & Recognition:
  • O’Reilly Diversity Scholarship to attend Strata Data Conference – New York, USA 2019
  • ODSC Diversity Scholarship to attend ODSC West Data Science Conference – San Francisco, USA 2018
  • Hajj Hackathon Award Winner – The Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones – Jeddah, KSA 2018
  • Overall Winner and People’s Choice Awards at Teradata Worldwide Data Challenge– California, USA 2017
  • Expedia Scholarship- Grace Hopper Conference for Women in Computing 2017 (along with 4 other UNC Charlotte DSBA female graduates)