Data Analytics and Computational Social Science
M.S.
University of Massachusetts Amherst
2024
See all Profiles
Faculty
Faculty
Amy Yeboah Quarkume (She/Her)
Associate Professor
Department/Office
- Afro American Studies
School/College
- College of Arts & Sciences
- Graduate School
Additional Positions
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Graduate DirectorCenter for Applied Data Science and Analytics
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Director of Student EngagementCenter for Women, Gender and Global Leadership
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Writing Across the Curriculum InstructorCertified WAC Instructor
Biography
Dr. Amy Yeboah Quarkume, affectionately known as Dr. A, is a daughter of Africa, a scholar, filmmaker, data scientist, and Associate Professor of Africana Studies in the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. She holds a Ph.D. in African American Studies, two Master's degrees in Sociology and African American Studies, and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Data Analytics and Computational Social Science from the University of Massachusetts, along with a Certificate of Data Science from Harvard Extension School and MIT. Dr. Quarkume is an Andrew Mellon New Direction Fellow, a Mellon Just Futures Initiative invited Social Justice Consortium partner, a Brown University Born-Digital Scholarly Publishing scholar, a National Center for Atmospheric Research Innovator Fellow, and a White House Initiative HBCU All-Star Campus Mentor.
Her work as a data scientist centers around AI Bias, data inequality, and environmental justice. Currently, she employs an Africana Studies framework to examine the intersections of race and technology. Dr. A is presently the Director of Graduate Studies for the Master's Program in Applied Data Science at the Center for Applied Data Science and Analytics (CADSA), advancing Howard University's first major effort in becoming a hub for data science social justice research and training for the next generation of data scientists. Additionally, she is the developer of the Hello Black World curriculum, designed for Africana Studies majors, minors, and friends in the humanities and social sciences who want to explore and develop data and computer science competencies centered around the presence of African contributions and imagination. Furthermore, she is the PI of the CORE futures lab and Co-PI for the Race and Tech lab.
In addition to her achievements, Dr. Quarkume is also spearheading with a team of graduate, undergraduate, high school and middle school students the multi-year “What's Up with all the Bias” project, generously funded by the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Innovator Program. This endeavor interweaves climate change, race, AI, culture, and environmental justice, with a mission of shedding light on data pollution issues in Black, Brown, and Native American communities. The project underscores various challenges, such as the need for improved environmental data collection sites, equitable dissemination of environmental information, prompt installation of data collection instruments, and inclusive community engagement in environmental matters. Recognizing the potential pitfalls, Dr. Quarkume emphasizes the necessity of thoughtful AI implementation to address these complex issues, striving for comprehensive and lasting solutions.
She has published in the Journal of Women, Gender, and Families of Color; Mosaic Magazine; Black Scholar; CLA Journal and is currently working on her second book project titled "Data Pollution and Savage Algorithms." Additionally, she has contributed to and been an invited guest on BET News, PBS NewsHour, Direct TV, American Radio Works, Al Jazeera America's The Stream, Philadelphia Community Access Media, Roland Martin TV One News Show, and Mother Jones.
Education & Expertise
Education
Data Analytics
Certificate
Harvard University Extension School
2023
African American Studies
Ph.D.
Temple University
2013
African American Studies
M.A
Temple University
2011
Sociology
M.A.
Temple University
2010
Academics
Academics
DATA 201: Computational Social Justice
This course is designed to help students think explicitly about their social responsibility as data scientists and the impact on the world of what they are building and analyzing. Using contemporary case studies from recent news stories and legal cases, students will learn about issues such as intellectual copyright, consent, data security, differences between privacy and confidentiality, difficulties of anonymization, and bias in artificial intelligence. In addition, students will be engaged with fundamental questions of justice in relation to data and computing in American society.
IDSD 211: HBW: Intro to the Black Digital World I: Coding
The HELLO BLACK WORLD curriculum has been designed for students of African descent who want to explore and develop data and computer science competencies centered around the presence of African contributions and the imagination. The curriculum addresses computer science, data science, the visualization of diverse data types, digital humanities, ethics, and communications within the Black world with a social justice lens. No previous programming or statistical background is assumed. The Intro to the Black Digital World course introduces students to the African Origins of Mathematics and Computer Science, basic python, data science and visualization of diverse data types within the Black world (e.g. text, numbers, images).
DATA 400: Data Science & Environmental Justice
Data collection, visualization, and analysis have been entangled in the struggle for racial and social justice because they can make injustice visible, imaginable, and thus actionable. Data has also been used to oppress minority communities and institutionalize, rationalize, and naturalize systems of racial violence. With a focus on environmental justice, along with critical social science literature, students gain introductory experience and do collaborative and creative projects using real-world data.
AFRO 186: Black Women in America II
This course studies the historical and contemporary experiences of Africana Women through the major concepts and methods of the stand-alone academic field, discipline, and meta-discipline of Africana Studies. While the course primarily focuses on Black women in America, the readings include diverse experiences, perspectives, and scholarships of women from the African continent, the Caribbean, and North and South American communities. Building off of historically African centered experiences, the readings will provide a social-historical framework for the course and will draw from many disciplines including literature, psychology, sociology, science, as well as art. A focus will be placed upon contemporary issues such as the Politics of Health and Motherhood; Art and Culture; Media and Representation; Education and STEM; Wage and Equity; Politics and Power and Crime and Punishment. In examining the experience of Black Women in America students will also capture and reflect upon the story of Black womanhood over the years and critically engage in museums, artifacts, and archives that connect to historical narratives of Black women in America.
AFRO 120: Education in Black America II
This course provides students with an introduction to Black Education in America with a focus on contemporary issues. Organized around questions about teaching, learning, and schooling people of African descent, a critical eye is placed current social structural arguments in education policy for people of African descent. In examining the cultural and structural foundations of education, students will also reflect upon and critique their own educational experiences and articulate their own beliefs and values about teaching, learning, and schooling, and critically engage in museums, artifacts and archives that connect to historical narratives of education in America.
Accomplishments
Accomplishments
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Early Career Faculty Innovator Scholar
The Early Career Faculty Innovator Program is a new funding opportunity for early career faculty in the social sciences and STEM outside of NCAR’s core expertise to co-develop interdisciplinary research projects in partnership with scientists and engineers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado.
Associate in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) at Harvard University
As a Harvard University Associate in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) at Harvard I will collaborate with Professor Latanya Sweeney developing curriculum for the Data Science for Social Justice program
Andrew Mellon New Direction Scholar
New Directions Fellowships assist faculty members in the humanities and humanistic social sciences who seek to acquire systematic training outside their own areas of special interest.
Visiting Scholar at Santa Fe Institute
UChicago and Data.org Capacity Accelerator Network Partner
Capacity Accelerator Network (CAN) Democratizing data skills and investing in social impact organizations’ capacity to be data-driven will lead to transformative change. The Capacity Accelerator Network will work to increase skills and support organizations, enabling them to unlock the power of data to meet their missions.
Bezos Earth Fund - Environmental Justice Data Collaborative Scholar
Bezos Earth Fund Announced $443 Million in Grants to Advance Environmental Justice, Conserve and Restore Nature, and Improve Monitoring and Accountability.
DC Humanities Vision Grant Scholar
Humanities Vision Grant provides financial and capacity building resources to community organizations interested in creating innovative interpretations of humanities scholarship for public audiences. The grants are driven by the proposed final product; each grant will produce an educational resource that will be added to a publicly accessible, online archive.
Visiting Professor at UChicago Data Science Institute
Related Articles
Yeboah, Amy O. "Howard University & the Challenge of the Black University: A Conversation with Andrew Billingsley & Greg E. Carr"
During the 1960s Howard University held great promise, finding itself at a transformative crossroads as it related to the institutional study of Black life. On September 3, 1966 in a Washington Post article, Howard University President Nabrit declared “he would like to see enrollment eventually distributed between whites and Negroes on a 50–50 basis, and perhaps even 60–40.‘It will be good for the District, the University, and the US’ he said.” 1 The next year, concerns around questions of student governance surfaced as students were expelled for participating in protests against the on campus appearance of Selective Service Director General Lewis Hershey. 2 That summer, after dismissing a number of professors deemed “too close” to the student activists (including Nathan Hare, who is widely credited with Chairing the first Department of Black Studies at his subsequent institution, San Francisco State University...
Yeboah, Amy. “Why the West Couldn’t Hear Beale Street: Baldwin’s World-sense of Female Sexuality.” Humanities, no.8, 4 (2019)
While scholars have noted James Baldwin’s revisionary and transformative literary approach to social constructions of race, class, gender, and crime, there has been very little conversation in that vein regarding If Beale Street Could Talk (1974). Upon its publication, many critics issued negative reviews of the novel, failing to recognize how Baldwin’s view of female sexuality both embraced notions of the body and constructs from an African-centered world-sense. Using a range of theoretical resources from Africana Studies, this paper analyzes how moving beyond Western frameworks regarding knowledge, sexual discourse, and behavior offers a new interpretation of Baldwin’s aims that reclaims and re-imagines Black sexual politics.
Yeboah, Amy. “Reconceptualizing Black Students Going Abroad: Heritage Experiences in Theory and Practice.” International Journal of Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Higher Education, vol 4, issue. 1 (2019).
The lack of participation in study abroad programs by Black students is a topicof persistent concern yetincreasing opportunities has not yielded significant results. A closer look at study abroad programs identifies a gap in program offerings and experiences that Black students might actually desire. Reconceptualizing what Black people value from travel experiences and addressing students’ primary obstacles going abroad—the financial burden, fear of anticipated racism, and finding programs of interest (Gasman, 2013)—led Howard University to offer a heritage program approach. This article looks at how the Young AfricanA Leadership Initiative (YAALI) fellowship closes the cultural gap that exists for Black students in traditional study abroad programs.