Celebrating Black History Month! - HER+Data MCR Meetup - October 2025

HER+Data MCR is a community working to connect, inspire, support and empower the NW UK’s Women in Data. Our goal is to bring together women and non-binary people who work in data or who would like to work in data - to support one another, share experiences and talk data - big or small! Whether you’re a student just embarking on a career or a seasoned data professional, this group is for you. We want to connect and inspire amazing data women with diverse expertise and experience.

This event is very generously hosted by Spektrix located at their Manchester office at 4th Floor, 196 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 3WF. Please look for someone near the entrance and they will let you inside the building and direct you to the location of the event.

For our October meetup, we will be celebrating Black History Month! We will hear talks from Dr. Tana Joseph (Research Development officer, University of Manchester), Jennifer O Usiobo (Data Engineer, Lloyds Banking Group), and Sophia Saleh (Data Scientist, HMRC) and network with other amazing women in data!

Agenda
(All times in BST)
18:00 - 18:30 Networking with food and drinks
18:30 - 18:40 Welcome and announcements
18:40 Lightning talks and Q&A
20:30 Close

Speakers

Dr. Tana Joseph, Research Development officer, University of Manchester
Bio: Dr. Tana Joseph is a South African astronomer, science communicator, entrepreneur, public speaker, and social justice advocate for the sciences. She obtained her PhD in physics in 2013 and has been awarded both Fulbright and Royal Society fellowships in recognition of her research excellence. Dr. Joseph is passionate about science communication and firmly believes that science is for everyone. In 2018, she founded her own science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) communications and consulting company, AstroComms. Dr. Joseph is an advocate and consultant for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and decolonization efforts in astronomy and science. In this capacity, she has worked to promote and embed EDI best practices into research culture to promote at events, universities and institutes around the world.
Title: Data collection for equity, diversity and inclusion
Abstract: There is currently a push to make equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) work more data-driven and evidenced-based. This requires EDI practitioners to collect data on sensitive, personal topics such as race, ethnicity and gender identity. However, in many countries, it is actually illegal to collect such data. In this talk, I will discuss how EDI practitioners work around such restrictions and what is being done to fill the gaps using a work climate survey from the Dutch astronomy community as a case study.

Jennifer O Usiobo, Data Engineer, Lloyds Banking Group
Bio: I started my career as a scientific researcher studying a wide variety of materials including solar cells. Since the launch of my tech career, I’ve held engineering roles in the financial industry in both Europe and UK.
Title: My experience navigating a non-linear career journey
Abstract: My talk will cover my career journey so far and the steps that I took in order to make the career pivot. I’ll share my experience being an engineer in the financial sector and an active member of internal colleague networks in my current role.

Sophia Saleh, Data Scientist, HMRC
Bio: I have a sociology background and got into coding during my first year of uni. I then completed a masters in data science and AI at the university of Liverpool.
Title: Algorithms and Identity
Abstract: I will share my personal story and mention how my identity has shaped my path, speak about my own findings in AI biases, being visibly black Muslim woman in tech spaces and balancing this, why representation matters and any tips and words of encouragement.

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Our Meetup page is very generously sponsored by KrakenFlex!