Breaking Through The Glass Ceiling - A Spring For Women In Artificial Intelligence Posted on : May 25 - 2020

After the COVID-19 pandemic is over and the economy reopens, many students will resume work on their careers. But for many young people, their priorities are going to shift. After seeing the pain and suffering caused by a single invisible enemy, some will naturally prioritize biomedical research over other easier and more lucrative trades, like law and finance. And some will choose to pursue possibly the most impactful area, which lies on the borderline of computer science and biomedicine - Artificial Intelligence (AI) for drug discovery. 

However, many women have historically seen both AI and drug discovery as predominantly male professions. And, according to a study we performed with a group of colleagues a few years back, women comprised only a small fraction of the top executives and board members in the Forbes 500 list of corporations.

However, news over the last two weeks has allowed the industry to take a breath of fresh air and has given renewed hope to the millions of young high-performing women entering the workforce.

Dr. Fei-Fei Li appointed to the board of Twitter after leaving Google

Two years after Google removed its motto of “don’t be evil” from the corporate code of conduct and replaced it with “do the right thing”, “the right thing” started yielding lucrative military contracts, including the now famous Project Maven. One of the greatest AI scientists of our time, Dr. Fei-Fei Li, a computer science professor at Stanford and VP at Google, was one of the first to raise concerns about how this military engagement could impact the company. Dr. Li was the mastermind of the ImageNet project, which ignited a revolution in AI by demonstrating that deep learning systems can now outperform humans in image recognition. These ultra-fast and highly-accurate machine vision systems can now be widely used in military drone applications and have the potential to  be grossly misused. Dr. Li quit Google and joined Twitter last week as an independent board member. Twitter has a lot to gain from this celebrity appointment.

Dr. Najat Khan promoted to Chief Data Science Officer (CDSO) of Janssen, a pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson

Many of the frequently-invited speakers to the top AI, data science, and drug discovery conferences know Dr. Najat Khan as one of the most well informed executives in AI for drug discovery and development. Previously, Janssen was comparatively slow with the adoption of AI joining a couple of university and industry AI consortiums and showcasing these as achievements. And to take data science efforts to the next level, Janssen’s new Global Head of Research and Development, Dr. Mathai Mammen, set up R&D Data Science as a top priority with a focus on Applied Data Science - the central figure in this is Dr. Najat Khan, who has already demonstrated a strong track record of delivering on measurable outcomes using Data Science tied to Janssen’s pipeline priorities. She has researched the field so deeply that the top management from other big pharma and AI companies started seeking her advice. She has a very unusual biography where she started her career as a Computational scientist, followed by a PhD in Organic Chemistry from an Ivy League school, almost a decade of leadership and strategy management consulting experience at the Boston Consulting Group across R&D and Commercial at top firms, deep knowledge of technology, and a track record to solve complex problems and deep experience leading teams with diverse skillsets. So when the company started executing on its Data Science strategy and vision, Najat was promoted to a newly-formed role of a Chief Data Science Officer (CDSO). In the pharma industry, the word “AI” is often associated with hype and the more conservative scientists in the trenches often use it as an excuse to resist change. My guess is that this was one of the reasons why “Data Science” was chosen for this critical organizational role and we should expect the other pharma companies to follow. Kudos to J&J. View More

After the COVID-19 pandemic is over and the economy reopens, many students will resume work on their careers. But for many young people, their priorities are going to shift. After seeing the pain and suffering caused by a single invisible enemy, some will naturally prioritize biomedical research over other easier and more lucrative trades, like law and finance. And some will choose to pursue possibly the most impactful area, which lies on the borderline of computer science and biomedicine - Artificial Intelligence (AI) for drug discovery. 

However, many women have historically seen both AI and drug discovery as predominantly male professions. And, according to a study we performed with a group of colleagues a few years back, women comprised only a small fraction of the top executives and board members in the Forbes 500 list of corporations.

However, news over the last two weeks has allowed the industry to take a breath of fresh air and has given renewed hope to the millions of young high-performing women entering the workforce.

Dr. Fei-Fei Li appointed to the board of Twitter after leaving Google

Two years after Google removed its motto of “don’t be evil” from the corporate code of conduct and replaced it with “do the right thing”, “the right thing” started yielding lucrative military contracts, including the now famous Project Maven. One of the greatest AI scientists of our time, Dr. Fei-Fei Li, a computer science professor at Stanford and VP at Google, was one of the first to raise concerns about how this military engagement could impact the company. Dr. Li was the mastermind of the ImageNet project, which ignited a revolution in AI by demonstrating that deep learning systems can now outperform humans in image recognition. These ultra-fast and highly-accurate machine vision systems can now be widely used in military drone applications and have the potential to  be grossly misused. Dr. Li quit Google and joined Twitter last week as an independent board member. Twitter has a lot to gain from this celebrity appointment.

Dr. Najat Khan promoted to Chief Data Science Officer (CDSO) of Janssen, a pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson

Many of the frequently-invited speakers to the top AI, data science, and drug discovery conferences know Dr. Najat Khan as one of the most well informed executives in AI for drug discovery and development. Previously, Janssen was comparatively slow with the adoption of AI joining a couple of university and industry AI consortiums and showcasing these as achievements. And to take data science efforts to the next level, Janssen’s new Global Head of Research and Development, Dr. Mathai Mammen, set up R&D Data Science as a top priority with a focus on Applied Data Science - the central figure in this is Dr. Najat Khan, who has already demonstrated a strong track record of delivering on measurable outcomes using Data Science tied to Janssen’s pipeline priorities. She has researched the field so deeply that the top management from other big pharma and AI companies started seeking her advice. She has a very unusual biography where she started her career as a Computational scientist, followed by a PhD in Organic Chemistry from an Ivy League school, almost a decade of leadership and strategy management consulting experience at the Boston Consulting Group across R&D and Commercial at top firms, deep knowledge of technology, and a track record to solve complex problems and deep experience leading teams with diverse skillsets. So when the company started executing on its Data Science strategy and vision, Najat was promoted to a newly-formed role of a Chief Data Science Officer (CDSO). In the pharma industry, the word “AI” is often associated with hype and the more conservative scientists in the trenches often use it as an excuse to resist change. My guess is that this was one of the reasons why “Data Science” was chosen for this critical organizational role and we should expect the other pharma companies to follow. Kudos to J&J. View More