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Biography

Taylor Vander is a computer science major with a minor in mathematics from Slidell, Louisiana. She is committed to obtaining a Ph.D. in data science with plans to alleviate global social issues like housing affordability, public health, and education. She believes she can leverage data to reveal trends and patterns that can then be used to make effective plans and informed decisions. Before attending Howard University, Vander interned with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, where she mined and curated observed datasets, conducted geospatial machine learning predictions, and created the best data-driven estimate for unmeasured clay mineral abundance. She was the first author of a research poster and abstract entitled “Geospatial Machine Learning to Predict Global Abundance of Seafloor Clay Mineral Species,” which she presented at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in 2022. Vander chose Howard University because of the unique exposure and support from the Karsh STEM Scholars Program and the opportunity to receive a world-class educational experience inside and outside the classroom.