When you picture a person who works with data, you might envision them behind a computer screen, headphones on and coding. What if you knew that you could intersect your skills in data science with your passion for something like sustainability through beekeeping? or solving issues impacting human development?

Laura Shakespeare undertook her Masters in Political Science with a special interest in Linguistics and is currently a Principal Analyst at Google. She specialises in translating textual based data through large language models. Despite being a data driven person, she is passionate about identifying bias in how we collect and report on data particularly related to social issues, which led her to deepening her expertise in 2017 at the University of Amsterdam within Statistics in Social Science.

A day in the life for Laura is gathering contextual knowledge and applying technical skills to identify blindspots in strategies, influencing others to consider opportunities and risks in different options. She is energised when her professional and personal interests intersect which is why she is dedicated to using her skills to have ethical social impact, including volunteering on projects with CSIRO (Digital Future Initiative), acting as a mentor through CS+X and TheGist.