We’re SO pumped to announce our next keynote speaker: the amazing Lorena Mesa!

Lorena Mesa is a political scientist turned coder, a GitHub data engineer, Director & Chair of the Python Software Foundation, JOSS editor, and PyLadies Chicago co-organizer. Lorena’s time at Obama for America and her subsequent graduate research required her to learn how to transform messy, incomplete data into intelligible analysis on topics like predicting Latinx voter behavior. It’s this unique background in research and applied mathematics that drove Lorena to pursue a career in engineering and data science. One part activist, one part Star Wars fanatic, and another part Trekkie, Lorena abides by the motto to “live long and prosper”.

Lorena is a tinkerer, explorer, martial artist, cat enthusiast, Trekkie, marathon runner, a “learn by doing”-er. You can find more ways to get in touch on her website.