Nitika Sharma

Dr. Nitika Sharma is a passionate advocate for leveraging data to drive positive change and promote informed decision-making. With a multidisciplinary background spanning quantitative ecology, evolutionary biology and data science, she is committed to equipping students with the tools and critical thinking skills necessary to navigate today's complex information landscape. Dr. Sharma's expertise in spatial analysis of animals ranging from social insects, elephants and vultures, network science, and statistical modeling is invaluable as she teaches courses on data mining and data science in public policy.

Driven by a strong belief in education equity, Dr. Sharma is dedicated to making high-quality data science education accessible to all. Her research interests include corporate sustainability, environmental conservation and social network analysis, and she has extensive experience in developing data pipelines, conducting statistical analyses, text analysis and creating interactive visualizations. Dr. Sharma is excited to join the University of Arizona and empower the next generation of data scientists to use their skills for the betterment of society.

Courses

• ISTA 321: Data Mining and Discovery
• INFO 536: Data Science and Public Interests

Honors & Awards

• Scientific Teaching Fellow Summer Institute on Scientific Teaching through the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL)
• University of Oxford Machine Learning Summer School OxML 2022: Machine learning fundamentals and applications in healthcare and finance
• Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases (Intermediate Level) at the Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford
• PRISM scholarship, Big Data Institute, University of Oxford (2019)
• IUSSI-NAS travel award, IUSSI, San Diego, CA (2022)
• CSIR foreign travel award, 
• ASAB, Konstanz, Germany (2019)
• ASAB Diversity Grant, Germany (2019)
• ISBE travel award, US (2018)
• ASAB travel award, Portugal (2017)
• ASAB grant, Germany (2019)