Jenna Wiens receives U-M Sarah Goddard Power Award for outstanding research and advocacy for women in academia

Associate professor and co-Director of U-M Precision Health Jenna Wiens has been selected as a 2023 Sarah Goddard Power Award recipient. The award is given to a University of Michigan faculty member who demonstrates an unwavering commitment to the betterment of women and who has demonstrated a clear record of success and significant achievement in research and scholarship, distinguished leadership, and mentoring women.

Wiens is the head of the MLD³: Machine Learning for Data-Driven Decisions research group and primarily investigates the intersection of machine learning and healthcare. In pursuit of developing computational methods to organize, process, and transform data, she studies time-series analysis, transfer/multitask learning, and causal inference.

Her recent projects include an open-source patient deterioration model which helps healthcare providers make better decisions about care and the ongoing development of machine learning tools which can improve understanding of patient risk for Alzheimer’s disease. She has also been involved with CS Kickstart, an annual week-long introduction to computer science for Michigan first year students who are new to the field and helped develop Explore Graduate Studies in CSE at U-M.These programs aim to increase involvement of women and underrepresented minorities in the area of computing.

Wiens received her PhD in 2014 from MIT. In 2015, she was named Forbes 30 under 30 in Science and Healthcare and received an NSF CAREER Award in 2016. In 2017, she was named to MIT Tech Review’s list of 35 Innovators Under 35 and received a Sloan Research Fellowship in Computer Science in 2020.

The Sarah Goddard Power Award is named for the late U-M regent who majorly contributed to the advancement of higher education, advocating for affirmative action and human rights, and championing freedom for the international press. Power served as a presidentially-appointed delegate to four worldwide UN conferences and as Chair of the US National Commission for UNESCO. She also was named a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs in 1980 and 1981.