STAFF SPOTLIGHT
JUST THE FACTS, MA'AM
FROM INTERPRETING FACTS AND FIGURES TO HELPING DRIVE DIVERSITY UNDERSTANDING IN THE WORKPLACE, DATA ANALYST KATIE SCLAFANI SHOWS SHE'S A TRUE YELLOW JACKET.
BY: KARI LLOYD
PHOTOGRAPHY: SCOTT DINERMAN
Katie Sclafani, ALIS 16, MSA 21, got her start working in Georgia Tech’s Office of International Education. She recently graduated from the Institute’s online Master of Science Analytics program and has been the Alumni Association’s data analyst since October 2019. In the summer of 2020, Sclafani helped form the Alumni Association’s Diversity Workgroup to help discuss and educate the organization on diversity issues.
Q: Why did you join the Alumni Association?
At the time, I was enrolled in the online master’s in analytics program at Georgia Tech. I was a little over halfway through my degree, so I was ready for a data analytics role. I thought it was a good way to stay in the community but also a way to transition to the work that I was training to do.
Q: What was studying for your master's online like?
I took it one class at a time, so it took three years. It was actually pretty nice. I was able to focus on one class and actually apply what I was learning to my full-time role. It was fun to have that real-world experience happening at the same time as I was learning things in the class. It was very practical.
Q: What's your typical day look like at the Alumni Association?
My day-to-day varies a lot. Every day there is a new project or request. Mostly people come to me with an idea, for example, to discuss splitting out segments of our alumni population to send emails to. I would see what the data shows, and then we would work that out together. I’ll also get one off requests for different statistics. I couldn’t really say that I have a day-to-day—it’s mostly just whatever comes across my plate.
Q: What's been your greatest "Aha!" moment during your time at the Association?
Seeing the data that we have and the data that we don’t have has been really eye-opening. It’s interesting to find all the things that connect people to stories.
Q: Tell us more about your work on the Alumni Association diversity workgroup.
Last year, Dene (Sheheane, president of the Alumni Association) asked us for any suggestions or recommendations of things we could do as an organization to support diversity. At my prior job we had a working group that met and discussed diversity and talked about how we could take what we were learning and apply it to the students who we serve. I felt we could do the same here to better serve our alumni. So, I started up the Alumni Association’s Diversity Workgroup, where we have a monthly “lunch and learn”–style meeting.
Q: What are some of the topics that you've covered?
Some of the different topics we’ve discussed are race, disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, and person-first language. I think it’s been great. It’s been a way for me to tap into that piece that was missing from doing data and analytics. Learning from these different communities has been fantastic.
FROM THE STATS WIZARD
Keeper of the facts and figures, alumna Katie Sclafani shares some interesting stats on Georgia Tech alumni:
1.2% of the living alumni population have 50+ consecutive years of giving to Roll Call.
0.6% of the living alumni population are Triple Jackets (meaning they have a bachelor's, master's, and PhD from Georgia Tech).
September 26 is the most popular birthday among alumni.