We are pleased to announce that Athena Owirodu has joined Croatan Institute at the end of 2020 as our newest analyst. Athena recently graduated from University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelors of Science and Arts in Biochemistry with a minor in Sociology. She is also a contributor to the Data for Social Change project, created by the Institute for Development Impact, working to capture institutional responses to racial inequity and quantify collected results into a robust historical archive. 

Athena will focus primarily on Croatan Institute’s Racial Equity, Economics, Finance and Sustainability (REEFS) initiative and the REEFS Total Portfolio Activation (TPA) for Racial Equity Toolkit, which will give investors resources to re-envision the power of their portfolios to tackle structural racism across asset classes and help reverse America’s legacy of disinvestment and disenfranchisement in Black and Brown communities.  

As a data science fellow at Correlation One, Athena is developing skills to apply methods from data analytics, AI and machine learning to projects in the finance and non-profit sector. She also has gained strong quantitative research experience in demography and health through work at her university’s Population Research Center. We look forward to having her apply her skills across the Institute’s projects, including analysis for sustainable and regenerative agriculture work, and support on our proprietary data tool RAISER.  

Athena is based in Dallas, Texas. Learn more about Croatan Institute analyst Athena Owirodu.