DR. LORETTA CHEEKS, FOUNDER & CEO OF STRONG TIES, AI & ML RESEARCH CONSULTANT 

Dr. Cheeks’ mission is to create a better world with technology. Before earning a Ph.D. in Computer Science at Arizona State University, Dr. Cheeks, as a STEAM advocate, was developing, deploying and leading various teams within the communications, avionics, instrumentation & control and chemical industries for Fortune 500 corporations. She is the first to identify a computational approach for the discovery of news frames in unstructured text (e.g., online news articles). She has demonstrated a unique ability to integrate communication theory and computer science methods to inform the fields of machine learning, psychology, and mass communication. Dr. Cheeks is paving the way for up-and-coming engineers and is committed to improving higher education for underserved and underrepresented communities to follow in her scientific footsteps.