Datathon 2025: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Female Brain
Written by William Xue
Edited by Ranya Zhang
On April 13, 2025, a day filled with curiosity, collaboration, and purpose, CP Mentorship hosted its 2025 Women in Data Science (WiDS) Datathon at the South Bay Yacht Club in Alviso, CA. The event brought together students around the challenge theme of Unraveling the Mysteries of the Female Brain, specifically focusing on ADHD trends.
Over 25 students gathered in one room, ready to explore real-world data and create insights through Kaggle and Google Colab. This unique theme allowed for meaningful conversations and various hands-on explorations.
Opening and Guest Speakers
Councilmember David Cohen opened the event with an inspiring keynote talk about bringing hands-on education to youth. Following that, Dr. Yang Xu and Qing Bai, experts in psychiatry and ADHD, gave an talk about the introduction and background of ADHD . Lastly, Chisoo Lyons, executive director of Women in Data Science, gave an inspiring and interactive keynote talk about the real-world applications of data science and the growing importance of data in modern-day societal challenges.
Team picture with David Cohen, San Jose District 4 Councilmember after his keynote talk
Chisoo Lyons, executive director of WiDS keynote talk: “Data Science & AI — the key to your future!”
Following that, our incredible mentor team introduced themselves, ready to inspire the students: Dr. Xiaojing Dong, Aoi Minamoto, Fei Wu, Dr. Li Zhang, Hailing Amber Wu, and Anwen Huang shared various experiences and backgrounds in data science and the topic of ADHD.
Learning
Eager students were ready to follow along the Datathon Workshop, led by peer mentors Ranya, Chloe, Cherry, and Elaina. This session walked students through an introduction to the ADHD dataset, the basics of Python and Google Colab, and how to analyze and visualize data using Kaggle notebooks. To wrap up the workshop, the students were tested on what they learned through a fun game of Kahoot.
Lunch, Drones, and Worktime
After a delicious eco-conscious lunch served by the Food Bridge team, consisting of chow mein, rice, chicken curry, shrimp salad, bread, and cookies, students stepped outside to pose for a group photo. The fun photo was taken from above using a drone by CPMentorship’s Activism through Drones Committee led by Ethan and William.
Then, for students, it was time to get to work. Students broke out into their preassigned groups of 2-4 people, each tasked with creating a data science visualization and modeling that explores ADHD data and gender association. The student mentor team was constantly nearby, ready to guide and answer any questions the students may have.
Students split off into their pre-assigned groups of 2-4, working to use what they learned about data analysis and modeling in their group project. Mentors were constantly on the side, always ready to help out.
Final Presentations and Awards
As the day was coming to a close, teams presented their findings to a panel of judges after hours of work. Their projects of modeling and analyzing the ADHD data were shown to judges David Cohen, Dr. Li Zhang, Aoi Minamoto, and the youth leaders.
Each team brought uniqueness and creativity to the challenge, but the two awards handed out were for overall best presentation (group 8) and best visualization (group 1)of the data, along with two honorable mentions (groups 4 & 6).
Community
Beyond awards, the datathon created a sense of community and explored the importance of data.
Special thanks to our judges and mentors!
Additionally, this event would not be possible without our sponsors, including the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the American Statistical Association, Bay Area Biotech-Pharma Statistics Workshop, Clindata Insight, and Panda Express.
Lastly, we would like to thank all our participants, mentors, judges, and sponsors for making this datathon as successful as it was. We are excited to host more events in the future and hope to see many of you back!
