After finishing at Purdue University she went onto graduate school where she obtained her graduate degree in Education and became a licensed educator. After a few years of teaching she realized that she found teaching rewarding, but wasn't passionate enough about the craft to spend the remainder of her career as a teacher. As Kira began to evaluate the possibilities she realized that she wasn't interested in becoming a software developer, but was interested in technology, and that data management and analytics resonated with her strengths and interests. Once she completed her Masters of Science in information systems she entered the field of data and analytics as a consultant and her understanding of data and information in the world completely changed and she began to see that nearly everything people do generates data.

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Several years into her new career path the idea for girls + data came to Kira after participating in a Girls in Tech - Milwaukee mentoring opportunity. Young women in K-12 grades attended this event to ask questions to a wide panel of women IT professionals. After speaking with about ten girls and their parents, Kira left the event having answered several questions about one serious misconception about working in technology; a career in technology means a career in computer science and coding.

 

As a woman who loves technology and data analytics she used programming "some of the time" and set out to overcome the idea that you have to be a "coder" to be in technology. Now, girls + data's mission is to provide learning opportunities in data analytics to middle school girls. Further, she hopes that girls + data creates an awareness of the role they play in generating data in our digital world through real world understanding.