Spears School of Business

For the second straight year, a pair of students from the Oklahoma State University Master’s in Business Analytics and Data Science (MS BAnDS) program earned the prestigious Disney Data and Analytics Women award.

 

This award is given to just four women annually, and Spears School of Business students have now accounted for half of the honorees over the last two years. This year, Mahla Hosseini and Racheal Appiah-Kubi were selected for the award, which included an all-expenses-paid trip to the Disney Data and Analytics Conference held Sept. 8-10 at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida.

 

“This is an incredible achievement by our students,” said Dr. Goutam Chakraborty, director of OSU’s MS BAnDS program. “It is tough to get one award out of four, but to get two, that is against all the odds. Yet, this is the second time in a row our MS BAnDS students have won two out of the four national awards! This is a testament to our students’ hard work and the dedication of our faculty who educate and mentor our students to compete in such prestigious events.”

 

At the conference, Hosseini presented her research on a Natural Language Processing-driven content firewall for child-safe internet browsing. As children increasingly spend time online for learning and entertainment, they are also at risk of exposure to toxic comments, explicit material and even suicide-related content. 

 

Her system leverages advanced natural language processing to classify online text and process content from websites, including images and videos, to ensure that subtle or hidden risks are detected. The system achieved 93% accuracy, with particularly high performance in detecting adult and suicide-related content, two of the most critical risks, to safeguard children online.

 

“This award means so much to me,” said Hosseini. “It is not just about recognition, but about possibility and hope – hope that technology can be used for good to safeguard the next generation, and hope that women like me, who come from places where opportunities are limited, can still achieve and find their place at the center of data science and innovation. Coming from Iran, I want my journey to serve as a small source of motivation for women who deserve better opportunities. For me, this award is proof that our voices and our work matter, and that the future can indeed be brighter. I am profoundly grateful to our mentors at Disney, who made our trip truly magical, and to the Business Analytics and Data Science program at OSU, especially Dr. C, for his unwavering support. Most of all, I thank my mother and the women of my country who, through their sacrifices, paved the way for me to stand here today.”

 

Appiah-Kubi’s research was just as impactful. She analyzed 1.3 million Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) alerts sent out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency across the U.S. from 2017-23 to understand when, where and why alerts are issued and to predict their urgency. 

 

Her work uncovered striking temporal and geographic patterns. For example, she found a nationwide lull in alerts in July 2020, and illustrated that severe-weather-driven “Immediate” alerts are the primary messages sent. Kubi-Appiah also built models to predict urgency, and her model proved 96% accurate.

 

"DDAC was truly magical, and what made it unforgettable was the community of women behind the work,” said Kubi-Appiah. “I’m deeply grateful to my mentor, Martha Gipson, for her thoughtful guidance - from navigating the venue to sharing practical advice - and to Colleen Lorsung and Erica Ram for their steady support. Haley kept us smiling with fun facts, Julie and Jennifer Walston encouraged our career endeavors, and Stephanie Cortez’s warmth and generosity meant so much. Executives Mark Schafer and Karin Kricorian welcomed us with genuine kindness. I left inspired after diving into breakout sessions aligned with my interests, and excited to pay it forward."

 

Long considered one of the nation’s premier programs, OSU’s MS BAnDS program earned the No. 2 spot in Fortune.com’s Best Master’s in Data Science for 2025 rankings. The program climbed 11 spots to achieve its best ranking ever, just behind top-ranked Harvard University.