Dive into EnsoData’s volunteer and fundraising efforts, both locally and in sleep medicine, plus our DEI guest speakers of the year
Being a great teammate is one of our core values here at EnsoData. This not only applies to our exceptional and expanding team of colleagues, but also to how we support and collaborate with our communities, both locally and within the field of sleep medicine. We are committed to volunteering and fundraising for those in need; here are a few of our 2023 initiatives.
EnsoData’s Volunteers in the Sleep Community
The future of sleep medicine is very important to our team, and we’re more than happy to volunteer time with various sleep medicine organizations, including the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), Board of Registered Polysomnographic Technologists (BRPT), American Association of Sleep Technologists (AAST), and the Sleep Research Society (SRS), where we aim to share our knowledge and expertise with the world of sleep medicine.
Sam Rusk has served on the AASM AI in Sleep Medicine Committee since January 2022, where he works with other committee members to identify how emerging technologies (AI) will impact the field of sleep medicine and provide actionable input to those in the sleep community.
To read more about Sam’s experience on the AI committee, check out this blog post: A Q&A with EnsoData Co-Founder Sam Rusk on the AASM AI in Sleep Medicine Committee.
Steven Miller joined the SRS communications committee this summer. His main role is actively contributing to discussions on various topics including podcasts, research briefs, high school education opportunities, and social media campaigns.
And in just the past few weeks, Jessica Moore, RPSGT, was accepted to volunteer on the Editorial Committee for the AAST. As part of this process, Jess will be recording her thoughts and experience in the role, with a future blog post coming on this topic.
Over the past six years, EnsoData’s Clinical Director, Andrea Ramberg, RPSGT, CCSH, has served on the BRPT board and as President. During her time volunteering at the BRPT, she’s especially proud of her impact in creating the first DEI committee to represent both the sleep technologist community they serve and the patient population they treat.
“The BRPT celebrates our rich history, diversity, and unique experiences to unleash the power of our differences, making the sleep community stronger worldwide. Our goal is to foster a welcoming inclusive community which values and respects diverse backgrounds, opinions, and experiences,” said Ramberg, adding: “We will explore processes and programs that help the sleep community eliminate barriers, while creating equitable opportunities for everyone.”
Andrea was also recently selected to serve on the AASM Sleep Tech Shortage Presidential Committee to uncover factors contributing to the sleep technologist shortage, build awareness around the problem, and recommend solutions to correct the shortage. Kudos Andrea, Steven, Jess, and Sam.
Volunteering in Our Local Communities
Beyond volunteering in sleep medicine, our team also emphasizes giving back to our local community. Our headquarters is in Madison, WI, so many local volunteering efforts occur during Team Summit when the entire EnsoData team gets together in person. During our January Summit, the team stuffed bears for children who had lost family members or were suffering various illnesses and treatments.
This Summer, we again connected with the University of Wisconsin (UW) PEOPLE Program. PEOPLE is designed for low-income and first generation college students to help them reach their educational goals: including going to college and earning a degree. PEOPLE is the UW’s most successful venture in creating such opportunities and improving campus diversity.
Many students who participate in PEOPLE are eligible for scholarships, and summer curriculums are a great opportunity for experts from innovative companies to share their knowledge and excite a new generation to consider careers in technology and computer science.
For the second year, our team created a curriculum incorporating fun games and challenges to demonstrate how AI programming works and make it easier to understand. This year, our DEI Committee led the effort, with support from a handful of engineers and one sleep technologist on our team, including Res Pizarro (Full Stack Software Engineer), Connor Sheedy (Backend Software Engineer), Will Diepholz (Engineering Manager, Backend), Shahnawaz Khan, RPSGT, CCSH (Clinical Informaticist), and Nick Glattard (Chief Technology Officer – CTO).
“Many of the students had never tried any type of coding or computer programming before, so it was fun to see them showing so much interest and innate talent with some of our programming activities,” said Connor Sheedy, who is heading into his third year leading parts of the curriculum, adding: “It’s inspiring to witness the curiosity that these kids have for learning. Programming can really be a creative endeavor and you can see when that connection is made with them. That’s what it’s all about.”
We are already looking forward to this summer when we hope to up the ante on our curriculum with a few more games and ideas.
And, in September our team participated in a Koats for Kids campaign. Our Madison team donated old coats, new coats, and children’s coats, all to help families stay warm this winter. Our Regulatory Director, Sigrid Schoepel shared the idea and dropped off a full trunk of coats to support our community.
Fundraising to Support Our Communities
Beyond volunteering our time, our team also conducts several fundraising opportunities each year to support the local Madison community. Our three main fundraising campaigns were organized by Chief of Staff and DEI Committee member, Xica Wiltgen.
In late spring, Xica organized campaigns for both the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, a local organization dedicated to leading the way in the creation of youth development programs, and the Beacon, a resource center in Madison for the homeless. Co-led by Customer Success Engineer, Montana Grieder, the campaigns each helped bring in over $500.
“It was priceless to have a young homeless man approach me during the delivery of our hygiene items and say, ‘Thank you so much. Because of you and your company, I’m able to have clean supplies this week,’ Moments like this make me proud to work with such a wonderful group of people,” noted Wiltgen. Grieder added: “It’s great to work with a generous team that shows up and participates in fundraisers! When everyone gives a little bit it can add up to a lot.”
And closing out the year, we have an active holiday food drive going with the Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin organization. Across the team, so far we have donated over 456 pounds of fruits and vegetables.
Individuals Giving Back
A few of our team members also volunteer on a regular basis outside of our team-organized events so thank you especially to Angela, Sigrid, and Xica.
Shout out to our Human Resources Manager, Angela Becker-Bradley for her work mentoring and supporting service members, veterans, and military spouses with emotional support and access to the resources they need to transition from active duty back into the civilian working world.
Another shout out to our Regulatory Director, Sigrid Schoepel for her various volunteering efforts, spending countless hours with the Jefferson County Humane Society here in Madison, WI, and providing free workouts through her Zumba classes. She just released her annual holiday class featuring holiday songs like: Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” and Carrie Underwoods’ “Stretchy Pants,” which we highly recommend watching.
And last, but not least, Xica makes sure that nothing we have goes to waste. At all our team events, Xica coordinates meals for the team. However, she always makes sure we have extra food for the Beacon. She does a tremendous job of going out of her way to donate any extra pre-packaged foods that aren’t eaten. Again, kudos to Xica, Sigrid, and Angela for their local community support.
2023 DEI Guest Speakers
Beyond “Being a Great Teammate,” we have several other core values. One of them is a bit more abstract: “Embrace the Pineapple.” In short, it is kindness. It is warmth. It is patience. And for our team, that involves hearing from external guest speakers who may have a personal experience to share, research to highlight, or information on a specific topic that can help educate our team.
In April, Ezekiel Brooks, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), US Hunger, shared details of his journey with U.S. Hunger, and his ascension to their leadership team as the CTO. He emphasized the current focus of his team: finding innovative solutions to address the issue of food inequities nationwide. They are dedicated to implementing a groundbreaking approach by leveraging the power of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to optimize solutions that tackle the underlying causes of food insecurity.
In August, Dr. Kush Varshney, Post Doctoral Researcher, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, shared insights on machine learning, specifically whether it can be trusted or not. He is the author of “Trustworthy Machine Learning,” a free resource we recommend opening now in a new tab. You WILL learn something.
Varshney works with companies to adopt trustworthy principles for the betterment of the public good. In his presentation to our team, Varshney highlighted statistical methods teams can use to analyze and reduce the bias of an algorithm across key cross-sections of a sample, including age, gender, race.
“Shoutout to the DEI team for reaching out to Kush Varshney and setting this up. I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation and I learned a lot from the discussion too!” said Chris Fernandez, our Chief Research Officer.
In early October, we were lucky to get a presentation from Seth Mailhot, an FDA leader, and partner at Husch Blackwell in DC. Seth walked us through his boot camp: “FDA 101: A Guide to Agency Structure, Jurisdiction, Regulation, and Applicable Laws,” and provided his perspective on current artificial intelligence regulations.
And in November, our team had the opportunity to hear from Briana Renee’ Johnson, a Sleep Technologist working outside Montgomery, AL. Featured in our February sleep story, Johnson highlighted a day in the life of an overnight sleep technologist working at the Jackson Sleep Disorder Center.
In her presentation, she highlighted her experiences as a night technician and as a woman of color in the healthcare industry. She shared both triumphs and struggles, and really made our team think about how we can get more people of color involved in sleep education. We appreciate all of our guest speakers, as they help our team grow and evolve as the world changes.
