Dr. Talitha Washington is a mathematician and professor at Howard University. She is currently a Program Director at the National Science Foundation and is a co-lead of the Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program . She enjoys applying mathematics to understand and solve problems in biology, engineering, and physics. Dr. Washignton completed her her undergraduate studies in mathematics at Spelman College and studied abroad at the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara in Mexico. She then went on to earn a master's and doctoral degrees in mathematics from the University of Connecticut. She is the 2018 James R. C. Leitzel Prize winner, an ASI Fellow, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.