Fulbright Award Winner Closes Data Skills Gap for Students and Teachers

Tableau Academic Ambassador Dr. Mary Dunaway has spent years empowering students and educators with skills such as data visualization. Now, she's taking her passion for data to the global stage, having been awarded a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Award to share her expertise at the University of Eswatini. She is among the 221 Scholars and six HBCU institutions across the US who will travel abroad to share their expertise.

2023-2024 HBCU Fulbright Award Institutions visualized by Mary Dunaway

We spoke to Dr. Dunaway about her impressive career journey, the growing importance of data in today’s society, and how she uses Tableau to teach data skills to students and educators.

Career journey evolves in line with the demand for data skills

Dr. Dunaway obtained her PhD in Information Systems from the University of Arkansas in 2014, and, shortly after, joined the faculty at Quinnipiac University where she taught as part of a Master’s program in business analytics.

From that point on, data and data analytics have been an integral part of Dr. Dunaway’s career journey—driven by her passion and expertise but also by the demand for data skills across disciplines.

“As a society, we are now collecting all of our data electronically so it is more readily available. We need to make sense of that data so we can understand what’s happened in the past and predict what will happen in the future,” said Dr. Dunaway. “So analytics is everywhere and it’s also my passion. All my roles and all the classes I’ve taught since obtaining my PhD have emphasized the use of data for insight.” 

Teaching data skills across disciplines

Dr. Dunaway first heard of Tableau while attending an educational advisory board workshop. Curious to know more, she reached out to Tableau and met with a member of Tableau staff.

Seeing the benefits of Tableau first hand, she incorporated it into a data analytics workshop she was preparing for a group of liberal arts students. The students had no background in data analytics, yet in just two weeks of instruction, they gained practical skills and presented a data project to potential employers. 

“No matter what your discipline is these days, you need to have data analytics skills and the ramp up for learning Tableau is easy. In one week, I can teach students about visualization, dashboarding, and how to tell a story with data,” said Dr. Dunaway.

Dr. Dunaway has continued to teach data skills across disciplines, delivering workshops for those in areas such as healthcare, sales, human resources, and finance. She also led a three-part workshop on Demystifying Data Analytics at Morgan State University, where she is  Associate Professor of Information Science & Systems.

The workshop was attended by undergraduates, graduates, doctoral students, and even staff and included lectures, an online introduction to Tableau, and a final session focused on applying the skills learned.

The workshop was so popular that some people had to be turned away—a testament to the appetite for data skills.

Championing data skills in higher education

Dr. Dunaway has taken a leading role in helping academics jump-start their learning. This summer while leading a young women STEM study abroad program in Ghana she facilitated Tableau for Teaching workshops with students and faculty at the University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology(Kumasi). She has led several faculty training workshops at Morgan State University to upskill School of Business peers. Additionally, her time and expertise has been integrated into the broader academic community. 

Mary Dunaway leading a Tableau workshop

In early 2024, Dr. Dunaway led a Tableau workshop for the Northeastern Hub of the National Data Science Alliance (NDSA). The workshop provided faculty and staff from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) an introduction to Tableau and how it can be used to teach skills like data visualization.

Dr. Dunaway also led a session at the Tableau for Teaching Data Camp in July of this year where she provided insights on how she integrates Tableau into her curriculum.

“When I present at these workshops, it never fails that people are interested and want to leverage what I’m doing in their own classrooms,” she said. “I am always happy to share.”

Mary Dunaway leading a session at Tableau Data Camp

Set clear objectives and other tips for teaching data skills

Dr. Dunaway has delivered a variety of workshops and courses, ranging from short introductory sessions to 15-week intensives. While she frequently re-purposes content and exercises, she advises designing courses and workshops with clear learning objectives in mind. 

“There’s so much to know about Tableau and data analytics that you can’t cover everything in one course. So in my Management Information Systems course, I cover topics like how to create visualizations and tell a cohesive story and in my graduate courses I cover in-depth topics like data prep,” she said.

Dr. Dunaway also advised educators to take full advantage of Tableau for Teaching resources, such as ready-made curricula. 

“I recommend the e-learning and the training on Trailhead, both of which offer different paths depending on what skills you want to develop. I also recommend people reach out to the Tableau Academic Programs team as they are really responsive and helpful,” said Dr. Dunaway.

“When I first started teaching Tableau, myself and others in the community said it would be great to have some ready-made curricula and now there’s a whole suite of courses available.”

Dr. Dunaway also took a moment to stress the importance of ensuring students are set up with the right access to Tableau when it’s integrated into coursework. She is a big proponent of Tableau Cloud, which has made it easy for her to set students up with access as she delivers courses and workshops in the US and abroad.

Next stop: University of Eswatini

Dr. Dunaway is thrilled to have been honored with the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Award, and looks forward to working with the University of Eswatini to equip undergraduate and graduate students with key data skills. Her deep expertise and connections with the Tableau #DataFam will support her work at the university and in the broader community.

“My involvement in the Tableau community has really propelled my career and continues to provide me with opportunities to share my knowledge and help others to jump-start their learning,” said Dr. Dunaway.

Learn how you can get started with teaching data skills in your classroom. Check out our free Tableau for Teaching resources.