Ibram Kendi, Azer Bestavros Team Up to Launch Racial Data Lab
Azer Bestavros, recently named BU’s first associate provost for computing and data sciences, sat in a Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground conference room overlooking the Charles River last February and listened as antiracism scholar Ibram X. Kendi laid out his bold vision: bringing antiracist investigators together with data scientists to tackle racial inequities, he would establish Boston University as the nation’s leading academic institution for data-driven antiracist research. Kendi, who was visiting from American University, had been in talks with BU about joining the faculty—but this was his first in-person meeting with Bestavros....