Fay­ola KJ Fras­er

In a ca­reer span­ning decades, filled with in­cred­i­ble mo­ments of merid­i­an achieve­ment that many peo­ple on­ly dream of, Re­nee Cum­mings takes pause when asked about the high­light of her ca­reer thus far. “I’m still wait­ing for my big mo­ment,” she mus­es qui­et­ly, de­spite her land­mark ac­com­plish­ments in the me­dia, a dec­o­rat­ed ca­reer in crim­i­nol­o­gy and be­ing named one of the World’s Top 50 In­no­va­tors in the field of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence in 2020.

Her in­sis­tence that she is wait­ing for her biggest mo­ment yet re­flects her state of mind as a woman con­stant­ly seek­ing to learn, grow and push bound­aries, with an in­sa­tiable in­tel­lec­tu­al cu­rios­i­ty.

Born and raised in Trinidad, Mex­i­co, Cana­da and New York City, Cum­mings is the daugh­ter of a well-known and ac­com­plished parent­age. Her fa­ther, Ever­ald “Gal­ly” Cum­mings was a pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball play­er, for­mer T&T na­tion­al foot­ball coach and na­tion­al award-win­ning sports leg­end. Her moth­er, Roslyn Khan-Cum­mings was a for­eign ser­vice of­fi­cer and now a re­tired per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and na­tion­al award win­ner. Cum­mings is a past stu­dent of Bish­op Anstey High School and St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of-Spain.

She be­gan what would be­come an il­lus­tri­ous and high­ly di­verse ca­reer in 1989 as a jour­nal­ist and re­porter. Mak­ing a splash on the air­waves ear­ly on in her ca­reer, Cum­mings shone bright­ly in a male-dom­i­nat­ed field, as the first fe­male tele­vi­sion sports­cast­er in T&T and the Caribbean. Her propen­si­ty for pre­sent­ing, pub­lic speak­ing and broad­cast­ing was ap­par­ent, and she went on to host morn­ing shows in var­i­ous me­dia hous­es. Not one to rest on her lau­rels, de­scrib­ing her­self as a “for­ev­er learn­er”, Cum­mings chose to pause her ad­vances in the me­dia, al­beit tem­porar­i­ly, and pur­sue her stud­ies in New York City.

Craft­ing her own de­gree at the un­der­grad­u­ate lev­el, Cum­mings com­bined the di­verse fields of Me­dia Stud­ies, Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence, and Phi­los­o­phy, to bring to­geth­er many of her pas­sions un­der an um­brel­la of study, grad­u­at­ing with a triple de­gree and spe­cial ho­n­ours. Fol­low­ing this de­gree, she felt moved to fo­cus specif­i­cal­ly on coun­selling oth­ers and honed in on an MSEd in Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Coun­selling and Coun­selling Psy­chol­o­gy. Be­gin­ning her ca­reer in this field, she worked as a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion spe­cial­ist in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in New York City.

Nev­er one to let any oth­er pas­sions be for­got­ten or shift­ed aside, she spent her nights as a spe­cial­ist for an ad­dic­tion treat­ment pro­gramme, and her days work­ing in fash­ion. Through her en­gage­ment with in­di­vid­u­als who had ad­dic­tion prob­lems, her eyes were opened to the fact that her clients with ad­dic­tion prob­lems al­so had is­sues with the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Ex­plo­ration of that nexus took her back to school, and she grad­u­at­ed from John Jay Col­lege with an MA in Crim­i­nal Jus­tice.

Three de­grees and an aca­d­e­m­ic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion lat­er, Cum­mings didn’t come up for air, but im­me­di­ate­ly dived in­to the space of crim­i­nol­o­gy, found­ing and lead­ing her or­gan­i­sa­tion, Crim­i­nal Jus­tice In­tel­li­gence Inc., which deals with var­i­ous as­pects of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty, and cre­ates link­ages be­tween crime and oth­er fields–such as psy­chol­o­gy, the me­dia, child pro­tec­tion and com­mu­ni­ties’ de­vel­op­ment.

How does she do it all? At this point, Cum­mings was still scratch­ing the sur­face of her ca­reer, but be­cause of her “ex­cite­ment about knowl­edge and de­sire to share knowl­edge with oth­ers”, she kept push­ing the bound­aries. She re­mained ded­i­cat­ed to see­ing her jour­ney of knowl­edge ac­qui­si­tion as “fun” and felt in­spired by any work that served oth­ers. “That love I have for con­tribut­ing to oth­er peo­ple’s suc­cess is what keeps me mo­ti­vat­ed,” she says, as she feels fu­elled by a unique abil­i­ty to en­gage with peo­ple from a va­ri­ety of so­cial stra­ta.

Un­cov­er­ing her love for da­ta as a crim­i­nol­o­gist, Cum­mings “fell in love with da­ta sci­ence”. Re­al­is­ing the tilt of the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty to­wards Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence, she jumped on the AI train sev­en years ago and nev­er looked back, bol­stered by her imag­i­na­tion of cre­ative so­lu­tions to long-stand­ing so­ci­etal prob­lems. Cum­mings is “com­mit­ted to stretch­ing the imag­i­na­tion of da­ta sci­ence, reimag­in­ing the re­la­tion­ship be­tween da­ta and so­ci­ety, and re­defin­ing the da­ta pow­er struc­ture”. She works to en­sure that the eth­i­cal risks and im­pli­ca­tions of AI are ex­am­ined while ex­plor­ing the build­ing of AI in a way that com­ple­ments hu­man­i­ty and is to the ben­e­fit of all.

At present, Cum­mings is a Pro­fes­sor of Prac­tice in Da­ta Sci­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia and is a thought leader on AI and AI ethics in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. As a woman in STEM, she mag­ni­fies her voice to cham­pi­on the work of un­der­rep­re­sent­ed com­mu­ni­ties in STEM and AI to en­sure all con­sid­er­a­tions are made for a just and eq­ui­table fu­ture in tech­nol­o­gy.

Re­nee Cum­mings has a com­plex and fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry to tell, with a va­ri­ety of twists and turns through­out her ca­reer. How­ev­er, her core ethos and modus operan­di are sim­ple. She re­fus­es to set­tle for the or­di­nary and shines bril­liant­ly as an in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly ag­ile, flex­i­ble and cu­ri­ous woman across a va­ri­ety of fields. Her com­mit­ment not on­ly to her ca­reer, but to her fam­i­ly, and her daugh­ter, Yja, is clear, want­i­ng her to beam even more bright­ly than she does, and “pro­vide sup­port for her suc­cess and de­vel­op­ment the same way my par­ents sup­port­ed me”.

Her ad­vice to oth­er women is the same that she has in­ter­nalised for her­self, to “nev­er doubt or sec­ond guess your­self, un­der­stand your ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­er, and be ex­cep­tion­al in every­thing that you do”.

A Woman to Watch (for 2023 and be­yond) that Trin­bag­o­ni­ans can be ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly proud of, Cum­mings con­tin­ues to cre­ate nov­el paths and recre­ate imag­ined fu­tures, for the bet­ter­ment of all peo­ple, every­where.