Alena Maze, who is a wife, a mother of 7, and a popular YouTuber, is the first Black person to successfully earn a Ph.D. in Survey Methodology. She is the first and only Black person in the world to hold a doctorate degree in that field.

A lover of mathematics and health, Maze was compelled to pursue a career as a survey statistician with the hope of developing inclusivity in surveys.

After earning a Master of Science degree in Mathematics from Georgetown University, Maze went on to pursue her Ph.D. in Survey Methodology and Statistics from the University of Maryland, College Park. After months of hard work, Maze announced on Facebook that she has now received her PhD after passing her dissertation defence and that she is the first African American to do so.

“What’s a Survey Methodologist? Well, I’m a Survey Statistician, so specifically, I research the math behind surveys,” Maze wrote. “Suppose we want more information on how diabetes affects women ages 30-40, in order to develop better treatment courses. Well in a perfect world, we would like to send out a survey (i.e., a series of questions) to all women ages 30-40 with diabetes. However, this is not practical for many reasons. So instead we chose a smaller group (called a sample), say 2,000 women from that same population to represent the whole population of 30 to 40-year-old women with diabetes.”

Alena Maze has been double-tasking between her married life, raising her 7 children, and video content. Maze and her Korean-American husband Joseph Lee, produces content for their vlogs with their children where they share their experiences as a multicultural blended family.