Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University

Abstract: Information technology is an important enabler of societal and economic development, because of its integral role in education, commerce, and other societal activities. Unfortunately, for most of the world’s population, internet connectivity is either entirely unavailable, or is prohibitively expensive relative to household income. While cellular telephony is widespread across the world, more sophisticated data connectivity is much rarer and more expensive to achieve. This talk will explore opportunities for providing information access and internet connectivity at very low cost in very low-infrastructure regions of the world. I will touch both on the computing research aspects of this problem, as well as the broader societal issues and questions. How can computing research help solve the connectivity problem? And how might truly-ubiquitous internet access change the world?

Biography:
Margaret Martonosi
Margaret Martonosi is currently Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University, where she has been on the faculty since 1994. She also holds an affiliated faculty appointment in Princeton EE. In 2011, she is serving as Acting Director of Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP). She also holds an affiliated faculty appointment in Princeton EE. From 2005-2007, she served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for the Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Martonosi’s research interests are in computer architecture and the hardware-software interface, particularly focusing on power-efficient systems and mobile computing. Her group developed the Wattch power modeling tool, the first architecture level power modeling infrastructure for superscalar processors. In mobile computing and sensor networks, Martonosi led the Princeton ZebraNet project, including two real-world deployments of tracking collars on zebras in Kenya. Her current research studies power-performance tradeoffs in parallel systems ranging from chip multiprocessors to large-scale data centers.

Martonosi is a Fellow of IEEE and ACM. In 2010, she received Princeton University’s Graduate Mentoring Award. Martonosi completed her Ph.D. at Stanford University, and also holds a Master’s degree from Stanford and a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, all in Electrical Engineering.

Moderator: Fatma Mili (Oakland University)
Panelists: Valerie Barr (Union College), Fran Berman (Rensselear Polytechnic Institute) and Anne Condon (University of British Columbia)

Abstract: Few of us are inclined to negotiate. We may naively assume that our bosses will automatically recognize and base compensation on worth, so we don’t even think to negotiate. Or we may be uncertain of precisely what is negotiable and what isn’t. Additionally, we may fear being labeled aggressive or demanding–traits that society deems more acceptable in men than in women. This panel of highly successful technical women have all negotiated several career moves. They will discuss why negotiation is important, what you typically can negotiate, and how they went about it.

Biographies:

Fatma Mili
Dr. Mili received her PhD in Computer Science from the Universite Pierre & Marie Curie, France. She has been at Oakland University since 1984 with invited appointments in Canada, France, and Tunisia. Her research interests are in formal methods, optimization, and distributed computing with a focus on bio-inspired algorithms. Her work has been funded by NSF, NIH, DOT, TARDEC, Chrysler, and the state of Michigan. Her educational interests are in the use of gaming in education and in broadening participation through multi-disciplinary projects. In 2011, she received the Michigan Office of Women in Higher Education Distinguished Woman award.

Valerie Barr
Valerie Barr is chair of the CS department at Union College. She holds an undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics from Mount Holyoke College, a Masters in CS from New York University, and a Ph.D. in CS from Rutgers University. She has worked on automated blood analyzers, automated storage and retrieval machines, and banking back office operations. Her current research is on verification and validation for natural language processing systems. She is involved in curriculum development, chiefly the creation of interdisciplinary programs between CS and the humanities and social sciences, with a goal of changing the demographics of CS enrollments.

Fran Berman
Dr. Francine Berman is Vice President for Research and Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Berman is an international leader in the development of Cyberinfrastructure and has written more than 165 articles, editorials, and reports. She is a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and Senior Member of the IEEE. From 2001 to 2009, Dr. Berman served as Director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), where she led a staff of 250+ interdisciplinary scientists, engineers, and technologists. Dr. Berman is one of the two founding Principal Investigators of the National Science Foundation’s TeraGrid project, and also directed the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI). She has served on a broad spectrum of national and international leadership groups and committees including the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Advisory Committee, the National Institutes of Health’s NIGMS Advisory Committee, the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology Board of Trustees, and others.

Anne Condon
Anne Condon is Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Science at U. British Columbia. She received her Bachelor’s degree (1982) at University College Cork, Ireland, and her Ph.D. (1987) at the University of Washington. Anne’s research interests span algorithms, molecular structure prediction and biomolecular computation. Anne received a ACM Distinguished Dissertation Award and an NSF Young Investigator Award, and Distinguished Alumna Awards from University College Cork and U. Washington’s CSE Department. She also received the Computing Research Association’s Habermann Award for her work in supporting members of underrepresented groups in the computing research community. Anne is an ACM Fellow.

Presenters: Jordanna Chord (Google, Inc.) and Yvette Nameth (Google, Inc.)

Abstract: What if you were approached by a non profit or small business and asked how to set up a sustainable web presence? Do you know what free technologies are best for non technical individuals? Using your expertise by providing pro bono service can be rewarding, so join us for a discussion of what tools starts-ups and non profits should be using and how best to teach folks how to use them.

Biographies:

Jordanna Chord
Jordanna Chord graduated in 2006 from Gonzaga with a BS in CS. She has competed in and won numerous Business Plan Competitions while at GU with a special interest in social returns on investment. Jordanna has been with Google since 2006 working on a myriad of products including AdWords, search, Bookmarks and internal developer tools. She has a special interest in seeing small businesses and non profits learn how to leverage modern tools to become more efficient and effective in accomplishing their missions.

Yvette Nameth
Yvette Nameth graduated in 2002 from Dartmouth with a BA in CS. She has worked as a test engineer, software engineer and high school teacher. Yvette joined Google in 2007 as a test engineer in AdWords, and has since moved into Maps. Yvette has been involved with mentoring women in science since her college days. She continues this passion by donating her time to the STEM community, helping with events such as judging FIRST competitions, doing workshops with at-risk students in community centers, running K-12 Teachers and Technology Continuing Education Seminars and advising college students.

Presenters: Desiree Gosby (Intuit) and Omar Green (Intuit)

Abstract: The objects we interact with everyday: our cars, smartphones, tablets, televisions and even refrigerators, are becoming increasingly more intelligent. Our “things” are connecting to the cloud, gaining access to extraordinary amounts of data. Concurrently, users expect to perform self-similar tasks across multiple objects, those objects providing a seamless, liquid experience.

This presentation explores the principles behind delivering a liquid experience, providing an in-depth discussion of software architectures and design concepts.

Biographies:

Desiree Gosby
Desirée Gosby is the Chief Mobile Architect for Intuit. Her responsibilities include providing technical guidance to the company’s mobile development teams, and designing and delivering shared services and components that accelerate the development of the company’s 17+ mobile offerings. In the past she held the positions of Personalization Architect at SavaJe Technologies, developing the first context-aware and predictive mobile O/S and as a principal engineer in IBM’s Knowledge Management Division, developing software to automatically categorize and store unstructured documents. Desirée has a combined Bachelor’s degree in Applied Math and Computer Science from MIT.

Omar Green
Omar Green is Director, Strategic Mobile Initiatives at Intuit, where he is responsible for driving the company’s mobile strategy across Intuit’s businesses. Omar has been at the center of many mobile launches at Intuit, including mobile payment processing app, GoPayment, which has processed millions of dollars for its small business customers. Previously, he was Director of Personalization Technologies at SavaJe Technologies, where he developed one of the first user context-sensitive mobile operating systems. A graduate of MIT with a combined degree in electrical and mechanical engineering, Omar spends his spare time directing short films & music videos.

Panelists: Alice Bonhomme-Biais (Google, Inc.), Avni Khatri (Massachusetts General Hospital), Stormy Peters (Mozilla), Malveeka Tewari (University of California, San Diego), and Fernanda Weiden (Google, Inc.)

Abstract: At the 2010 Grace Hopper Conference, due to the lack of women participating in FOSS, the Open Source for Good panel threw down a 20% challenge for women engineers: Have the upcoming December 2010 Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) consist of 20% women. Through this panel, the speakers will discuss how the RhoK success can be replicated and what specific open source initiatives might lend themselves to similar efforts elsewhere.

Biographies:

Alice Bonhomme-Biais
Alice Bonhomme-Biais is a Senior Software Engineer at Google. After working on Google Maps for a couple of years, she joined the Google Crisis Response Team in 2010 and participated in the Person Finder project developed for the Haiti Earthquake, now an open source project. She has participated in the last three Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) and loves to rhok! Alice received her master and doctorate degrees in CS from ENS Lyon, France.

Avni Khatri
Avni Khatri is a Web Applications Architect at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Lab of Computer Science. She builds database-backed medical applications using OpenACS, an open source web application toolkit. Before coming to MGH, she worked at Yahoo! Inc. as a Senior Front-end Engineer on the Flex Force Tiger Team. She was also founder and co-president of the Southern California chapter of Yahoo! Women in Tech. In December 2010, she participated in the 3rd Random Hacks Of Kindness (RHoK). She is also Vice President of Kids on Computers, an organization that sets up computer labs in developing countries, and she plays guitar.

Stormy Peters
Stormy Peters educates companies and communities on how open source software is changing the software industry and how they can best use, interact, and participate with open source software projects and companies using open source software. She is currently head of Developer Engagement at Mozilla. She also is an advisor for HFOSS, OpenSource World, IntraHealth Open, and Open Source for America, as well as founder and president of Kids on Computers, a nonprofit organization setting up computer labs in developing countries.

Malveeka Tewari
Malveeka Tewari is a third year graduate CS student at the University of California, San Diego. Her research interests include data center networks and large scale networked systems. She is actively involved in Women in Computing (WIC) initiatives at UCSD and is a member of Systers, one of the oldest groups for women interested in computing. She has contributed to the mailman source maintained by Systers for organizing and maintaining Systers mailing lists. In December 2010, she won the Yahoo! travel scholarship for the third Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK). In her spare time she likes to read and hike.

Fernanda Weiden
Fernanda “nanda” G. Weiden is a system administrator and a former council member of Free Software Foundation Latin America. She is a participant in Debian Women and an organizer of the Fórum Internacional Software Livre (FISL). She is the founder of the Women in Free Software Project in Brazil. Fernanda G. Weiden was elected the vice president of FSFE in June 2009. Weiden, of German and Italian ancestry, was raised in Porto Alegre, Brasil. She currently works for Google in Zurich, Switzerland as a Systems Engineer on the Site Reliability team.

Panelists: Laura Adolfie (Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering), Susanne Hambrusch (National Science Foundation), Jane Prey (Microsoft), Yolanda Rankin (IBM), and Susan Rodger (Duke University)

Abstract: The majority of Ph.D. students are supported while attending graduate school. Support in the form of a fellowship is highly desirable. Fellowships vary on when and how a student applies, the funding source, the target group, and the format of the application. This panel will provide insight into the different types of fellowships, how to identify fellowships that best match ones situation, and how to put together a successful application.

Biographies:

Laura Adolfie
Laura Adolfie is involved in two DoD fellowship efforts, Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) and the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship (NSSEFF) Program.

Susanne Hambrusch
Susanne Hambrusch is currently serving at NSF as the Director of the Division of Computing and Communication Foundation in CISE. She is on leave from Purdue where she is a professor of computer science and served as department head from 2002-07. Susanne holds a Diplom Ingenieur in Computer Science from the Technical University of Vienna, Austria, and a Ph.D. in CS from Penn State. Her research interests are in query and data management in mobile environments, parallel and distributed computation, analysis of algorithms, and computer science education. Before joining NSF, she served on the board of directors CRA and CRA-W.

Jane Prey
Jane Prey graduated from UIUC and received a PhD from the University of Virginia. After teaching in UV’s CS Department for 11 years, she joined Microsoft Research. She is currently responsible for the development and implementation of Microsoft Research’s Gender Diversity and Pipeline Strategy. Jane spent two years as a Program Director at NSF’s Division of Undergraduate Education. She serves and has served on a number of advisory boards, including the Dean’s Advisory Board at Virginia Tech College of Engineering, ACM Education Board, ACM’s SIGSCE board, IEEE CS Educational Activities Board, IEEE CS Board of Governors, and CRA’s Executive Board.

Yolanda Rankin
Yolanda Rankin is Research Scientist at IBM Research Almaden in San Jose, CA. Her primary research interests are in the design, evaluation and alignment of technologies that aid cross-organizational collaboration. Yolanda holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Northwestern University, an M.A. in CS at Kent State, and a B.S. in Mathematics at Tougaloo College. Yolanda has received numerous honors and awards, including NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship, a Northwestern University Graduate School Fellowship, an AGEP Scholarship, the Patricia Roberts Harris Fellowship, and the Tougaloo College Presidential Scholarship. Before joining IBM, Yolanda was a software engineer at Lucent Technologies-Bell Labs.

Susan Rodger
Susan Rodger is Professor of the Practice of Computer Science at Duke University. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University. Her research is in visualization, animation, and computer science education. Her software JFLAP was a finalist candidate in the NEEDS Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware in 2007. She received the ACM Distinguished Educator award in 2006. Rodger is a member of the ACM’s SIGCSE board, the ACM Education Policy Board, and the CRA-W Board. She is listed at NSF as an Experienced Graduate Research Fellowship Program Resource Person.

The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award recognizes and celebrates an outstanding woman technical leader. Recipients are women who have inspired the women’s technology community through outstanding technological and social contributions and through leadership have increased the impact of women on technology. The award carries a $10,000 prize and will be presented at the 2011 Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing in Portland, Oregon on November 11, 2011.

Award Winner: Mary Lou Soffa (University of Virginia)

My Dance with Research: An Ode to my Graduate Students
Abstract: My dance with research has led me through a number of different areas of computer science, including compiler optimizations, virtual execution environments, software testing, program analysis, multi-core architectures and instruction level parallelism, to name a few. This dance has been choreographed in partnership with my graduate students. Sometimes it was a waltz, rumba, twist or a two-step. In this talk, I will trace my research journey through my students; whatever the dance, it was always exciting.

Biography:
Mary Lou Soffa
Mary Lou Soffa is the Owen R. Cheatham Professor and Department Chair of the Computer Science Department at the University of Virginia. From 1977 to 2004, she was a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh and also served as the Dean of Graduate Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences from 1991 to 1996. Her research interests include optimizing compilers, virtual execution environments, software testing, program analysis, software security, instruction level parallelism and multi-core architectures. Her papers have received a number of best paper awards as well as designation of one of the 40 most influential papers in 20 years to appear in the Programming Language Design and Implementation Conference, the premier conference in her area.

Soffa was elected an ACM Fellow in 1999 and received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring in the same year. She was selected as a Girl Scout Woman of Distinction in 2003 and received the Computing Research Association (CRA) Nico Habermann Award in 2006 for outstanding contributions toward increasing the numbers and successes of underrepresented members in the computing research community. She served for ten years on the Board of CRA and continues as a member of CRA-W, the committee on the status of women in computer science and engineering of the CRA. She has served on the Executive Committees of both ACM SIGSOFT and SIGPLAN, as well as conference chair, program chair or program committee member of numerous conferences. She has been a distinguished speaker and keynote speaker at a number of conferences, research labs and universities. She had directed 26 Ph.D. students to completion, half of whom are women, and over 60 M.S. students. She currently serves on the ACM Publication Board and was elected in 2008 to serve on the ACM Executive Committee.

Presenter: Ming Hua (Facebook)

Abstract: The people, the friend connections, and the objects people interact with form a dynamic social graph that Facebook creates for over 500 million users. The scale of the social graph and the variety of user generated content pose grand challenges in suggesting relevant content for users. Discuss the phenomenon observed on social networks and learn about our efforts to suggest the most relevant and interesting information to our users.

Biography:

Ming Hua
Ming Hua is a Research Scientist at Facebook, where she focuses on modeling relationships among Facebook entities and building large scale systems to improve user experience. Ming has published in premier academic journals and conferences. She serves in the Program Committees of numerous International Conferences such as SIGKDD, ICDM and PKDD. She is one of the Exhibits and Demos Co-Chairs for the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM 2011). She was the publicity chair of the First ACM SIGKDD Workshop on Knowledge Discovery from Uncertain Data. Ming holds a Ph.D. degree in Computing Science from Simon Fraser University, Canada.

Panelists: Anu Arora (Microsoft), Susan Johnson (CA Technologies), Pooja Kedia (Symantec), Claire Ngo (Amazon), Lilia Paradis (Microsoft), and Jan Roberts (NetApp)

Abstract:From National Security to personal banking and photos, everything depends on software. This makes Software Testing a crucial function in technology. A good test engineer can save their company millions of dollars. Yet, there is a perception that there is no growth in test. Many talented engineers leave the discipline, while the industry struggles with the shortage of expertise. We will discuss how to build a successful career in testing.

Biographies:

Anu Arora
Anu Arora is a Principal Test Lead with Microsoft Corporation on their Windows International team. With a small team of experts, she is responsible for driving Globalization, Localizability and Market Customization in Microsoft Windows. Anu has been at Microsoft for 11 years, where she worked as a Test Engineer, Software Test Lead and a Test Manager shipping various products including a 3 year assignment with Engineering Excellence team – a team which drives best practices across Microsoft. Anu has presented at various international testing conferences in Malaysia, India and China. She teaches software testing part-time at the local community college.

Susan Johnson
Sue Johnson is a seasoned IT professional at CA Technologies. In her more than 25-year career in the Quality Assurance field she has been an individual contributor, manager, and director. She has sat on committees that have evaluated automation tools and established processes and best practices for the Mainframe Quality Assurance team at CA Technologies. She has been involved in the development of mainframe and distributed software using both waterfall and agile scrum methodologies. Sue and her team are currently responsible for the quality of twenty products being delivered and used today, including the testing and publishing of maintenance.

Pooja Kedia
Pooja Kedia is a Senior Software Quality Assurance Manager with the Consumer Business Unit at Symantec Corporation. She leads and manages the testing of the award winning Norton Products: Norton Antivirus, Norton Internet Security, and Norton 360. Pooja is an active committee member for the Symantec Women’s Action Network. Pooja holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronics Engineering from the University of Mumbai.

Claire Ngo
Claire Ngo is a Senior SDET at Amazon.com in Website Application Platform organization – the keeper of Amazon’s retail websites 24/7. She is constantly challenged to find creative ways to test highly scalable web services built with advanced technologies such as cloud computing and distributed processing. Claire provides technical leadership to her organization in consulting development teams on test strategy, building test automation, standardizing test process and evangelizing quality best practices. Prior to transplanting to Seattle, Claire lived in Montreal for over 13 years, and holds a bachelor degree in Computer Science from McGill University.

Lilia Paradis
Lilia Paradis has been with Microsoft for four years during which she worked on the SharePoint and Live Labs teams prior to her current role with the Windows Phone team. Her current job entails planning and executing testing for the phone developer platform. Lilia is passionate about delivering rich and performant experience to end users and developers alike. Lilia holds a Master’s in Computer Science from Colorado School of Mines. In her spare time she enjoys training for and participating in triathlons and marathons.

Jan Roberts
Jan Roberts joined NetApp in April 2008 with over thirty years of senior management/engineering expertise in building and/or revitalizing organizational infrastructures, products, processes and corporate strategies to optimize results. Prior to NetApp, Jan worked at Cisco Systems as Senior Director of Central Engineering Services for 8.5 years and Tandem /Compaq as Director of Software Operations and Senior Developer for 14 years. Earlier in her career, Jan had 9 years of experience in Compiler Development.

Professor of Computer Science, University British Columbia

Abstract: Programs that execute within cells or that draw smiley faces at nano-scale resolution may sound like fantasies from the Magic School Bus book series. But researchers are already writing such programs, using DNA molecules as their medium.

How can we program DNA molecules? We can leverage molecular sequence, structure and folding pathways. Programs are sequences of A,C,G and T bases that comprise DNA molecules. DNA structure arises when complementary bases bind to form A-T and C-G pairs; thus sequences can be programmed to create intricate nano-scale shapes. Finally, folding pathways – successions of structural changes over time – support molecular movement, thereby providing ways to realize tiny DNA robots.

Why might we program molecules? Molecular programming offers the promise of understanding and changing our world at staggeringly small scales, with applications to disease diagnosis and therapeutics. It also prompts us to broaden our views of computation and its role in producing order and complexity in living systems.

In this talk I’ll illustrate these and other how’s and why’s of DNA programming, and I’ll describe research problems with a combinatorial and algorithmic flavour that arise in this exciting field.

Biography:

Anne Condon
Anne Condon is a Professor of Computer Science at U. British Columbia and will be Head of the department starting in July 2011. Anne’s research currently focuses on computational prediction of RNA and DNA structure and folding pathways, with applications to design of novel structures and to gene synthesis.

Anne received her B.Sc. degree (1982) from University College Cork, Ireland and her Ph.D. (1987) from the University of Washington, Seattle. She was a faculty member at U. Wisconsin at Madison from 1987-1999. She has won an ACM Distinguished Dissertation Award, an NSF National Young Investigator Award, and the University College Cork Distinguished Alumna Award for her work. She won the 2010 Computing Research Association’s Habermann Award for outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and successes of underrepresented groups in the computing research community.

Anne likes bicycling, being active and working up a good appetite. The good appetite comes in handy as she also enjoys cooking, eating, and sleeping soundly. All of this is easy to do in beautiful Vancouver, where she lives with her husband, son and occasionally her daughter.

Presenters: Claudia Bauzer Medeiros (University of Campinas) and Suzanne Hambrusch (National Science Foundation)

Abstract: Academic careers depend on innovative research, considering alternatives, exploring future directions, and funding options. This presentation will discuss developing innovative topics and securing funding. How to devise research scenarios, and choose interesting and exciting directions? How to come up with a sound research proposal? How to find out what a solicitation is looking for and relate those objectives to ones goals? How to write a successful proposal? How the evaluation works?

Biography:

Claudia Bauzer Medeiros
Claudia Bauzer Medeiros is full professor of Computer Science at the University of Campinas, Brazil, and former president of the Brazilian Computer Society. She holds awards for research, teaching, and work concerning women and IT, including the 2006 Anita Borg Change Agent Award. Her research involves designing and constructing scientific databases, helping scientists work with large volumes of heterogeneous data. She has led several large multi-institutional and multidisciplinary projects in Brazil, developing tools, techniques and methodologies to support agro-environmental planning and biodiversity studies. She has served in leadership positions for several Brazilian government initiatives on computer science research and education.

Susanne Hambrusch
Susanne Hambrusch is currently serving at NSF as the Director of the Division of Computing and Communication Foundation (CCF) in CISE. She is on leave from Purdue University where she is a professor of computer science and served as department head from 2002-07. Susanne holds a Diplom Ingenieur in Computer Science from the Technical University of Vienna, Austria, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Penn State. Before joining NSF, she served on the board of directors of the Computing Research Association (CRA) and the CRA-W. She was a co-chair of panels and workshops for the 2010 Grace Hopper Conference.

Panelists: Jessica Alter (Formative Labs), Connie Chan (Andreessen Horowitz), Liz Gannes (All Things Digital), Sandy Jen (Meebo), and Lucy Zhang (Facebook)

Abstract: Entrepreneurs are the catalyst to innovation and pushing change forward. Every idea is just an idea until someone creates a team and starts building a product. This panel discusses the steps you would take to create, iterate, and launch a startup. Some of the best entrepreneurs and advisors in the industry share their experiences and advise how to launch a successful product and iterate through different stages of a company.

Biographies:

Jessica Alter
Jessica Alter is the Founder & CEO of Formative Labs. Formative is using social and game mechanics to change real-world behaviors. Previously, Jessica led Business Development and was GM of Platforms at Bebo (Acquired by AOL). Prior to Bebo Jessica worked in business development at Hands-On Mobile. She is also Co-Founder of FouderDating, an organization that connects entrepreneurs of different backgrounds to start companies. She holds a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from University of Michigan and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Connie Chan
Connie Chan is a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz where she focuses on finding great entrepreneurs with big ideas in consumer tech. Previously, Connie led business development and marketing efforts for HP Palm in China. At Palm, she also launched the App Catalog, developer portal and the Facebook application. Prior to HP Palm, she worked as a founding Senior Associate at Elevation Partners, a $1.8 billion media and entertainment private equity firm, where she fell in love with the consumer Internet and mobile space. Connie graduated from Stanford University with a Master’s degree in Management Science & Engineering, and a Bachelor’s in Economics.

Liz Gannes
Liz Gannes has been a Silicon Valley-based business technology reporter since 2004, where she started her career as a reporter at Red Herring. She was the second employee at the technology blog network GigaOM, where she covered the rise of the social Web. As part of GigaOM, in 2006, Ms. Gannes founded NewTeeVee, a site that became the preeminent source for news and analysis about Internet video and ultimately the intersection of entertainment and technology. She graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in linguistics.

Sandy Jen
Sandy Jen is Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and Vice President of Engineering for Meebo, one of the Web’s fastest growing consumer Internet companies that enables over 170 million users to share and connect with their friends online. Jen leads Meebo’s engineering team and is responsible for the company’s backend technology and innovations. Jen began her engineering career at San Jose-based Xilinx—the first semiconductor company—as an enterprise software developer. She spent more than two years there with a fabless manufacturing model. She graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and is a recent recipient of the Founders Fund TechFellows Award in Engineering Leadership.

Lucy Zhang
Lucy Zhang is a software engineer at Facebook, where she focuses on building mobile messaging products. Prior to Facebook, Lucy was a co-founder of Beluga, a mobile group messaging company. Beluga caught the attention of tech influencers, received rave reviews, and was acquired by Facebook two months after launch. She previously worked as a software engineer at Google, where she worked on Google News and Docs, and she received a Founders’ Award for her work on the Ads Auto-Reviewer. Lucy holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from UC Berkeley.

IPv4 to IPv6 Transition
Presenter: Megan Liu (Cisco)

Abstract: IMS Research predicts 22 billion connected devices in use by 2020. The urgency to move to IPv6 is more than ever now given the rapid depletion of the IPv4 address space. The talk will cover the different IPv4 to IPv6 transition technologies, adoption stages and considerations of the transition and how the technologies can be used in the current network deployments for a smooth and non disruptive transition.

Biography:

Megan Liu
Megan Liu is at Cisco system working on the routing and switching data path for product lines including the catalyst 6500 and ASR1000 series. Currently part of the L2 data forwarding team in ASR1000. She has been with Cisco for over 5 years.

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What If Cloud Providers Could do L3 Live Migration?
Presenter: Lilian Fernandes (Cisco)

Abstract: L3 live migration is the movement of virtual machines across geographic boundaries, which is a need faced by Cloud Service Providers today. This session will first introduce you to data center virtualization and a typical data center deployment, followed by a walk through the L3 live migration problem and potential solutions. You will leave this session with a clear idea of the data center architecture that lies behind cloud computing.

Biography:

Lilian Fernandes
Lilian Fernandes is a Technical Leader at Cisco Systems, Bangalore, India. She works on the Nexus 1000V Virtual Switch, which adds virtualization intelligence to data center networks and cloud service provider deployments. Lilian has previously worked on multicast hardware acceleration in the Catalyst 6500 switch at CiscoSystems, and on the AIX IPv6 Protocol Stack at IBM. Lilian has an M.S. in Computer Science (2000) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA and a B.E. in Computer Engineering (1998) from the University of Mumbai, India. Lilian plays the guitar & violin, and loves cooking, reading and travelling.

Panelists: Estelle Akofio-Sowah (Google, Inc., Ghana), Olga Arara-Kimani (Google, Inc., Kenya), Shikoh Gitau (Google, Inc., Africa), Jackline Rajuai (Google, Inc., Kenya), and Astrid Twenebowa Larssen (Ashesi University)

Abstract: It is a well acknowledged fact that there are fewer women than men in the technology industry, the statistics from Africa are even grimmer.With very few women found in the field, girls have no one to look up to and often dismis the field as male and foreign.This panel seeks to showcase the best and the brightest of African women in technology with an entourage of young women from Africa.

Biographies:

Estelle Akofio-Sowah
Estelle Akofio-Sowah, is the Country Manager Google Ghana, a highly motivated woman, committed to social economic development of Ghana.Previously she was the Managing Director of BusyInternet, Africa’s hugely successful internet startup, which went on to be awarded ISP of the year 2008, winning a World Bank Incubator SME program grant. In 2008, Estelle was awarded Top African ICT Business Woman by the ForgeAhead African ICT Achievers Award Program. A 2008 Class Fellow of the West African Leadership initiative (Aspen, Colorado), Estelle has a degree in Economics and Development Studies from the University of Sussex.

Olga Arara-Kimani
Olga Arara-Kimani is Google’s Country Manager for Kenya. She is a trained electrical engineer and holds an MBA in Engineering Business Management. Before joining Google, Olga worked with leading technology and telecommunication companies including Safaricom, Yu, Essar Telecommunication Africa, East Africa Cables, and LanTech Africa. She say’s that strength lies in being able to improve margins through product penetration, effective service delivery and retention of existing business.

Shikoh Gitau
Shikoh Gitau, is expected to graduate this December with a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Cape Town, she is currently working as User Experience Researcher at Google. Shikoh is passionate about getting more women into technology and keeping them there. To attain these goals, she runs a Girls on Maths an outreach program that is done in partnership with local University student to encourages girls from disadvantage communities to love and have fun while doing maths. She is very involved in women in tech programs and hopes to see a GHCAfrica happen soon.

Jackline Rajuai
Jacqueline Rajuai, is GIS Specialist, Google based in Nairobi, Kenya. This entails putting Africa on the map (Data sourcing, Maps Quality), Maps utilization as a platform as well as evangelizing the benefits in the use of Geo Products. Jackie is usually referred to was Part of inaugural team charged with mapping Africa. She was instrumental in the launch of the Sub Saharan Africa domains, Google Places and Google Maps for Mobile in 30 African countries, Driving Directions for Kenya & all of SSA. She holds a BSc. Geomatic Engineering Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT).

Astrid Twenebowa Larssen
Dr Astrid Twenebowa Larssen is Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Ashesi University College . She teaches Human-Computer Interaction, Design and Software Engineering at Ashesi, and has teaching and consulting experience from Australia, Ghana and Norway. Projects include: female participation in IT education and practice as a form of development; everyday mobile technology use practices in emerging economies; teaching of reflective practices and user centered design methods in global contexts; and movement understandings and interaction design practice. Her PhD is from the Interaction Design and Human Practices Lab at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Presenter: Janet L. Kayfetz (University of California, Santa Barbara/Columbia University)

Abstract: The Writing for Research and Publication Workshop addresses the universal understanding that writing is a vital competency in the development and advancement of leaders in the sciences. Discussion will focus on rhetorical positioning, the significance of narrowing the problem space, the development of a logical argument, reader-oriented writing, composing, and redrafting. We will direct our attention to the structure of introductions and abstracts. Participants will receive feedback on their writing-in-progress.

Biography:

Janet L. Kayfetz
Janet L. Kayfetz is an applied linguist. She has taught linguistics, trained language teachers, developed ESL programs in the US and China, and consulted with attorneys, medical and business professionals, and researchers in a wide range of disciplines. Janet teaches graduate-level Academic Writing and Great Presentations courses in the Computer Science Departments at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Columbia University, New York. At UCSB, she works with graduate students in Materials and Mechanical Engineering, and the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. Janet also teaches postdoctoral researchers at Columbia Medical School.

The Anita Borg Change Agent Awards honor technical women that live and work outside of the United States. They are change agents in their community – working to attract and support women in technology in their region. Recipients are recognized for their technical leadership and advocacy work. The award will be presented at the 2011 Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing in Portland, Oregon on November 11, 2011.

Award Winners: Marita Cheng (Robogals) and Judith Owigar (Akirachix)

The Small Victories
Presenter: Marita Cheng (Robogals)
Abstract:
We are achieving small victories in getting more girls interested in science, engineering and technology. Robogals running robotics workshops for 3000 girls in the 3 years since we were founded is a small victory. A wide array of outreach programs are also having small victories in seeking to address this important issue. We need to strive to achieve the small victories, because they all add to the bigger picture.

AND

Where Did All the Girls Go?
Presenter: Judith Owigar (Akirachix)
Abstract:
I was late for my first class at the University of Nairobi; I was studying Computer Science. When I finally found it, I sat there at the front row. I glanced across the room of 50 students and I wondered ‘where did all the girls go?’ I could only count five girls in the room. That began my quest to find the missing ladies in tech.

Biographies:
Marita Cheng
Marita was born in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. She graduated from high school in 2006 in the top 0.2% of the nation, and that year was awarded Cairns Young Citizen of the Year for her volunteering and extra-curricula efforts, which included winning awards for mathematics, Japanese and piano.

Marita is currently studying a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechatronics) / Bachelor of Computer Science at the University of Melbourne, thanks to the generosity of the Paterson Scholarship. She has also studied Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London on a year of exchange. She is passionate about robotics, entrepreneurship, and women in engineering, and has been involved in many student groups and other activities in these areas.

In July 2008, Marita founded Robogals, a student-run organisation that aims to increase female participation in engineering, science and technology through fun and educational activities aimed at girls in primary and secondary school. Robogals’ primary activity is having university student volunteers visit schools to conduct fun, educational robotics workshops. It also runs other events and activities around this central theme. From it’s humble beginnings at the University of Melbourne, Robogals has now grown (as of September 2011) to have 17 chapters across Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Ireland and the Netherlands. Special projects that Robogals has initiated this year include the Robogals Rural and Regional programme, which brings their cause to rural and regional areas in Australia, and the Robogals National Science Challenge, where girls from around Australia do a science experiment and then upload a 4-minute video online for judging and prizes. She has also been a panelist on the New Inventors on ABC TV (episode aired 16 March 2011).

For her efforts with Robogals, Marita is a 2011 Nancy Fairfax Churchill Fellowship recipient, which gives her the funds to travel to 5 countries for 9 weeks to study strategies used to most effectively engage schoolgirls in science, engineering and technology. Marita will undertake her research from December 2011 – February 2011 and will travel to USA, Jamaica, India, Germany and UK.

Marita will commence the final year of her degree in 2012, while focussing her extra-curricula efforts on further developing Robogals, building robots and learning Mandarin. Marita also speaks Cantonese and Japanese.

Judith Owigar
Judith Owigar went to University of Nairobi where she graduated with a diploma and a degree in Computer science. During her stay at the university Judith co-founded a chapter of Kenya Model United Nations a club that promotes international diplomacy among the youth.

Judith has worked in various capacities in the field of technology. She started off as a tech support specialist in a Kenyan company called Turnkey Africa. Turnkey Africa is a start up that provides solutions to insurance companies and banks in Africa. She later moved to the position of developer at a start up called Ibid Labs. There she honed her developer skills. She later moved to Japan Center for Conflict Prevention (JCCP); an organization the deals with peace building in Macedonia, Afghanistan and East Africa. While attending the launch of the iHub, a space for hackers, designers and bloggers in Nairobi, she met up with other likeminded ladies who noticed the few ladies in attendance. They decided to increase the ratio of women to men in tech and thus formed Akirachix.

Judith together with Akirachix was awarded the unsung heroes award by the US embassy in Kenya. This was in recognition of the work that Akirachix has done to promote women and give them a voice using science and technology. Together with a team of 2 other members, Judith was recognized as one of the top 50 SMEs in the Infodev Global forum. Infodev is a donor funded agency of the World Bank. In 2009 Judith was named as one of the Top 40 under 40 by the Business Daily newspaper in Kenya. This is a listing of women who are changing the landscape of business and technology. In 2007 while she was named the Best Female Engineer at the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers students’ exhibition.

Presenter: Beverly May Bachmayer (Intel GmbH)

Abstract:PEPPHER(www.peppher.eu) is a unified framework for programming and optimizing applications for heterogeneous many-core processors to ensure performance portability. Participants will gain an understanding of the challenges presented by highly parallel, heterogeneous architectures. The presentation will highlight how a highly collaborative group of European researchers created a holistic approach to solving these challenges. Best methods for working successfully in a group and the first demonstration from the project will be shown

Biography:

Beverly May Bachmayer
Bev Bachmayer holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Oregon (1983) and an MBA from Portland State University (1992). Bev has worked in diverse software engineering, engineering and program management positions in the US and Europe during her 28 years at Intel. Currently a technical consulting engineer, working in the HPC tools group, she is Intel’s lead on the EU PEPPHER project. Her key area of interest is performance analysis and optimization of software on new computer architectures. Additionally, Bev supports increasing the number of professional females entering computer science/engineering programs worldwide through multiple local projects.

Moderator: Natalia Villanueva-Rosales (Carleton University)
Panelists: Mirkeya Capellán (Sogeti USA), Raquel Romano (Google, Inc.), Samar Swaid (Philander Smith College) and Laurian Vega (Next Century)

Abstract: Getting back to work either in industry or academia is challenging for many women. This is especially true for women holding a position in competitive and demanding fields like science and technology. Mothers typically feel guilty about leaving their baby when at work and believe they should be more productive. In this session, panelists will share their strategies for a successful transition from maternity leave to work or study.

Biographies:

Natalia Villanueva-Rosales
Natalia Villanueva-Rosales is a PhD student in Computer Science at Carleton University (Canada), where she is also an Ontologist Researcher. She holds a MSc in AI from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) and a BEng. in Computer Science from the Panamerican University (Mexico). Her current research focuses on bridging databases and the Semantic Web. She has been an executive member of Women in Science and Engineering (Ottawa) since 2008, co-founder of the Carleton University Branch (CU-WISE) and a member of Latinas in Computing. Natalia is passionate about creating opportunities for women and recently became the mother of a baby boy.

Mirkeya Capellán
Dr. Mirkeya Capellán is a manager consultant at Sogeti USA and an adjunct professor at Pace University. She presently works as a Quality Assurance Test Engineer/Project Manager for Sogeti client Mercedes-Benz. Her research interests include agile software development, teaching methods, and testing techniques. Dr. Capellán has conducted workshops encouraging young women to pursue careers in technology. She is an active member of professional groups including: Latinas in Computing and SHPE. She is the mother of three children ages 7, 15, and 19. Dr. Capellán holds a BA, Computer Science; MS, Information Systems; and DPS, Doctorate of Professional Studies in Computing.

Raquel Romano
Dr. Raquel Romano is a senior software engineer at Google, where she has worked for several years on machine learning and computer vision techniques for extracting and recognizing text in images. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She received her PhD and MS in Computer Science from MIT and a BA in Mathematics from Harvard University. She helped co-found Latinas in Computing, an international organization of Latina computer scientists, has served on organizing committees for the Richard Tapia and Grace Hopper conferences. She is the mother of 3 boys, ages 6, 4, and 1.

Samar Swaid
Dr. Samar Swaid is a Division chair and faculty of Computer Sciences at Philander Smith College, Little Rock, AR. She is an active member in Women Foundation of Arkansas, SIGCSE, SIGHCI and NCWIT. Dr. Swaid research focuses on human factors in service-based computing systems. Her research was published in professional journals and different conferences. Prior to working in academia, Dr. Swaid worked for more than 9 years as a programmer/analyst in two major banks in Jordan. She is a mother of four children (one girl and three boys) of the ages 14, 12, 10 and 7 years. All of her children were born either when she was working in the IT industry or when she was a doctoral student.

Laurian Vega
Laurian Vega is a human factors engineer at Next Century, a company that creates solutions for healthcare, national security, and corporate security. She works to create and evaluate interfaces that save lives. Her research interests include usable security, agile usability, and computer supported cooperative work. She has participated in GHC presenting her dissertation research on usable security and sessions on pregnancy in graduate school. Laurian recently completed her PhD at Virginia Tech in Computer Science. Halfway through her program she had her son, took 5 weeks leave, worked for 4 months part time, and then returned to work full time.

Abstract: The green energy revolution is upon us, and clean tech is finally beginning to penetrate our lives: solar roofs, CFLs, biodegradable packaging and more. But what if we could speed it up?

What if you were just crazy enough to run a mad experiment in real life to turn your greentech dream into a reality? I was. I organized a Climate Solutions Road Tour to travel 2,400 miles across India in a caravan of solar plug-in electric cars and biofuel trucks with a solar rock-band, a troupe of Bollywood dancers and a team of clean technology activists. We carried with us a number of eco-products and documented top tech innovations along the way. Our trip garnered much publicity across 400 Indian news media, a Tom Friedman NY Times article, and a visit with the President of India.

In planning and executing the trip, however, our team had to deal with extremely challenging technical and social risks. During this talk, we will walk through the real-life lesson in experimental design, including our young team’s assumptions, pre-testing, the data, and the conclusions of this experiment. Most importantly, I’ll share my experience in risk mitigation while launching a social movement using technology.

We all have to take on technological challenges when we don’t know all the answers. The key is what if you could find a way to balance between the certainty and the madness?

Biography:

Alexis Ringwald
Alexis Ringwald is a leading young entrepreneur in clean energy and education. She was Co-founder and Director of Business Development at Valence Energy, an energy efficiency software start-up company that was recently acquired by Serious Materials, a cutting-edge green buildings technology firm. She is also Co-founder of SmartPowerEd.org, an educational network training students on smart energy technologies. Recently, Fast Company magazine selected Alexis as one of the “Most Influential Women in Tech.”

Prior to Valence, Alexis was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to India researching cleantech and climate change at The Energy Resource Institute (TERI) for her book “Momentum for Renewable Energy in India” (VDM 2008). Alexis also co-directed the Climate Solutions Road Tour traveling 2,400 miles across India in solar plug-in electric cars. Before moving to India, Alexis worked at the German Parliament with the Environment Committee and at the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris.

Alexis has a dual B.A. and M.E.M. (Master of Environmental Management) from Yale University in 2006. She has lectured at Stanford University, Yale University, TEDx, been featured in the NY Times, and been invited as a guest to the White House. You can follow her on Twitter at @alexisringwald.

Presenters: Laura C. Trutoiu and Stacey Kuznetsov (Both presenters are from Carnegie Mellon University)

Abstract: What if your research could be applied in an outreach context to break socio-economic boundaries? Our workshop will explore approaches for engaging communities of ‘at-risk’ youths in creative use of technology. We explore wearable computing as a creative and tangible medium for motivating ‘at-risk’ children in hands-on making and expressive instantiation of ideas. We hope to inspire participants to to use textile computing as a tool to break boundaries.

Biographies:

Laura C. Trutoiu
Laura C. Trutoiu is a 3rd year PhD. student in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University advised by Jessica Hodgins. Laura’s research interests span the fields of computer graphics (facial animation), cognitive science (visual perception), and virtual reality (biomechanics, motion analysis). Laura graduated Magna cum Laude in 2008 with a BA in Computer Science from Mount Holyoke College. At Carnegie Mellon, Laura is an active member of Women@SCS and she participated in various outreach efforts including organizing Speaking Skills and Interviewing Skills Workshops, coordinating the Big Sister, Little Sister mentoring program, and last but not least learning about wearable computing with the young ladies from Gwen’s Girls.

Stacey Kuznetsov
Stacey Kuznetsov is a 3rd year PhD. student at Carnegie Mellon University, pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute under the supervision of Eric Paulos. Stacey’s current research explores low-cost (DIY) technology in the context of political discourse, street art and other grassroots public expressions. Stacey received a BA from New York University with a double major in Philosophy and Computer Science. She was a software engineer at Google, Inc., working with the search quality team in New York City prior to starting her PhD. at Carnegie Mellon University.

Moderator: Jeni Panhorst (Intel)
Panelists: Marie K. Daniels (CA Technologies), Kaaren Hanson (Intuit), Eva Manolis (Amazon), Sheri Panabaker (Microsoft), and Pat Shriver (NetApp)

Abstract: Whether you work in an internal or external role, you have customers – an audience who depends on your output. What if you knew exactly what makes your customers “tick”, how they make decisions, what they’re expecting, and what might surprise them, positively or negatively? Panelists from various backgrounds will discuss their experience in pleasing and displeasing their customers, arming you with know-how to delight this critical audience.

Biographies:

Jeni Panhorst
Jeni Panhorst is a Product Line Manager with Intel’s Embedded & Communications Group, responsible for product line management and marketing of semiconductor products for communications infrastructure equipment. She previously held roles as Platform Solutions Architect, Applications Engineering Manager, and Software Engineer. Jeni is passionate about representing the customer in product development and design support. She is an active volunteer in community causes supporting education and women in technology serves on the 2011 Grace Hopper Industry Advisory Board. Jeni has been with Intel for 12 years and holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

Marie K. Daniels
Marie Daniels is a Program Director with the customer support organization at CA Technologies. Marie leads Standing Ovation, a major CA Support initiative that supports the company’s Delight Our Customers goal. Standing Ovation emphasizes key behaviors over processes and metrics—freeing support engineers to exercise their own sound judgment, creativity, and resourcefulness to resolve issues and delight customers. With 20 years of experience in the software industry, Marie has held roles in education, technical support/services, quality assurance, customer experience, new product development, and business process re-engineering. Marie holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Dayton.

Kaaren Hanson
Kaaren’s team has deep expertise in innovation, mobile design, ethnographic research, and design leadership. She works closely with Intuit’s founder, Scott Cook, to weave Design Thinking into company’s culture. Her success was highlighted in the June 2011 issue of HBR and she received Intuit’s 2010 CEO Leadership Award for her efforts. Prior to joining Intuit in 2002, Kaaren led teams at Remedy, BMC and startups. She earned her PhD in social psychology at Stanford University.

Eva Manolis
Eva Manolis serves as Amazon’s Vice President of Retail Customer Experience. The Worldwide Retail Customer Experience team is responsible for designing and building Amazon’s most popular website and mobile features that provide our customers with the very best shopping experience on the Internet. A long-time champion of the total user experience, Eva has a proven track record of developing innovative websites and mobile applications. Prior to joining Amazon, Eva co-founded Shutterfly.com in 1999. She also served as Vice-President of Research and Development for Live Picture, Inc., where she integrated the consumer and internet product lines.

Sheri Panabaker
Sheri Panabaker is a User Research Manager for the Microsoft Hardware Group responsible for driving customer research for both product and concept development. One of the primary goals of the user research organization is to bring the customer to life by describing who they are, and what emotional and psychological factors make them tick. She has worked at Microsoft for 10 years, and has held roles related to customer research and user experience design. Sheri studied Ergonomics and Human Factors for her undergraduate degree, and completed her Masters of Applied Science in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

Pat Shriver
Pat Shriver is a Senior Director at NetApp, responsible for Release Operations within the Engineering services organization. With over 20 years of industry experience at many of industry leaders such as Northern Telecom, Sun, Cisco Systems and NetApp, Pat has had the opportunity to support thousands of internal customers, enabling overall engineering productivity. Delighting skeptical software engineers is always a challenge but listening is the key. Pat holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the San Jose State University. When there is spare time, Pat enjoys family, friends, wine tasting and running!

How Green is My IT Valley
Presenter: Dhanashri Phadke (Symantec)

Abstract: What if the data continues to grow at the same alarming zettabyte rate as seen now ? How much would be the energy consumption of such data centre’s ? What would be the environment implications ? This presentation addresses these growing concerns and introduces the Green-IT technologies – virtualization, de-duplication and cloud-computing.

Biography:

Dhanashri Phadke
I am a Computer Engineer from the University of Pune, India with over 12 years of experience in database internals, storage management and system programming. I started my career with Starent Networks which was later acquired by Cisco. Later at Versant, an OODBMS company, I led teams responsible for scalability and reliability enhancements and also took on consulting assignments for clients like Alcatel and TCS. I am currently working as a Principal Software Engineer with Symantec . Have been working on their backup and recovery products.

—-AND—-

What if I Can Change the World – or a Piece of It?
Presenters: Cynthia Curtis (CA Technologies) and Greg Chambers (Nike)

Abstract: The media often portrays caring about the environment as a binary discussion – either it’s good for the planet or it’s good for business, but not both. This presentation focuses on sustainability and the ways industry is doing the right thing for the environment, economy and the community, while at the same time delivering bottom line business value. Discussion centers on initiatives and IT solutions that advance sustainability.

Biographies:

Cynthia Curtis
As vice president and chief sustainability officer, Cynthia oversees the CA Technologies Office of Sustainability and is responsible for global sustainability strategy, goals and initiatives. Cynthia has 15+ years of high tech B2B experience. Since joining CA Technologies in 2010, she has established a track record with measurable results. She has extended the scope of the company’s sustainability initiatives, increased employee involvement and established a governance structure inclusive of oversight by the Board of Directors. This progress was recognized by Newsweek when CA Technologies was ranked among the top 50 Greenest companies in the U.S. Cynthia lives in the Boston area in a gold LEED-certified home.

Greg Chambers
Gregory Chambers is the Director of Climate & Energy at Nike, Inc. Working from within the Integration Team of the Sustainable Business & Innovation group. He is leading the integration of Nike’s global efforts to reduce its climate & energy impacts. Greg is a career environment and sustainability professional with 30 years of corporate and international consulting & sales experience. Greg has been actively involved sustainability programs since 1994 and energy efficiency, climate change and renewable energy management programs since 1997. Greg has worked in high tech electronics, aerospace and semiconductor industries for such companies as Quantum Corporation, Hewlett Packard, TRW Aerospace and Hughes Aircraft Company.

Panelists: Julia Lam, Jane Prey (Microsoft), Connie Smallwood (CA Technologies), and Molly Wendell (Executives Network)

Abstract: Working in industry versus going to school involves a change in the way you perceive yourself and a consideration of how you are perceived by others. This session will show graduates and those returning to the workforce how to create an image that is savvy and professional, how to build networks to learn about new opportunities, and the best way to use social media to promote your ideas and talents.

Biographies:

Julia Lam
Julia Lam was a Marketing Program Manager at Facebook, where she focused on strategy, messaging and building scalable marketing programs for the Facebook culture. She launched the “Faces Behind Facebook” Facebook Live series, and works on producing many of the videos highlighting Facebook’s culture. Prior to driving many of Facebook’s company-focused programs, she managed and worked on strategic developer marketing initiatives including Facebook’s $10MM shared fund, fbFund, the Facebook Developer Garage Program which hosted more than 150 Developer Garages worldwide, and the f8 Developer Conference. Julia holds a degree in Communication Studies from UCLA.

Connie Smallwood
Connie Smallwood is VP of Innovation and University Programs for CA Technologies. She leads and manages the company’s innovation and thought leadership initiatives, including idea management programs, patent program, technical recognition events, and employee engagement initiatives. She also manages its publishing programs, including CA Press. Connie is responsible for university relations programs such as CA Academic Initiative and the International Case Competition on the Strategic Value of IT Management. Connie joined CA Technologies from IBM, where she held leadership positions in its software, hardware and corporate divisions, including university relations, marketing and communications, interactive marketing, software development and information development.

Jane Prey
Jane received a BS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her PhD from the University of Virginia. She was a Computer Science faculty member at UVA for 11 years before joining Microsoft Research in 2004, where she led the Tablet Technologies in Higher Education initiative. In 2009, she started MSR gender diversity and pipeline initiative. Jane spent two years as a Program Manager in the Division of Undergraduate Education at NSF. She is a member of IEEE CS Board of Governors, CRA Board of Directors and ACM Education Board, as well as numerous university and department advisory boards.

Molly Wendell
Molly Wendell, founder and president of Executives Network/CXO, the largest national peer-networking resource for executives, has helped thousands of executives build new relationships, referrals and job leads. Prior to this venture, Molly spent two successful decades in high tech and commercial real estate – ten of those years in sales and marketing for IBM Corporation. Molly has a bachelor’s degree in Marketing from San Diego State University and an MBA from University of California, Irvine. She is the author of “The New Job Search: Break All the Rules. Get Connected. And Get Hired Faster for the Money You’re Worth.”

Panelists: Laura Dillon (Michigan State University), Susanne Hambrusch (National Science Foundation), Lori Pollock (University of Delaware) and Taghrid Samak (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Abstract: This panel will provide insight and best practices on advising for both new graduate students and faculty members. It will highlight different advising styles, describe approaches for establishing and maintaining a healthy student-advisor relationship, and address how to resolve conflicts, if they arise. For student and faculty alike, guidance from experienced faculty can be helpful and can help avoid making some common mistakes.

Biographies:

Laura Dillon
Laura Dillon is a professor and past chair of Computer Science at Michigan State University (MSU). Her research interests center on formal methods for specification and analysis of concurrent software systems, programming languages, and software engineering. Before joining MSU, she was on the faculty of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara for 12 years. Laura has served on numerous editorial boards, program committees, funding panels, and professional advisory committees. Currently, she is the Secretary/Treasurer of ACM SIGSOFT, a program co-chair of the 2011 Grace Hopper Conference and finance chair of the 2011 Michigan Celebration of Women in Computing.

Susanne Hambrusch
Susanne Hambrusch is currently serving at NSF as the Director of the Division of Computing and Communication Foundation (CCF) in CISE. She is on leave from Purdue University where she is a professor of computer science and served as department head from 2002-07. Susanne holds a Diplom Ingenieur in Computer Science from the Technical University of Vienna, Austria, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Penn State. Before joining NSF, she served on the board of directors of the Computing Research Association (CRA) and the CRA-W. She was a co-chair of panels and workshops for the 2010 Grace Hopper Conference.

Lori Pollock
For 24 years, Lori Pollock has enjoyed mentoring student researchers, teaching CS with collaborative classroom activities and service learning, and working to increase the successful participation of women in computing research. She is a Professor in CIS at the University of Delaware. Her research focuses on developing automatic software analyses for better software maintenance tools, software testing, and optimizing compilers for parallel computing systems. Lori is an ACM Distinguished Scientist, member of the CRA-W board, and Associate Editor for ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology. Lori was awarded the University of Delaware’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

Taghrid Samak
Taghrid Samak is currently a post-doctoral fellow in the computing research division at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. She works on applying machine learning algorithms for network analysis and monitoring. Taghrid received her PhD in computer science from DePaul university in 2010, where she worked as a teaching assistant, research assistant and then lecturer. She is on leave from Alexandria University, Egypt, where she holds a teaching position after graduating with BSc in computer science in 2004. As a PhD student at DePaul, Taghrid helped founding the DePaul ACM-w chapter and served as treasure for two years.

Professor Denice Denton (1959-2006) was a pioneer in many respects: a woman engineering faculty who became the first female dean of a school of engineering in a major US institution; she worked throughout her life to make engineering attractive to women and minorities; strongly promoted diversity in higher education; and helped many people break barriers and find their path in life. To honor her life and career and promote those who choose to follow similar paths, the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology has established the Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award. The award is presented to a junior non-tenured faculty member under the age of 40 at an academic or research institution pursuing high-quality research in any field of engineering or physical sciences while contributing significantly to promoting diversity in his/her environment. The annual award will be presented at the 2011 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Portland, Oregon on November 11, 2011.

Award Winner: Tiffani Williams (Texas A&M University)

Discovering Relationships in the Tree of Life
Abstract: One of the grand challenges in science is building the Tree of Life, which is the family tree showing the relationships among all of the world’s organisms. I will discuss opportunities at the intersection of biology and computer science for constructing such an awesome representation of life. However, the Tree of Life’s impact transcends science. It may represent the ultimate role model for building connections in a sea of diversity.

Biography:
Tiffani Williams
Tiffani Williams is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. She earned her B.S. in computer science from Marquette University and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Central Florida. Afterward, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of New Mexico.

Tiffani’s research interests are in the areas of bioinformatics and high-performance computing — especially as it relates to reconstructing evolutionary trees (or phylogenies) of organisms. Her work makes sophisticated use of algorithms and data structures, employs high-performance tools, and is grounded in the empirical analysis of real-world datasets. Tiffani has served on several conference program committees and is currently the Associate Editor for Systematic Biology. Her research is currently supported by the National Science Foundation.

In addition to her research and teaching, Tiffani is committed to the advancement of women and members of underrepresented groups in computing. Examples include serving as technical program co-chair for the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference, serving on the program committee for the Grace Hopper Conference, and speaking at various career mentoring events. Currently, she is a Co-Chair for CRA-W’s Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.

Tiffani’s honors include a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, and a McKnight Doctoral Fellowship.

The ACM Student Research Competition (SRC), sponsored by Microsoft
Research, offers a unique forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their original research at well-known ACM sponsored and co-sponsored conferences before a panel of judges and attendees.

There are two rounds of competition at each conference hosting an SRC and a grand finals competition: First Round Competitions- The first round is usually referred to as the Poster Session. Judges will review the posters and speak to participants about their research; a group of semi-finalists will be chosen to present at the second round of the competition. Second Round Competitions – Semi-finalists continue by giving a short presentation of their research before a panel of judges, with a supporting power point presentation. Evaluations are based on the presenter’s knowledge of his/her research area, contribution of the research, and the quality of the oral and visual presentation. Three winners will be chosen in each category, undergraduate and graduate.

Moderator: Donna Roy (Department of Homeland Security)
Panelists: Emma Garrison-Alexander (Transportation Security Administration), Margie Graves (Department of Homeland Security), Leslie Hope (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services), and Sandra Peavy (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center)

Abstract: The top challenges within the government IT today mimic those found in private industry; compounded by the complexities associated with operating as a federal agency. These extraordinary senior leaders attract and maintain highly skilled, effective and motivated workforces to deliver on the urgent and complex missions in a chaotic environment of this relatively new federal Department. In the words of Grace Hopper, these dynamic leaders “manage things – and lead people”.

Biographies:

Donna Roy
Ms. Roy joined the DHS in December of 2006 and current serves as the CIO’s Executive for Information Sharing She is driving the development of the DHS information sharing environment including technical policy development and coordination with the White House National Security Staff and the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment. Ms. Roy served as the VP for Product Development in a Fortune 200 company in the financial services sector and the VP for a major data operations division. She has over 29 years of experience culminating a data-oriented view for technology implementation that increases operational efficiency.

Emma Garrison-Alexander
Dr. Garrison-Alexander current leads over $400 million of IT initiatives. Dr. Garrison-Alexander has 20 years experience with National Security Agency, starting as an Electronic Engineer growing into leadership positions in Technology and Systems, Signals Intelligence, and Information Assurance. Her experience includes command and control of time-sensitive signals intelligence and information assurance missions. She graduated from NSA’s Senior Leadership Development Program and was a member of the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service. Dr. Garrison-Alexander holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, a Master of Science in Telecommunications Management and a Doctorate in Management with a focus on technology and information systems.

Margie Graves
Margaret Graves is the Department of Homeland Security’s Deputy Chief Information Officer. She oversees an IT portfolio of $6.4 billion in programs. She manages operations in the functional areas of IT Portfolio Management, Applied Technology, Enterprise Architecture, Data Management, IT Security, Infrastructure Operations and Enterprise Services. Ms. Graves also has 20 years experience in management consulting where she held executive positions and performed consulting engagements for clients. She has experience in systems engineering, business process reengineering, strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions and venture capital planning. Ms. Graves holds a M.B.A. and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Virginia.

Leslie Hope
Ms. Hope was one of the founding technology participants to the inception of DHS in 2002. As Deputy CIO for USCIS, Ms. Hope is responsible for IT development, maintenance, and enhancement of the organization’s worldwide operations. USCIS is currently in the process of consolidating data centers and a transformation program moving from paper based to digital benefits processing. With a 33-year professional career in information technology, Ms. Hope was responsible for IT operations of the former INS. Prior to her government service she held programming and management positions in the banking and airline industries.

Sandra Peavy
Sandy Peavy was named the FLETC’s first CIO and Assistant Director in November 1999. She is responsible for providing technology for the training of our nation’s law enforcement personnel. As one of the original CIOs for DHS, she helped stand up the Department’s core communications, computing, and enterprise service, and the CIO Council structure. Ms. Peavy has over 30 years experience in information technology with the federal government. She began her career as a GS-3 computer assistant for OPM, served 13 years as a civilian in the Air Force, helped DISA consolidate their Defense Megacenters, and served on Treasury’s CIO Council.

Panelists: Ana Chang (Oracle Corporation), Germaine Irwin (St. Joseph Medical Center), Monica Martinez-Canales (Intel), Rebecca Parsons (ThoughtWorks), and Umit Yalcinalp (Adobe Systems)

Abstract: We will present the skills learned in graduate school that are useful in a non-research position and explore common stereotypes and challenges through the experiences of a variety of Ph.Ds currently following the non-academic track. By answering these questions, we will debunk some myths while also discovering how academically diverse employees can foster a culture of participation and inquiry that can take businesses to new levels of innovation.

Biographies:

Ana Chang
Ana Ramirez Chang is a Senior User Experience Designer on the collaboration technologies group at Oracle. She joined Oracle after completing her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008.

Germaine Irwin
Germaine Irwin is the Data Compliance Manager at St. Joseph Medical Center. Prior to healthcare, she managed the web development efforts of Caesars Entertainment. Germaine is completing her dissertation in Human Centered Computing at the University of Maryland.

Monica Martinez-Canales
Monica Martinez-Canales is a Principal Engineer at Intel. Prior to joining Intel in 2008 she was a Principal Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. Monica graduated with her Ph.D in Computational and Applied Mathematics from Rice University.

Rebecca Parsons
Dr. Rebecca Parsons, ThoughtWorks’ Chief Technology Officer, has more than 20 years’ experience, in industries ranging from telecommunications to emergent internet services. Prior to ThoughtWorks she worked as an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Central Florida working in compilers, program optimization, distributed computation, programming languages, theory of computation, and computational biology. She also worked as Director’s Post Doctoral Fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Rebecca received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Economics from Bradley University, a Masters of Science and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rice University.

Umit Yalcinalp
Umit Yalcinalp – is a Lead Architect at Adobe Systems focusing on SaaS, Cloud Computing and Identity Management. She has 20 years of experience in leading product development and emerging technology projects. Throughout her career, she had lead roles as an evangelist, architect, manager and developer. She has been an editor of/contributor to standards specifications, author of books and articles, and a frequent presenter at conferences. She received her Ph.D. and MS degrees from Case Western Reserve University.

Moderator: Mary Ramsey (Lockheed Martin)
Panelists: Cynthia Dote (NetApp), Laura Grit (Amazon), Amber Huffman (Intel), Karin Meyer (Intuit) and Radha Ratnaparkhi (IBM)

Abstract: Informational career mentoring with sr level women from industry,representing various companies and career backgrounds,attendees will have opportunity to get to know each of the women.The roundtable mentoring will provide a personal,interactive and informational exchange and dialogue with a professional who is currently working in a career cluster that is of interest to a group of individuals.Intent to be exploratory in nature and provide participants with‘career fair’ experience,yet more directive,flexible,manageable and personal.

Biographies:
Mary Ramsey
Mary Ramsey (Session facilitator) has over 29 Years of Industry Experience as a Computer Scientist with IBM, Loral and Lockheed Martin. She is also a member of the SWE Advisory Board, Women in Engineering Advisory Board at the University of Maryland College Park, Diversity in Engineering Advisory Board and SWE Advisory Board at Cornell and a Member of the Center for Engineering Diversity Advisory Board at UCLA. Mary also currently serves as the primary Lockheed Martin Representative on the ABI Board of Advisors and actively participates for Lockheed Martin at the Grace Hopper Conference and the ABI Woman of Vision Awards Banquet.
Mary has a B.S. in Computer Science and Math from the University of Pittsburgh. Mary brings 26 years of actively working in the Computer Science field, developing applications for IBM, Loral and Lockheed Martin, used by the U.S. Government; specifically the Intelligence Sector. She has worked all phases of the Software Development Lifecycle (Design, Development, Test, Operations and Business Strategy). Mary is currently the Campus Relations Manager for the Mid-Atlantic Region with the Lockheed Martin University Talent Acquisition organization, and over the last two years she has worked directly with Women In Computer Science (WICS) organizations at the University of Maryland College Park, Cornell, UCLA, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, promoting the field of Computer Science and Computer Engineering to young women, to foster retention in the field.

Cynthia Dote
Cynthia Dote has 20+ years of experience in program management and engineering leadership. Cynthia is the Director of Strategic Programs at Netapp with responsibility for successful product delivery and implementation of engineering initiatives across all of Product Operations. Cynthia provides strategic direction and planning focus to a broad portfolio of engineering projects. Netapp creates innovative products—storage systems and software that help customers around the world store, manage, protect, and retain one of their most precious corporate assets: their data.

Laura Grit
Laura Grit is a Senior Technical Program Manager at Amazon. She is responsible for a company-wide program to develop tools that facilitate enterprise adoption of cloud computing services. Previously, Grit was the Technical Program Manager for Amazon’s next-generation rendering platform for Amazon.com retail, subsidiaries and enterprise customers.

Amber Huffman
Amber Huffman is a Principal Engineer in the Storage Technologies Group at Intel where her responsibilities include storage performance and architecture for solid state drives and cache technologies. Amber’s current projects include defining the host controller interface for Enterprise class PCI Express ® SSDs and doubling the interface speed for NAND components used in solid-state drives. She leads several industry standards efforts and drives the resulting technology into product. Amber serves as the chairperson for the Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface (NVMHCI) and Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) Workgroups. Amber has been awarded 15 patents in storage architecture.

Karin Meyer
Karin Meyer has held a variety of technical positions in her career, including software engineer, consultant, engineering manager, architect, chief architect, program manager and Vice President of Architecture. She is currently Director of Product Management at Intuit, where she has been part of defining Intuit’s corporate-level strategies on high availability, identity, hosting, mobile and most recently, platform. Karin has an A.B and M.S. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and University of Washington, Seattle respectively.

Radha Ratnaparkhi
Radha Ratnaparkhi is the Vice President for IT and Wireless Convergence at IBM Research. Radha leads a global research team in the US, China and India towards creating new IBM offerings under the strategic initiative of IT and Wireless Convergence. Just prior to her current position, Radha was the Director of Commercial Systems where she led the research initiative in the area of Cloud Computing. Radha started her career in Mumbai, India with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) – India’s premier services consulting firm, after completing her Masters of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi.

Moderator: Uma Murthy (Virginia Tech)
Panelists: Tejinder Judge (Virginia Tech), Sharoda Paul (Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)), and Erika Poole (The Pennsylvania State University)

Abstract: In this BOF session, our goal is to bring together people, who are interested in conducting user/usability studies, to brainstorm about ways to enable such studies where participants might be in remote locations. Among other things, we will discuss about the challenges in conducting such studies, strategies we might use to successfully conduct them, and ways to leverage technology in conducting these studies.

Biographies:

Uma Murthy
Uma Murthy completed her Ph.D. in Computer Science at Virginia Tech in May 2011. Her research interests are in digital libraries, information retrieval, natural language processing, and personal information management and she has worked on several collaborative projects in these areas. Her dissertation, titled “Digital Libraries with Superimposed Information”, focused on building software, in particular – Digital Libraries, that enable people to work with pieces of information or subdocuments in scholarly tasks. She interned with IBM T. J. Watson center in Summer 2007. In the past, she was a software engineer in IBM India.

Tejinder Judge
Tejinder Judge is a PhD Candidate in Computer Science at Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on families’ use of technology in their home and on understanding the implications of technology on communication, connectedness and awareness between families. She is also researching methods to aid designers in transitioning from contextual analysis to the design of new systems. She has organized workshops on both of her research interests including a CHI 2010 workshop on transitioning from contextual analysis to design and a Group 2010 workshop on connecting families. Tejinder has done internships at Kodak Research Labs and IBM Almaden.

Sharoda Paul
Sharoda Paul is a Computing Innovation Fellow at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). She holds a Ph.D. in Information Sciences and Technology from the Pennsylvania State University and a Bachelors in Computer Sciences from India. Her research is in human-computer interaction, social computing, computer-supported cooperative work, and healthcare informatics. She has been studying how people find and make sense of information together, on the Web and in organizational settings. Her research encompasses a range of methods such as ethnographic field studies, lab studies with both co-located and remote participants, and analysis of large-scale Web data.

Erika Poole
Dr. Erika S. Poole is an assistant professor of Information Sciences & Technology at Penn State University, University Park. Her research focuses on technology use and adoption by American families, integration of health-related technologies in institutional settings (particularly K-12 schools), and the development and evaluation of innovative computer gaming applications for improving health and wellness. Dr. Poole holds a PhD in Human-Centered Computing and MS in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a BS in Computer Science from Purdue University.

Presenters: Samantha Buyniski and Lauren Haynes (Both presenters are from Accenture Technology Labs)

Abstract: Innovation strategy is becoming increasingly important in the enterprise. Many organizations claim to create a “culture of innovation”, but what does this mean? How can an innovation program be effectively executed? How do you turn innovation activities into actionable outcomes for an organization? The objective for this session is to facilitate an informal brainstorming session among women interested in creating a culture or process of innovation within their organization.

Biographies:

Samantha Buyniski
Samantha Buyniski is a technology analyst with Accenture Technology Labs. She graduated from the Johns Hopkins University with a B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Her project work in the Technology Labs includes Smart Grid Analytics and Data Management as well as Emerging Data Platforms (NoSQL solutions).

Lauren Haynes
Lauren Haynes is a technology consultant with Accenture Technology Labs. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a B.S. in General Engineering and a minor in Computer Science. Her project work in the Technology Labs includes Rich Internet Application Design, Collaboration, Healthcare and Human Computer Interaction.

Presenter: Anne J. Simmons (ThoughtWorks)

Abstract: Why are women of Computer Science still reluctant to become developers? How can we influence the perception of a Software Developer to be positive?

This session will raise awareness that a stigma still exists, but in many environments is unfounded. Wouldn’t it be great if we could start to change what a women imagines when she thinks “Software Developer”?

Biography:

Anne J. Simmons
Miss Anne Simmons is a Senior Consultant Developer at ThoughtWorks Inc, a Global IT Software Consultancy. She joined ThoughtWorks three years ago as a graduate developer in the UK and has been helping clients all over the world create top quality software using Agile Software Development Techniques. Anne is passionate about creating well functioning teams that produce quality results. She firmly believes that women have a huge amount to contribute to a development team and doesn’t want the stereotypical view of what it means to be a developer to keep women away.

Moderator: Gilda Garretón (Oracle)
Panelists: Jamika Burge (Information Systems Worldwide Corporation) and Patty Lopez (Intel)

Abstract: Speed mentoring is an extraordinary networking exercise where people get advice in a series of short, one-on- one conversations with mentors. On the other hand, the lack of mentors and role models is known as one of the biggest challenges in the retention and increase of minorities in computing. In previous years, the mentoring BoFs in Latinas were successful and therefore the GHC11 session will focus on Women of Color.

Biographies:

Gilda Garretón
Gilda Garretón is a Principal Engineer at Oracle Labs/Oracle and her main research focuses on VLSI CAD, computer architecture for databases and parallel programming. She is an Open Source advocate and a Java/C++ developer. She is one of the main developers of Electric, a java.net VLSI CAD tool. Gilda received her B.A. and Engineering degree from the Catholic University of Chile (PUC) and her Ph.D. from the Swiss Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETHZ). She is the co-founder of the community Latinas in Computing (LiC) whose goal is to promote leadership and professional development among Latinas in the engineering field.

Jamika Burge
Jamika is currently a Senior Behavioral Computer Scientist at i_SW, an Information Systems company in Arlington, VA that provides high-end, advanced technical and research services to the US Government and other customers. Her research interests lie in HCI, comfortably, in the intersection of behavioral methodology and technology use, and she enjoys applying her skills in new and innovative ways. Most recently, she was a postdoc in the College of IST at Penn State, where she worked on wireless informatics initiatives for non-profit organizations. Jamika completed her PhD in CS from Virginia Tech, where she was an IBM PhD Research Fellow.

Patty Lopez
Patty Lopez spent 19 years at HP transferring technology into products and holds seven imaging patents. Patty joined Intel in 2008 and works on microprocessor logic validation design for test. Patty graduated with high honors from New Mexico State University with a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Computer Science. Patty received several technical leadership, diversity, and community service awards, including the 2010 HENAAC Award for Community Service. She serves on the CAHSI, ABI, and CRA-W Boards and the GHC organizing committee in several roles. Her current passion is computer science education, and creating an inclusive organizational culture in the workplace.

Presenters: Alexandra Holloway (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Laurian Vega (Next Century)

Abstract: In this interactive session on early motherhood, we invite audience collaboration to describe “what if” scenarios in which the mother’s trajectory is temporarily derailed by a new baby. We alternate worst-case scenarios with “pro-mom” tips and discuss in a group strategies to a positive mothering experience. We hope that this session will increase and induce a sense of community through interaction, and encourage women to stay in the pipeline.

Biographies:

Alexandra Holloway
Alexandra Holloway is a Ph.D. candidate in computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the mother of Leon (2009). Her dedication to childbirth, as a mother and birth doula, and computing, as a student of games for health, extends to her research: she is currently developing a birth simulator to prepare birth partners for childbirth. Alexandra is a member of IEEE, ACM, and Systers.

Laurian Vega
Laurian Vega, Ph.D., is currently working as a human factors engineer at Next Century Corporation, where she designs and evaluates cutting edge interfaces that help save lives. She recently graduated with her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech where she studied usable security. She enjoys geo-caching, reading, and mentoring. Laurian also manages the links for the Systers Listserv. She had Cameron (3 years old) while completing her Ph.D.

Moderator: Jennifer Redman (Buunabet)
Panelists: Leslie Hawthorn (Oregon State University), Anvi Khatri (Massachusetts General Hospital), Rachel Leventhal (Nomadic Stories/Women’s Peer-to-Peer Network), and Pat Tressel (Sahana Foundation)

Abstract:
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) adoption and usage is becoming wide-spread and many employment opportunities require experience on FOSS projects. It can be daunting to know how to contribute to an existing FOSS project or release your individual software tool or application under an open source license. Join us for a discussion on how to find your place in an open source community and learn about the Humanitarian FOSS (HFOSS) projects participating in the GHC11 Open Source Day Hackathon.

Biographies:
Jennifer Redman
Jennifer’s primary focus is helping businesses and organizations integrate open source software into their IT infrastructure. She has more than fifteen years of experience working with technical and non-technical individuals in businesses and non-profit organizations to help build and manage their computing infrastructure. Jennifer is currently the Associate Systers-Keeper for Systers, the oldest International online community of technical women. One of the founders of the Systers open source project, she participated in Google Summer of Code in 2009 and 2010 as an organization administrator and mentor. Additionally, Jennifer served as a co-chair of the program committee for the first ever Open Source Track at the 2010 Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing (GHC10). She is also involved in the Portland technical startup community and is currently a mentor at the Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE). Jennifer’s previous adventures include technical writing, canvassing for Greenpeace and as a staff member on a national (and successful) presidential campaign. Jennifer has traveled extensively, loves a good book, and a great debate.

Leslie Hawthorn
Leslie Hawthorn has over 10 years experience in high tech project management, marketing and public relations. She currently works as an Open Source Outreach Manager for Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab. She also serves as a Board Member/Advisor to the following organizations: CASH Music, the Humanitarian FOSS Project, the Open Source Business Resource and the Sahana Software Foundation.
Leslie previously worked as a Program Manager for Google’s Open Source Programs Office, where she was responsible for the company’s FOSS outreach efforts, most notably the Google Summer of Code program and Google Highly Open Participation (now Google Code In) contest. You can follow her adventures on Twitter (@lhawthorn)

Avni Khatri
Avni Khatri is a Web Applications Architect at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Lab of Computer Science. She builds database-backed medical applications using OpenACS, an open source web application toolkit. Before coming to MGH, she worked at Yahoo! Inc. as a Senior Front-end Engineer on the Flex Force Tiger Team. She was also founder and co-president of the Southern California chapter of Yahoo! Women in Tech. In December 2010, she participated in the 3rd Random Hacks Of Kindness (RHoK). She is also Vice President of Kids on Computers, an organization that sets up computer labs in developing countries, and she plays guitar.

Rachel Leventhal
Rachel Leventhal is an award-winning human rights journalist and media consultant, working with women in developing countries and the US. She has covered such topics as incarcerated women, female child soldiers, and peasant womens’ role in electing Africa’s first women president. Her deep experience and passion for global women’s development and leadership, media, and technology led her to develop the Women’s Peer-To-Peer Network, a global effort to create universal connectivity for women. Rachel’s vision is one of inclusion, collaboration and empowerment. The first deployment is in Haiti as the Haitian Women’s P2P Network. Bringing together a multidisciplinary team, led by Haitian women in technology, the Haitian P2P Network partners with local women’s communities, ensuring usability and ownership. Global women in technology are instrumental, providing mentorship and support. Rachel’s work has been recognized by the Soros Foundation, Freedom Forum, and Third Coast Documentary Festival.

Pat Tressel
Pat started programming when her dad gave her a FORTRAN manual in high school. After realizing that, whereas there were few jobs for second-rate physicists, people would actually pay her to indulge this hobby, Pat switched directions to software engineering…any sort of software engineering: operating systems, machine learning, medical applications, inventory control, web search,… Since the Haiti earthquake, Pat has been volunteering in software for humanitarian purposes, via the Sahana Software Foundation, CrisisCommons, Random Hacks of Kindness, Geeks Without Bounds. She is now also working on mobile apps and social games for early-stage startup earthbongo.com. In her “spare time”, Pat sleeps.

Presenters: Laura C. Trutoiu and Stacey Kuznetsov (Both presenters are from Carnegie Mellon University)

Abstract: What if your research could be applied in an outreach context to break socio-economic boundaries? Our workshop will explore approaches for engaging communities of ‘at-risk’ youths in creative use of technology. We explore wearable computing as a creative and tangible medium for motivating ‘at-risk’ children in hands-on making and expressive instantiation of ideas. We hope to inspire participants to to use textile computing as a tool to break boundaries.

Biographies:

Laura C. Trutoiu
Laura C. Trutoiu is a 3rd year PhD. student in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University advised by Jessica Hodgins. Laura’s research interests span the fields of computer graphics (facial animation), cognitive science (visual perception), and virtual reality (biomechanics, motion analysis). Laura graduated Magna cum Laude in 2008 with a BA in Computer Science from Mount Holyoke College. At Carnegie Mellon, Laura is an active member of Women@SCS and she participated in various outreach efforts including organizing Speaking Skills and Interviewing Skills Workshops, coordinating the Big Sister, Little Sister mentoring program, and last but not least learning about wearable computing with the young ladies from Gwen’s Girls.

Stacey Kuznetsov
Stacey Kuznetsov is a 3rd year PhD. student at Carnegie Mellon University, pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute under the supervision of Eric Paulos. Stacey’s current research explores low-cost (DIY) technology in the context of political discourse, street art and other grassroots public expressions. Stacey received a BA from New York University with a double major in Philosophy and Computer Science. She was a software engineer at Google, Inc., working with the search quality team in New York City prior to starting her PhD. at Carnegie Mellon University.

Presenters: Carol S. Woodward (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and Janine C Bennett (Sandia National Laboratories)

Abstract: The increasing capability of large-scale high performance computers has redefined the possibilities of scientific exploration and discovery. New HPC capabilities are becoming more accessible to scientists and engineers across academia, industry, and government in domains ranging from biology to astronomy to economics to social science. The systems allow researchers to explore an extreme range of time scales (from femtoseconds to millennia) and spatial scales (from subatomic to the cosmos). As awe-inspiring as the possibilities are, the increasing complexity in both scientific models and data sets poses a significant challenge. A distinguished panel will discuss this challenge and present recent examples of how computational science and data analysis have joined forces to further our scientific understanding.

Biographies:

Carol S. Woodward
Dr. Carol Woodward is a computational scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where she works with applications to efficiently solve nonlinear mathematical models on high performance computers. She has worked in diverse application areas including hydrology, supernovae, climate, and fusion. Dr. Woodward serves on the SIAM Council, on the editorial boards for SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis, Advances in Water Resources, and ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, and as Vice-Chair of the SIAM Activity Group on Computational Science and Engineering. Dr. Woodward holds a PhD in Computational Science and Engineering from Rice University.

Janine Bennett
Janine Bennett is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the Scalable Modeling and Analysis Systems Department at Sandia National Laboratories. Working closely with scientists in the Combustion Research Facility, she is currently developing statistical and topological tools to identify, characterize and track features in petascale data. Prior to joining Sandia, Janine was a Lawrence Scholar at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She completed her Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of California, Davis, in 2008 and holds a M.S and B.S. from the University of California, Davis as well.

The sixth Anita Borg Social Impact Award, an international prize, honors an individual or team who has caused technology to have a positive impact on the lives of women and society or has caused women to have a significant impact on the design and use of technology. The award carries a $10,000 prize and will be presented at the 2011 Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing in Portland, Oregon on November 11, 2011.

Award Winner: Anne Ikiara (NairoBits)

What If More African Women Had More Access and Use of ICT Skill?
Abstract: Women all over the world are to different extents marginalized in almost all fields. But among all, African women are most affected. Even though ICT has opened up opportunities everywhere, this has unfortunately, led to further marginalization of women in Africa. What then is the way out of this?

Biography:
Anne Ikiara
Anne Ikiara, is a versatile development professional with an excellent track record in working with the poor and marginalized women in ICT. Working as CEO of NairoBits, an organization dealing with youth and women empowerment through ICT, Anne has enabled more than 6,000 women and girls from urban poor settlements across the African region to gain ICT skills that have improved their lives economically, socially-culturally and politically. Most notable is the entry of women and girls from disadvantaged communities to the formal ICT economy. NairoBits’ concept has grown in Kenya where eight training centers with a capacity of 120 training computers have been opened. Through the training and exposure of these girls and women to ICT, lives of other women in their localities have significantly improved and positive ripple effects are being felt in these localities. In recognition of this she won the 2009 Anita Borg Change Agent Award. To further spread this successful concept, NairoBits is replicating the concept across te African region giving African women significant stake in the ICT arena. Examples of organizations that have been started as a result of this are Zanzibits, Addisbits, Kampabits and Kilimanjaro Film Institute, a similar organization has been started in Musoma in Tanzania with positive results.

Besides the field of ICT, Anne has made a remarkable contribution in research specific to women. In recognition, Anne has won several international research grant awards competitions, including the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) fellowships and Organization for Social Science in Eastern and Southern Africa(OSSREA) in Gender Issues Research grant competition in 2007. Anne’s contribution in poverty alleviation in youth and women in ICT has been recognized by key organizations both in Kenya and abroad. Under her leadership, NairoBits has won several prestigious national and international awards. Anne holds a Diploma in HRM, BA in Social Work and MA in Gender and Development Studies from University of Nairobi.

The ACM Student Research Competition (SRC), sponsored by Microsoft
Research, offers a unique forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their original research at well-known ACM sponsored and co-sponsored conferences before a panel of judges and attendees.

There are two rounds of competition at each conference hosting an SRC and a grand finals competition: First Round Competitions- The first round is usually referred to as the Poster Session. Judges will review the posters and speak to participants about their research; a group of semi-finalists will be chosen to present at the second round of the competition. Second Round Competitions – Semi-finalists continue by giving a short presentation of their research before a panel of judges, with a supporting power point presentation. Evaluations are based on the presenter’s knowledge of his/her research area, contribution of the research, and the quality of the oral and visual presentation. Three winners will be chosen in each category, undergraduate and graduate.