2012 Award Winners
The award winners will be honored for their accomplishments and contributions to women in technology at an Awards Ceremony on October 4, 2012, and will talk about their work on Friday, October 5th during the 12th Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) in Baltimore, Maryland. For more details, see the conference program schedule
Award Winners
- Anita Borg Social Impact Award
- Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award
- A. Richard Newton Educator Award
- Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award
- Anita Borg Change Agent Awards
2012 Anita Borg Social Impact Award – Sponsored By Microsoft
The eighth Anita Borg Social Impact Award, an international prize, will honor an individual or team who has caused technology to have a positive impact on the lives of women and society or who has caused women to have a significant impact on the design and use of technology. The recipient will receive a $10,000 award.
CATHI RODGVELLER
Cathi Rodgveller has been an educator for 30 years, and in 1999 her work as Nontraditional Career Counselor for the Seattle School District inspired her to found IGNITE (Inspiring Girls Now In Technology Evolution) Worldwide. Her visionary program works within the schools, encouraging girls to enter into STEM (science, technology, math, science) careers by connecting them with women in industry, exposing the girls to the women’s personal stories and providing insight into what those careers are like and what steps are required to get there. The key to the success of the program is enabling girls to picture themselves in those higher wage careers through identifying with the women who have already forged the way.
In the 13 years she has administered the IGNITE program, Cathi has shown thousands of middle- and high-school girls that their career options are much broader than they ever imagined. The reproducible and scalable IGNITE model works in any school in any country, pointing girls onto the path towards higher wage fields typically dominated by men.
2012 Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award – Sponsored by Salesforce.com
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 recipient will receive a $10,000 award.
IRENE GREIF
Irene Greif is an IBM Fellow and Chief Scientist for Social Business at IBM, where she is responsible for designing IBM’s long-term strategy for social business. She is also the director of the IBM Center for Social Business, a global effort to focus CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) and Computer-Human Interaction research on the growing opportunities to transform business practices through social technologies such as crowdsourcing, social analytics, and interactive visualization. The Center has emphasized research based on large scale deployments of new technologies, providing test beds for studies of adoption rates and impact of social media on organizations. The Center is currently developing “social solutions” that put horizontal social software to use in vertical settings to tackle specific business problems.
Irene is a former faculty member of Computer Science at University of Washington and of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. She headed a research group in the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science that developed shared calendar, co-authoring, and real-time collaboration systems. She is a fellow of both the Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). Irene was inducted into the Women In Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame in 2000 and awarded the Women Entrepreneurs in Science and Technology Leadership award in 2008. In 2010, she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and in 2012 she was elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Irene joined Lotus Development Corporation in 1987, formed Lotus Research in 1992, and merged that group into the IBM Research Division in 2000. Recent product innovations from her group include the core features now shipping in IBM Connections: social bookmarking, file sharing, profiles, and business activities, as well as a number of experiments in visualization, with Many Eyes (www-958.ibm.com) and Many Bills (http://manybills.researchlabs.ibm.com) as examples available on the web.
Irene received her S.B. in Mathematics, her S.M. and her PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, all from MIT.
2012 A. Richard Newton Educator Award – Sponsored by Amrita Newton, Neris Newton, Petra Michel, and Bill Unger
A. Richard Newton was a professor and dean of the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, a pioneer in electronic design automation and integrated circuit design, and a visionary leader in the technology industry. Richard Newton passed away in 2007 and this award is dedicated in his honor. The A. Richard Newton Educator Award recognizes teaching practices, techniques or innovative and new education approaches that attract girls and women to math, computing, and engineering. The award recognizes the educators (either individuals or teams) as well as the practices in K12 or undergraduate education. The recipient will receive a $5,000 award.
BARBARA ERICSON
Barbara Ericson is the Director of Computing Outreach for the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. She has worked at Georgia Tech to increase the quantity and quality of secondary computing teachers and the quantity and diversity of computing students since 2004. Barbara is also on the executive committee for the National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT)’s K-12 Alliance. She has served as a member of the Advanced Placement Computer Science Development Committee and as an AP reader for CS. Barbara has a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Wayne State University. She is an author on four textbooks about Media Computation. Media Computation teaches computing concepts by having students manipulate media: negating the pixels in a picture, reversing a sound, creating movies that blend live action and animation. Barbara and her husband, Dr. Mark Guzdial, were the winners of the 2010 Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Computing Educator Award. She is also an avid equestrian.
2012 Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award – Sponsored by Microsoft
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 Research University (University of Washington, Seattle); worked throughout her life to give minorities a voice and 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, the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology has established the Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award. The award will be presented each year to a junior tenure-track (non-tenured) faculty member (under the age of 40) at an academic or research institution, who is pursuing high-quality research in any field of engineering or physical sciences, while demonstrating a significant leadership capability and contributing significantly to promote diversity in his/her environment. The recipient will receive a $5,000 award.
SUSAN DANIEL
Susan Daniel is an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Cornell University. She received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Lehigh University, where she discovered and studied novel methods to manipulate liquid droplets on surfaces to create digital fluidic devices. During postdoctoral work in the chemistry department at Texas A&M University, she studied biomimetic microfluidic devices for biological applications. Dr. Daniel joined Cornell University in 2007.
Dr. Daniel’s research group studies phenomena that occur at interfaces and biological surfaces and focuses on two main themes: the dynamic organization of biomolecules in cell membranes and its impact on biological function, and the interaction of viruses with cell membranes and the entry processes that lead to infection. Dr. Daniel is also committed to increasing the number of women in science. She is the faculty advisor for the graduate women’s group in her department, which fosters professional development of graduate women and hosts an annual K-12 outreach program for rural families.
Dr. Daniel has been honored with a National Science Foundation CAREER award and an American Society of Engineering Education Outstanding Teaching Award.
2012 Change Agent Awards – Sponsored by Google
The Anita Borg Change Agent Awards celebrate the accomplishments of three technical women from, and who work in, developing countries. 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.
MARIA DUBOVITSKAYA, RUSSIA
Maria received her two MS degrees in Information Security and in Economics and Business Management from Russian National Nuclear Research University MEPhI. During her studies she was awarded several fellowships, including a Russian Government prize fellowship. After graduation she led several research projects, supervised master students and was teaching Cryptography seminars. Maria also graduated from a ballet school and is a candidate master in aerobics.
In 2007 Maria joined IBM Science and Technology Center in Moscow as a Software Engineer working on Storage systems for Mainframes. Besides her daily job she was involved in many outreach activities such as volunteer work on IBM E.X.C.I.T.E. Program (Exploring Interest in Technology and Engineering, for middle school girls). She was one of the founders and active leader of IBM Technical Excellence Council R/CIS (TEC, in Russia), an IBM Academy of Technology Affiliate.
Recently Maria moved to IBM Research – Zurich to finish her PhD on efficient cryptographic protocols for privacy protection. She is also an external PhD student at the Cryptography group at ETH Zurich. While working at IBM Zurich she still actively participates in collaboration with IBM Russia. In 2011 Maria received an ex-officio membership in IBM Academy of Technology, and created Women in Technology chapter under TEC R/CIS. She also holds regular sessions for Swiss girls graduating from high school and encourages them to approach technical career path.
RAMALATHA MARIMUTHU, INDIA
Dr Ramalatha Marimuthu is heading the Department of Information Technology in Kumaraguru College of Technology under Anna University. She has published six technical books and is known for her development of unique solutions for various social problems like autism and dyslexia in young children.
She is an orator of high calibre and has delivered lectures in Congresses, conferences and universities all over the world. Dr. Ramalatha Marimuthu is an inspiring leader for her students who follow her guidance to take up real world problems and find engineering solutions through their technical ability. She won many awards like IEEE Outstanding Branch Counsellor Award, IEEE MGA Achievement Award, “Life Time Achiever Award” by the Lions Club International etc for her work towards upliftment of society. She also was awarded Mentor award by the Secretariate for the Disabled, the Government of Tamilnadu for her work towards special children, and “Jewel of the Community Award“ by Saliyar Mahajan Sangh for her achievements. She is chairing the IEEE Women in Engineering Committee for the years 2011 and 2012.
EVELYN NAMARA, UGANDA
Evelyn Namara is a technologist and social entrepreneur, who has a passion of working with women and girls in technology and entrepreneurship. Evelyn started out her career as a technical support engineer at a small IT support company called Linux Solutions.
Evelyn later joined HITS TELECOM now Orange Uganda Limited as the IT Unix Administrator.
In 2006, Evelyn was part of a women’s network that formed the core of LinuxChix Africa, as a board member representing East Africa. LinuxChix Africa (now defunct) was a network of women in computing across Africa that carried out trainings and programs to empower young girls to take up science courses in school.
In 2010, Evelyn joined the Instructor team of AfNOGChix (Africa Network Operators Group). AfNOGChix is a forum that seeks to increase the participation of women in IT and system administration by providing them with a woman – only training environment.
Evelyn’s passion with working with women and girls led her to her current job, at Solar Sister as the Program Coordinator. Solar Sister is a Social Enterprise that empowers women with economic opportunity. She teaches women the technology of solar and helps them start businesses and also maintain them.
Evelyn holds a Diploma in Information Technology (Science) from the Uganda Institute of Information and Communications Technology, A BSc. Computer Science from Makerere University, Certificate in Unix Systems Administration (AfNOG- Kenya), Certificate in Scalable Internet Services (AfNOG – Nigeria) Certificate in Scalable Network Infrastructure (AfNOG – Morocco).