ABI’s new leadership development workshop hosted by Google on September 10-11, 2008, will feature speakers and panelists who have broken through multiple barriers to reach success in their fields. TechLeaders: Realizing Your Vision for Women of Color was created to address the barriers to advancement that women of color face as double minorities in technology.
Dr. Caroline Simard, Director of Research at ABI, found that women of color have an even tougher time climbing the technical ladder because they experience barriers to success such as isolation, lack of diversity in their work groups and lack of available mentors to a greater degree than their female Caucasian counterparts. To be successful, women of color have to build their professional networks and sometimes that means going outside of their organizations to find key mentors. TechLeaders: Realizing Your Vision for Women of Color will feature eight amazing woman who are breaking through those barriers:
- Dr. Valerie Taylor, the academic keynote for the workshop, is one of the few STEM African American women faculty members in the country. She is Department Head and Royce E. Wisenbaker Professorship in Engineering at Texas A&M University. Taylor received her PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computing from UC Berkeley. Dr. Taylor is well known for her groundbreaking work on computer architecture and high performance computing.
- Sandra Begay-Campbell is a Principal Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories and is a former Regent (Trustee) for the University of New Mexico. Ms. Begay-Campbell received a Master’s Degree in Structural Engineering from Stanford University. She leads Sandia’s technical efforts in the Renewable Energy Program to assist tribes with renewable energy development.
- Neerja Raman is a Senior Research Fellow at Stanford University and is an award winning executive and author in technology research and new business creation. She was Director, Imaging Systems Laboratory and Strategic Planning at Hewlett Packard Labs and has been recognized by the Indo-American community as a Distinguished Citizen and Technology Leader (Federation of Indo-Americans in 2006, Indian-American Women Empowered in 2008).
- Irene Au is Director of User Experience at Google. Prior to Google, she spent eight years at Yahoo! where she was Vice President of User Experience and Design. At Yahoo!, Irene established the interaction design and user research practice, and led product and platform design efforts worldwide. Irene holds an M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction through the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- Dr. Gilda Garreton is a Senior Staff Engineer at Sun Microsystems where her research focuses on VLSI CAD algorithm. Dr. Garreton founded the Latinas in Computing (LiC) Community to encourage the professional development of Latinas in technology.
- Dr. Cecilia Aragon is a Staff Scientist in the Computational Research Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her research involves developing collaborative visual interfaces to foster scientific insight. She is the only Latina ever to win a spot on the United States Unlimited Aerobatic Team and she is also a founding member of Latinas in Computing and a board member of the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W).
- Dr. Christine Grant is Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Development and New Initiatives, College of Engineering, North Carolina State University, where her research focuses on surface and interfacial phenomena in the areas of electronic materials and polymers. She is one of three African American women nation-wide who are full professors in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Grant is the recipient of a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
- Dr. Monica Martinez-Canales is a Principal Engineer in the Digital Enterprise Group at Intel Corporation. Prior to joining Intel, Monica was a Principal Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Labs until 2008. Her areas of expertise are numerical analysis and validation. Monica received her Ph.D. Computational & Applied Mathematics from Rice University in 1998 and was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University from 1998-2000. Monica was Co-Chair of the 2007 Richard Tapia Conference for Diversity in Computing.