PlenaryMonday Tuesday Virtual Track Speakers
Plenary



Emily Moore
Managing Director, Innovation - Hatch
"Emily is Hatch’s Managing Director, Innovation, bringing technology solutions to clients in energy, infrastructure, and metals industries.A professional engineer with 25 years’ experience in chemical process design, Emily has strong skills in new product development, technology delivery, and innovation management. Familiar with the design, engineering, and operation of chemical processes from laboratory to manufacturing, she leads multidisciplinary technology-delivery teams, contributing her own technical expertise in water management, polymerization, flocculation, and hydrometallurgical unit operations design. After graduating from Canada’s Queen’s University in 1992 with a degree in engineering chemistry, Emily went on to complete her doctorate in physical chemistry at Oxford University in the United Kingdom as a Rhodes Scholar."



Paula Tolliver
Corporate Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO), - Intel
"Paula C. Tolliver is corporate vice president and chief information officer (CIO) of Intel Corporation. Her IT organization capitalizes on information technology to accelerate the company’s vision of making things that are smart and connected, and that work best with Intel technology. Under Tolliver’s leadership, thousands of IT professionals worldwide are protecting Intel’s assets, driving competitive advantage and providing innovative IT solutions.Tolliver joined Intel as chief information officer in 2016. Before coming to Intel, she was corporate vice president of business services and chief information officer at The Dow Chemical Co. In her more than 20 year career with Dow Chemical, Tolliver led a progressively expanding portfolio of global business services with a strong track record for driving business results and corporate-level transformational change, spanning strategic sourcing, business process and operating discipline improvements, and digital initiatives, as well as leveraging advanced analytics for competitive advantage. She led a services business for Dow Chemical with $1 billion in revenue, and she is a sought-after industry expert in cybersecurity for global enterprises.Tolliver holds a bachelor’s degree in business information systems and computer science from Ohio University and completed the Babson College Executive Education Program."



Guy Kawasaki
Chief Evangelist -Canva
Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva, an online graphic design tool. He is a brand ambassador for Mercedes-Benz and an executive fellow of the Haas School of Business (UC Berkeley). He was the chief evangelist of Apple and a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation. He is also the author of The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media, Enchantment, and nine other books. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Dr. Fei-Fei Li
Chief Scientist, Google Cloud AI, Director of Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford


Dr. Fei-Fei Li is the Chief Scientist of Google Cloud, AI/ML starting in January 2017. She continues to hold her professorship at Stanford University as an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department. Dr. Fei-Fei Li is the Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Stanford Vision Lab. Dr. Fei-Fei Li’s main research areas are in machine learning, deep learning, computer vision and cognitive and computational neuroscience. She has published more than 150 scientific articles in top-tier journals and conferences, including Nature, PNAS, Journal of Neuroscience, CVPR, ICCV, NIPS, ECCV, IJCV, IEEE-PAMI, etc. Dr. Fei-Fei Li obtained her B.A. degree in physics from Princeton in 1999 with High Honors, and her PhD degree in electrical engineering from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2005. She joined Stanford in 2009 as an assistant professor, and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2012. Prior to that, she was on faculty at Princeton University (2007-2009) and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2005-2006). Dr. Li is the inventor of ImageNet and the ImageNet Challenge, a critical large-scale dataset and benchmarking effort that has contributed to the latest developments in deep learning and AI. In addition to her technical contributions, she is a national leading voice for advocating diversity in STEM and AI. She is co-founder of Stanford’s renowned SAILORS outreach program for high school girls. For her work in AI, Dr. i is a speaker at the TED2015 main conference, a recipient of the IAPR J.K. Aggarwal Prize, the 2016 nVidia Pioneer in AI Award, 2014 IBM Faculty Fellow Award, 2011 Alfred Sloan Faculty Award, 2012 Yahoo Labs FREP award, 2009 NSF CAREER award, the 2006 Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellowship and a number of Google Research awards. Work from Dr. Li's lab have been featured in a variety of popular press magazines and newspapers including New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, Science, Wired Magazine, MIT Technology Review, Financial Times, and more.

Mary Gendron
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Qualcomm Incorporated


Mary Gendron is senior vice president and chief information officer for Qualcomm Incorporated. In this role, Gendron will lead Qualcomm’s global IT organization, driving operational excellence within the IT function and across the enterprise, as well as collaborating with the executive and business unit leadership teams to ensure Qualcomm continues to incorporate forward-looking technology solutions into the business, products, and strategies to achieve Company business goals. Prior to joining Qualcomm, Gendron served as senior vice president and chief information officer at Hospira, a leading global pharmaceutical and medical device company. Gendron brings more than 25 years of IT experience to the role, with expertise in developing and executing IT and talent-focused strategies, services and plans. She has led complex global organizations, driving proactive business strategies required to develop differentiation and has consistently generated customer, shareholder and employee value. Prior to working at Hospira, Gendron served as CIO at Celestica International, Inc., and served in other senior IT leadership positions at companies like The Nielsen Company, Motorola and Bell Canada Gendron holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from McGill University in Canada

Lorraine Martin
Deputy Executive Vice President, at Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems (RMS)


Lorraine M. Martin most recently served as Executive Vice President and Deputy of LockheedMartin’s Rotary and Mission Systems (RMS), participating in aspects of the business area, includingstrategic planning, operations, program execution, talent development and customer engagement.With more than 34,000 employees around the world, RMS supports programs for all U.S. militaryservices, as well as for international military, civil and commercial customers. The RMS portfoliofeatures more than 1,000 programs, such as the Aegis Combat System, Littoral Combat Ship,Sikorsky helicopters, and military and commercial training systems, including for the F-35 Lightning II.Prior to joining RMS, Ms. Martin served as the Executive Vice President and General Manager for the$9 billion F-35 Lightning II Program, for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, earning Pentagonaccolades and recognition for reducing program costs while simultaneously increasing production andfielding more aircraft worldwide.Throughout her 30-year career with Lockheed Martin, Ms. Martin held a number of high-visibilityleadership roles, including Vice President of the C-130 and C-5 programs, and Vice President ofFlight Solutions for Lockheed Martin Simulation, Training & Support—where she was responsible foraircrew training programs for the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command, C-130 Hercules, F-16Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor and F-15 Eagle.Prior to joining Lockheed Martin, Ms. Martin served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force, holding variousleadership positions for software intensive technology and development programs. She has an M.S. inComputer Science from Boston University and a B.A. in Computational Mathematics from DePauwUniversity.As a champion for advancing women in STEM, she speaks around the world on the topic, and wasrecently named among STEMconnector’s 100 Corporate Women Leaders in STEM. She has workedwith numerous organizations in support of this mission, including Girls Inc., Girls Who Code and BlueRibbon Schools of Excellence, where she served on the Board of Directors.

Nishita Henry
Principal, Federal Technology Leader at Deloitte


Nishita is Deloitte’s Federal Technology Practice Leader, providing advisory, implementation, and operations services to every cabinet-level agency in the U.S. government. She leads more than 3,000 practitioners as they assist Federal agencies in transforming into more efficient, effective organizations. In addition, Nishita regularly advises Federal CIO’s and technology leaders on topics of modernization and innovation, digitizing government, cloud strategy, and customer experience. Ms. Henry previously served as the Federal Innovation Leader where she stood up a grass-roots Innovation engine for development of products and solutions. Prior to that she served as the Technology Strategy & Architecture Leader where she started the development of our Federal Cloud offering and lead Ms. Henry led our work at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) transforming business and technology from the production floor to the back office. Ms. Henry’s experience also includes leading the work at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to create new ways for industry to interact with FDA and improve drug quality efforts and is working. Her most recent experience has been leading the modernization of a Travel Distribution Platform for Amtrak to improve the Customer Experience from reservations to ridership.Ms. Henry holds an MBA from Darden, University of Virginia, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She lives in Alexandria, VA with her husband and two daughters who keep her busy with dance, dance, and more dance!



Michelle Parker
Division Chief Engineers (DCE) for Space and Launch, Boeing Defense Space & Security
Michelle Parker is Vice President and Capability Leader for Defense, Space & Security (BDS) Engineering’s System Engineering, Integration and Test (SEIT) Capability. Where she is responsible for driving engineering excellence in Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS) Systems and ensuring the technical integrity and success of BDS development and production programs.Previously, she led the Satellite Development Center (SDC) for Boeing’s Network & Space Systems business. As a world leader in the design, development, manufacturing, integration and testing of satellites for government, civil and commercial customers, the SDC is the world's largest satellite factory and has produced more than 300 satellites to date.Prior to her role as vice president of the SDC, Parker was the director of Flight and Vehicle Technology for Boeing Research and Technology (BR&T), Boeing’s advanced central research and development unit. In this role, she was responsible for strategy and development in the technology areas of Aerodynamics and Flow Control, Vehicle Dynamics and Control, Propulsion, and Integrated Vehicle Technologies.Previously, Parker was Enterprise Domain Leader for Platform Performance, one of Boeing’s eight focused technology domains that comprise the company’s Enterprise Technology Strategy. As Domain Leader, Parker was responsible for strategic planningof research and development across Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Boeing Defense, Space and Security, and Boeing Research & Technology, providing focus for technologies such as aerodynamics, propulsion, guidance, navigation and control, and computational science.Before working as the Domain Leader, Parker was deputy director for National Space Communications Programs (NSCP), a large portfolio of proprietary programs, where she was responsible for leadership, strategy and execution across the programs. She was also the NSCP Systems Engineering Manager, where her systems engineering team was recognized for outstanding technical accomplishments and execution on many significant milestone events.Parker’s career has also included positions as Systems Engineering Lead and Chief Engineer on commercial satellite programs. Parker started her career in the Thermophysics Department of Boeing Satellite Systems.Parker earned a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University, as well as a Master’s degree and a doctorate in mechanical engineering and applied mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania. Parker’s doctorate was earned as a Howard Hughes Doctoral Fellow while at Boeing.



Bozenna Pasik-Duncan
Professor of Mathematics Courtesy Professor of EECS & AE; Investigator at ITTC; Affiliate Faculty at Center of Computational Biology, and Chancellors Club Teaching Professor at University of Kanasas
Bozenna Pasik-Duncan received M.S. degree in mathematics from University of Warsaw, and Ph.D. and D.Sc. degrees from Warsaw School of Economics, Poland. She is Professor of Mathematics; Courtesy Professor of EECS & AE; Investigator at ITTC; Affiliate Faculty at Center of Computational Biology, and Chancellors Club Teaching Professor at University of Kansas (KU). She is a strong advocate for STEM education and for women in STEM. She is the IEEE WIE Chair, founder of IEEE CSS Women in Control, founder & faculty advisor of Student Chapters of AWM and SIAM, founder & coordinator of KU & IEEE CSS Outreach Programs. She has served in many capacities in several societies. Her current service includes Chair of IEEE WIE, member of IEEE CSS & SSIT Board of Governors, Deputy Chair of CSS TC on Control Education, Chair of AACC Education Committee, member of IFAC TB, and Award Committees of AWM & MAA. Her research interests are primarily in stochastic adaptive control and its applications to science and engineering, and in STEM education. She is recipient of many awards that include IREX Fellow, NSF Career Advancement Award, Louise Hay Award, Polish Ministry of Higher Education Award, H.O.P.E., Kemper Fellow, IEEE EAB Meritorious Achievement, Service to Kansas & IFAC Outstanding Service Awards. She is a Fellow of IEEE & Fellow of IFAC, recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium Medal & IEEE CSS Distinguished Member Award. She is inducted to the KU Women's Hall of Fame.More information including her full resume can be found on her personal web page: http://www.math.ku.edu/ksacg/Bozenna.html



Maria Hedden
President – L3 Technologies Combat Propulsion Systems
Maria Hedden is President at L3 Technologies Combat Propulsion Systems (CPS) in Muskegon, Michigan. L3 is a prime contractor in aerospace systems and a leading provider of a broad range of communication and electronic systems and products used on military and commercial platforms. L3 customers include the U.S. Department of Defense, other U.S. government agencies, allied foreign governments and commercial customers. A $9.6B Corporation in 2017, L3 has its corporate headquarters in New York City.Maria has more than 25 years of operational and manufacturing leadership experience. In her role as President, she provides management and leadership to both our facility in Muskegon and our division in Germany – Magnet Motor. In her 5 years with CPS, she has successfully improved production performance to include key metrics in cost, schedule and quality performance. In her prior role of General Manager she has worked to improve the collaboration and cohesiveness of the multiple functions within the organization to operate as collective units rather than individual silos and to drive program performance excellence.In 2015, Maria was selected for an elite leadership program within L3 Technologies that fosters collaboration with leaders across the corporation on issues common to operating divisions in the US. Through this program, she is instilling a culture of innovation and performance excellence within the L3 Muskegon operation.Before coming to Muskegon in August of 2012 as Vice President Production and Delivery, Ms. Hedden held various manufacturing and project leadership positions at BAE Systems. Her past successes focused on several cultural and lean process improvement efforts, while developing transformational initiatives for multiple organizations. Her experience also included international assignments that lead transformational efforts with BAE and UK MoD. She successfully worked collaborative efforts that include new and different ways of using new modeling and simulation tools for robotic applications on combat vehicle armor welding installations. She led multiple corporate rationalization projects that resulted in significant reduction in overhead structure costs and establishing centers of excellence with the corporation.Ms. Anderson is a noted speaker on early manufacturing design influence and implementing cultural change in challenging environments. She has been a member of the Society of Women Engineers, NDIA and several Women’s leadership forums. She holds a Master’s Degree in Manufacturing Technology from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelors degree in Industrial Engineering from Pennsylvania (Penn) State University.Maria lives in Grand Haven, MI, and has two children (Elizabeth & Nick). Her hobbies include; Triathlons, Outdoor Hiking, Fishing, and Cooking. She has also performed as a Flute Soloist for local orchestras.



Jennifer Elias
Technology Reporter at Silicon Valley Business Journal
Jennifer is very experienced in several media platforms and has contributed to various publications from editorial to business. Previously, Jennifer was a freelance technology journalist contributing to Fast Company and Forbes. Now, she is a full-time journalist for the Silicon Valley Business Journal and loves writing about tech and the people who make it work.

Lynnette Reese
Editor-in-Chief, Embedded Systems Engineering


Lynnette Reese is Editor-in-Chief of Embedded Systems Engineering magazine. Ms. Reese has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and has worked for Johnson Controls, Texas Instruments, Freescale Semiconductor, and Cypress Semiconductor. After 20 years in embedded hardware and software, she came upon writing technical articles by accident and has never looked back.Find her on: eecatalog.com
Monday Speakers



Jo Ilfeld
CEO and Founder - Incite To Leadership
Jo Ilfeld PhD is an executive leadership coach who works with C-suite leaders, executives and high potential managers to create more impact and influence in their organizations. She works with individuals, teams and organizations on 4 core areas of leadership development: leading with clarity of vision, mastering the art of results, developing influence, and deepening your executive presence. Jo's clients have come from leading Bay Area companies including EBay, Cisco, Intel, BioMarin, PayPal, and Theravance as well as many small to medium-sized companies and non-profit organizations. Jo is also a professor of Leadership Intelligence in the executive MBA program at Sonoma State. Prior to starting Success Reboot, Jo grew her first company into a million dollar business. She is a graduate of Yale College and holds a PhD in Business from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.



Linda Stacy
CEO and Founder - LivingBluPrints
"Linda Stacy is a Productivity Specialist who created her proprietary model, The H.O.W. Advantage (TM), to help people, teams, and organizations optimize their workday, their workplace, and their workforce.For more than 15 years Linda has held positions in management consulting serving teams in the support of hundreds of companies, including Fortune 500 and Inc 5000 players.Linda has holds a BA from UC Santa Barbara and an MS from Simmons College."



Ellie Nieves
President and CEO - Leadership Strategies for Women, LLC
"Ellie Nieves is a women's leadership speaker, writer, and coach dedicated to helping high-achieving women to show up, speak up and step up in their careers. She is the Founder & President of Leadership Strategies for Women, LLC where she develops seminars and webinars for companies and associations that want to grow their emerging women leaders into effective managers and executives. She also coaches women one-on-one who want to achieve more both personally and professionally. Ellie launched her career as a young lawyer in NYC politics. She was often the youngest and many times the only woman sitting at the table. It was during that time, that Ellie learned what it’s like to balance the demands of family life and health challenges while trying to accomplish personal and professional goals. She also learned the importance of relying on her faith to bounce back from adversity and setbacks. Ellie eventually transitioned to the private sector. Today, she is Vice President and Counsel of Government Affairs for a Fortune 250 company where she briefs and provides strategic advice to the CEO and senior management on relevant legislative and political issues. Ellie is also a founding member of the company's Diversity and Inclusion Council and launched the company's first employee resource group for women.Ellie has been profiled as a corporate leader by Hispanic Executive Magazine and has been recognized as a top woman in business by Hudson Valley Magazine. Ellie is a faculty member of the American Management Association. She is also the host of the Leadership Strategies for Women Podcast and writes articles for Fairygodboss.com."

Julia Kirshner
Founder & CEO - zPREDICTA


With today’s advances in computation and robotics it’s an exciting time to be a biologist. Julia Kirshner, PhD, founded zPREDICTA with a mission to enable cures for every patient. zPREDICTA is pioneering the development of organ-specific disease models for 1-to-1 reconstruction of human tissue. zPREDICTA models demonstrating high correlation with clinical response by mimicking drug behavior as seen in patients. In her capacity as zPREDICTA’s CEO, Dr. Kirshner commercialized Reconstructed Organ technology for high throughput testing of anticancer therapeutics and immunotherapy agents.Prior to founding zPREDICTA, Dr. Kirshner held an appointment of Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University and was a member of the Purdue Center for Cancer Research and Bindley Biosciences Center at Purdue University Discovery Park. At Purdue, Dr. Kirshner’s lab pursued research into the mechanisms of cancer development and spread and effects of tissue microenvironment on drug response. Dr. Kirshner is an author of numerous scientific publications and is a recipient of multiple grants and innovation awards for her work towards understanding the role of tumor microenvironment, cancer stem cells, and the immune system in driving cancer progression.



Catherine Liao
Co-Founder - Blumio
Catherine Liao joined her first technology startup at the age of 19, as a systems engineer for one of the first Internet conferencing services in the 90s. Since then, she has held technical and business roles in startups and enterprises enterprises including Cisco, Riverbed, and the World Health Organization. In 2016, Catherine left the corporate world once again to pursue entrepreneurship. Her startup, Blumio, is building a health sensor to allow for better diagnosis and treatment of hypertension. Catherine is also the founder of the Corkbin wine app, which was acquired by Hello Vino. Her experience and insights of the mobile app industry is documented in her book, The Evolution and Dynamics of the Mobile App Economy: Strategies for Innovating and Marketing Mobile Apps. Catherine holds a MBA from Imperial College London Business School.



Eryka Johnson
Global Leadership Brand Strategist, Keynote Speaker, Author & Engineer - High Pursuit LLC
Global Leadership Brand Strategist, Keynote Speaker and Author of Own Your Life Eryka T. Johnson is the CEO of High Pursuit LLC, a global executive leadership consultancy, where she helps high achieving women elevate their influence and visibility in the workplace and develops gender diversity programs for Global 2000 companies in the STEM industry. Eryka mentors over 17,000 professional women in her community daily and shares her journey through a leadership column LeadHERship featured in two Montana magazines, Cliffside Neighbors and Rimrock Neighbors and through her Influencers Leadership Institute. Eryka has also been featured in Success Magazine, NBC, Worldwide Business Review, The Network Journal, Yellowstone Valley Women Magazine, The Missoula Current News, and Everyday Power Blog. Eryka is the recipient of the 2017 Business Elite Award.With 17 years as an Engineering Leader at ExxonMobil, developing and leading teams for high visibility projects, Eryka understands the significance of showcasing value in the workplace for today’s woman. This knowledge coupled with a passion to help women leaders get noticed, uplevel their confidence and develop a brand of leadership that’s unique to them, makes Eryka a valued asset to any woman seeking to go from invisibility to influenceTM.In her book Own Your Life, which Barnes & Noble partnered with Eryka to promote and launch, she guides women through a unique system to find the clarity, confidence, and courage to lead unapologetically. This book is a practical roadmap for professional women looking to experience career and life success with no excuses.



Dina Maloney
Description
Dina Maloney, MA, ACC, CALC, has assisted individuals, teams, companies and clients to achieve personal and organizational success for more than 25 years. Her ability to lead others to peak performance, implement innovative methods and solutions, facilitate engaging and interactive workshops and serve as a catalyst for change and excellence have contributed to her solid reputation as a successful leader, mentor, coach, innovator and educator. Dina earned the credentials of Associate Certified Coach (ACC) from The International Coaching Federation, and Authentic Leadership Coach from Raleigh Coaching Academy. She currently serves as Co-Founder of EPIC Coaching and Consulting, offering leadership and executive coaching, skills development training, consulting, and keynote speaking engagements to support organizations and companies achieve maximum profitability and productivity. Dina, who was a 2016 ncaCPA 5.0 Speaker Award recipient, is a contributing coach for The Impact Center’s Women’s Executive Leadership Program out of Washington, D.C., as well as for The Bridges Academic Leadership Program for Women through UNC Chapel Hill. Additionally, she serves as Lead Coach and Training Facilitator for The Statarius LeaderStep7 Program and Senior Instructor of Professional Development for Knowledge Source, Inc.

Ilana Walder-Biesanz



Ilana Walder-Biesanz combines work as a Senior Product Manager at Oath with a freelance career in opera criticism. After earning her undergraduate degree in Systems Engineering from Olin College, she was awarded a Gates-Cambridge Scholarship to study European Literature at the University of Cambridge. She spent the following year writing about theater and opera on a Fulbright Scholarship in Munich, before being lured back to the world of tech in Silicon Valley. She now manages advertising products for Oath and writes for San Francisco Classical Voice, Bachtrack, Stark Insider, and other arts publications. She also continues to publish academically, with seven peer-reviewed journal articles in psychology, philosophy, and theater and opera studies. Past speaking engagements include the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the Oregon Regional FIRST Robotics Competition, the Girl Scouts National Leadership Conference, and the Fulbright Berlin Seminar.



Tania Philip
VP of Product - Shutterstock
Tania Philip is a visionary and product leader with 11+ years of extensive global experience defining, building and launching award-winning digital products. In her current role as VP of Product at Shutterstock, Tania generates bold and innovative ideas for growth, creating and delivering products that meet the needs of the customer. Previously, Tania spearheaded and executed the product strategy at Zocdoc, implementing the rollout of new product initiatives to drive exponential growth and scale. She also served as Global Head of Mobile and Connected Devices for Bloomberg where she directed, managed and executed the product portfolio roadmap.



Monica Lopez-Gonzalez
Co-Founder and Executive Scientific & Artistic Director - La Petite Noiseuse Productions
Dr. Monica Lopez-Gonzalez is a multilingual Cognitive Scientist, Educator, Entrepreneur, Multidisciplinary Artist, Public Speaker, Science Communicator, Theorist, and Writer. She is the Co-Founder and Executive Scientific & Artistic Director of La Petite Noiseuse Productions, a company at the forefront of innovative Science-Art integration. She heads an original research program in creativity and human intelligence, creating a novel platform for understanding humans’ abilities to adapt to multisensory, multi-agent environments. Such platform has led to theoretical insights, publications, and practical applications in driverless car situations and perceptual color compression, as well as has had direct impact in several industries such as robotics, healthcare, environment, finance, cyber, education, and policymaking. Advocating for multidisciplinary learning and revolutionizing education, Monica has pioneered a range of STEAM workshops and courses merging the cognitive, behavioral, and computational sciences with the visual, literary, and performing arts since 2009 from precollege to postgraduate levels as faculty at Johns Hopkins University, Peabody Institute, and Maryland Institute College of Art. Monica has also worked in the biotech industry as Executive Director of Business Development applying her business, scientific, and artistic acumen to digital challenges in healthcare. She is a frequent keynote speaker, panelist, consultant, and adviser at international and national venues. Monica holds BA degrees in Psychology and French, and a MA and PhD in Cognitive Science, all from Johns Hopkins University, a Certificate of Art in Photography from Maryland Institute College of Art, and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She has been a keynote speaker, committee member, session co-chair, and presenter since 2015 for the Society of Imaging Science and Technology’s (IS&T) International Human Vision & Electronic Imaging Conference (HVEI). She inaugurated her newest course on the integration of cognitive science and the arts in artificial intelligence research and design for IS&T’s Electronic Imaging 2018 Symposium in January. Monica has been recognized as a “particularly imaginative polymath” by the Imagination Institute based at University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center and was a recent 2018 fellow at the Salzburg Global Seminar to address the biggest challenges facing our future.



Lama Nachman
Intel Fellow and the director of the Anticipatory Computing Lab in the Intel Labs organization - Intel Corporation
Her research is focused on context-aware and proactive computing. Nachman is creating technologies that can gain a deep understanding of people through sensing and sense-making, then act on that context to help them in many aspects of their lives. She leads a team of researchers developing sensing systems, algorithms and applications to enable these compelling experiences and transfers those technologies to various Intel business units, where they can have a positive impact on future Intel products.Nachman first joined Intel in 1996, then left in 1999 to hold senior engineering roles at Weave Innovations Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Ubicomp Inc. She resumed her Intel career in 2003 to work on wireless sensor networks. As a researcher in the Intel Labs iMote program, she focused on developing next-generation self-organizing sensor network nodes and deploying those technologies in commercial and industrial settings. Subsequently, Nachman managed the sensing and context team, where she led researchers developing sensing and inference capabilities for proactive health monitoring and deploying those technologies with patients in collaboration with physicians. She has served as director of the Anticipatory Computing Lab since 2009.One of the most notable achievements of Nachman's career is an Intel collaboration with Professor Stephen Hawking. Beginning in 2012, she led a team of researchers who developed a new software platform and sensing system to help Hawking communicate. Subsequently, she also led the effort to take that technology to the open source community, enabling people with disabilities worldwide to communicate using limited input and live as independently as possible.Nachman holds bachelor's and master's degree in computer engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She serves on multiple program committees in the areas of ubiquitous computing and wireless sensor networks, including SenSys, MobiSys, UbiComp and Percomp. She has more than 30 publications and 30 patents in the areas of ubiquitous computing, wireless sensor networks and context awareness, with many additional patents pending. She was named an Intel Fellow in 2017.

Nancy Zayed
CTO and Co-Founder - MagicCube


Nancy Zayed, is founder and Chief Technology Officer of MagicCube, a digital commerce security start-up that is backed by Visa, Epic Ventures and Bold Capital Partners. Nancy is an advocate of women in STEM careers and is an example in this area via her many leadership roles, including Head of Platform Development at Cisco Systems, leading the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) mobile technology at Palm, and through 10+ years at Apple in technical leadership roles. At Apple, she helped secure the company’s second Emmy for Primetime Engineering due to the company’s efforts and impact on the tv industry. Nancy holds a Master’s of Science in Software Management from Carnegie Mellon University

Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan
CEO and Co-Founder - Drawbridge


Under Kamakshi’s leadership, Drawbridge is using large-scale AI and machine learning technologies to build democratized solutions for consumer-friendly identity. The company’s technology is driving the intersect between mar-tech and other categories with applications including advertising, personalization, content management, product recommendations, authentication, and risk detection.Kamakshi received her PhD in Information Theory and Algorithms from Stanford University, and has been named one of Business Insider’s “Most Powerful Women in Advertising” for five consecutive years. She received the 2015 Women of Vision ABIE Award for Technology Entrepreneurship from the Anita Borg Institute, was one of the San Francisco Business Times’ Most Admired CEOs of 2016, and was recently named a 2017 Mar-Tech Trailblazer by AdWeek.The company was recognized by CNBC’s annual Disruptor 50 list of groundbreaking companies, named one of CB Insights Most Promising Artificial Intelligence Companies, and has been included on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies in America for the past two years.

Cheryl Maletich
VP of Distribution System Operations - ComEd


As Vice President of DSO for ComEd, Cheryl is Responsible for operational oversight and development of business strategy for ComEd’s Distribution System Operations Organization (DSO), which includes the Operations Control Center (OCC), Emergency Preparedness, and Distribution Testing.ComEd is an energy delivery subsidiary of Exelon Corporation and one of the largest utilities in the United States. Headquartered in Chicago, ComEd provides service to approximately 3.8 million customers across northern Illinois, or about 70% of the state’s population.Exelon Corporation is the nation's leading competitive energy provider, with approximately $24.9 billion in annual revenues. The Exelon family of companies participates in every stage of the energy business, from generation to competitive energy sales to transmission to delivery.Exelon's family of companies represents every stage of the energy value chain. Exelon's six utilities deliver electricity and natural gas to approximately 10 million customers in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania through its Atlantic City Electric, BGE, ComEd, Delmarva Power, PECO and Pepco subsidiaries. Exelon Generation is one of the largest competitive U.S. power generators and has approximately 32,700 megawatts of nuclear, gas, wind, solar and hydroelectric generating. And Constellation provides energy products and services to approximately 2 million residential, public sector and business customers, including more than two-thirds of the Fortune 100.



Penny Baldwin
VP Marketing - Qualcomm
Penny Baldwin is a senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. In her role, Baldwin leads the company’s marketing efforts worldwide, spanning corporate communications, brand management, product marketing, digital and social marketing, content and creative, thought leadership, positioning and narratives, insights, and analytics.Before joining Qualcomm, Baldwin was vice president and general manager of Intel Global Brand Management & Reputation, responsible for leading all facets of the Intel brand worldwide. In addition, she oversaw Intel partner marketing (including worldwide oversight of the Intel Inside program) and all marketing strategy and execution in support of the New Technology Group which includes VR, merged reality, drones, head and wrist worn wearables, AI, and Intel's 360-degree Replay technology.Baldwin is a seasoned marketing professional with 30+ years of in-depth expertise spanning agency leadership of Madison Avenue agency brands, global consumer marketing, and brand management for Yahoo!, CMO of global security company McAfee, and global brand management, partner marketing, and new technology group marketing for Intel. She is an inspirational leader of marketing and communications teams, has extensive international marketing experience and is deeply conversant across the full spectrum of marketing disciplines requiring global integration and optimization.Baldwin attended San Francisco State University and studied marketing.



Tess Posner
Executive Director - AI4ALL
Tess is a social entrepreneur focused on increasing equity and inclusion in the tech economy. As Executive Director of AI4ALL, she is creating pathways for underrepresented K-12 students to chart a future in the artificial intelligence field through education programs at top universities across North America. Before joining AI4ALL, she was Managing Director of TechHire at Opportunity@Work, a national initiative launched out of the White House to increase diversity and inclusion in the tech economy, where she oversaw the network of 72 cities, states and rural areas and 1300+ companies implementing the TechHire model. Prior to joining Opportunity@Work, Tess built and ran Samaschool, a social enterprise part of the SamaGroup that equips low-income people to find work in the digital economy. Tess grew the program from a pilot in San Francisco in 2013 to international adoption, now with over a dozen diverse locations from New York City to rural Arkansas and in East Africa and launched an online training platform, now serving 15,000 students in 70+ countries. Samaschool’s approach to giving low-income populations 21st century skills to tap into the digital economy led it to be named one of the “13 most innovative schools in the world†by Business Insider, featured in TechCrunch, FastCompany and receive funding from organizations such as the Tipping Point Community, JPMorgan Chase, the California Endowment and the Robin Hood Foundation. Prior to Samaschool, Tess led the employment and education programs at First Place for Youth, a nationally-recognized model that helps foster youth find housing, get their first job, and stay in school. Before First Place, she managed programs that taught competitive debate as a literacy and empowerment tool in underserved public schools in New York City. Tess holds a master's degree from Columbia University School in Social Enterprise Administration and a bachelor’s in liberal arts.



Sarah Granger
Author - The Digital Mystique
"Sarah Granger is an award-winning digital media innovator and author of The Digital Mystique: How the Culture of Connectivity Can Empower Your Life — Online and Off. She has more than 25 years experience building technology and media ventures and her writing has reached millions of readers around the world.Online since age nine, Sarah launched her first digital media endeavor at age fourteen – a community bulletin board system accessible only by modem in the early days of the Internet. She officially began her career working as a network security engineer for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory before moving to the heart of Silicon Valley where she developed expertise in IT, consumer Internet software, civic tech, and digital content.A serial entrepreneur, Sarah founded three companies: bComfy, an innovative online software model for ergonomics, SFBayStyle, an online magazine that reached a half million readers, and Leading in Digital, a digital media strategy firm, where she directed content for dozens of organizations and trained hundreds of leaders on digital strategy. She also served in management roles at venture funded startups BlogHer (acquired by SheKnows), Artloop, and NDA (acquired by Interliant).Her articles have been published in IEEE Spectrum, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Air & Space Power Journal, Boing Boing, The Huffington Post, and The San Francisco Chronicle at SFGate.com. She also contributed chapters to Diplomacy, Development and Security in the Information Age and Ethical Hacking, and she edited five books on digital government, mobile security, cryptography and biometrics.A frequent speaker, Sarah has been featured at South by Southwest Interactive, Stanford University’s Innovation Journalism, Startup Women Forum: Russia, Technovation, Exceptional Women in Publishing, and California Leadership Forum. Find her at sarahgranger.com or on Twitter @sarahgranger."

Olivia Gann
Mechanical Engineer at Google


Olivia is a Mechanical Engineer on Google's Pixel Product Design team. She has worked in consumer electronics product design since graduating from Northwestern University in 2013 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Design/Manufacturing. She is particularly interested in using creative, open-ended problem-solving skills to design technical solutions for very small parts that need to fit into very small spaces. In her free time, she loves to run, make jewelry, and perform stand-up comedy.

Sunny Faronbi
President - Rehoboth Consulting, Inc.


"A respected business coach and speaker, Sunny Faronbi’s professional experience of more than25 years across 4 continents has provided him with a wealth of knowledge that he continues todraw from.Trained as an engineer and project manager, Sunny began to learn what it takes to be a leaderwhen he started leading teams of engineers and other professionals on projects acrossinternational boundaries. As a project manager, he realized that he needed to improve hiscommunication and leadership skills. His search led him to find the strong connections betweenemotional intelligence skills and leadership behaviors. As he learned and honed these skills,Sunny began to see positive changes in his professional relationships. With his growth in theseareas, others started asking for his counsel in the areas of leadership, personal developmentand professional relationship building.As a result, Sunny developed the passion to coach, mentor, teach, write and speak aboutleadership, communication and building trust within teams. He started Rehoboth Consulting,Inc. in 2009 as a platform for speaking, coaching and training on leadership and emotionalintelligence. Sunny’s experience includes the Service, Technology, Manufacturing and Food &Beverage industries. He has worked with companies such as John Deere, Siemens, Heinekenand Anheuser-Busch.Sunny holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ibadanand a Master of Engineering Management degree from Washington University in St. Louis. He’san IEEE Senior Member, a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) and a ProjectManagement Professional (PMP) credential holder since June 2006. Sunny is a certifiedEmotional Intelligence coach and also a Coach and Speaker with The John Maxwell Team.He is known as an engaging speaker and has received excellent reviews from his audiences."

Lynette Crane
Founder & CEO - Quiet Brilliance Consulting LLC


"Lynette Crane, MA, is a Minneapolis-based mentor to introvert CEOs, an acclaimed national speaker, corporate trainer, executive coach and author, and Founder of Quiet Brilliance Consulting LLC.Trained in psychology, she has more than 30 years' experience in her field.An introvert herself, she and her company help “quietly brilliant “ people (aka introverts) shine as entrepreneurs or employees by focusing on their natural introvert strengths to develop the social confidence skills they need to bring their valuable contributions to light and to the world – without becoming extroverts!Quiet Brilliance Consulting also helps smart companies who are looking everywhere for leadership and innovation recognize the treasure they may already have within their workforce, and unlock the full revenue-boosting potential of these SMEs (subject matter experts) to drive innovation, turbocharge collaboration and retain top talent in an increasingly competitive market.Lynette holds a BA in Psychology from Stanford University, and an MA from the University of California at Riverside. Please provide a short biography highlighting experience and information relevant to the proposal."



Emily Nichols-Mitchell
CEO and Executive Coach - Accelerations Group
Emily Nichols-Mitchell is quickly becoming one of the leading go to’s for expert advice on owning your executive space and getting your voice heard with a powerhouse personal brand. Emily is the founder of Accelerations Group, a talent management and executive coaching firm that helps minorities, women executives, emerging leaders discover, fine tune and position themselves to lead courageously, confidently and boldly. Her clients include CEOs of small businesses, and leaders of global Fortune 500 corporations, nonprofit organizations and government agencies. Emily has served in a wide range of line and executive positions for companies such as Eli Lilly, PSEG, Suez, and S&P Global. Her unique perspective and leadership brand is the result of her rigorous academic training and corporate successes in talent management, sales and marketing, branding, communications, and strategic planning. Her career is marked by improved operating efficiencies, increased customer satisfaction, team advancement and staff development.



Rosa Ciprian
Electrical Engineering Manager, Omron Adept Technologies Inc
Rosa Ciprian is currently an electrical engineering manager at Omron Adept Technologies, the Robotics Division of Omron Corporation, where she leads the electrical engineering team.Prior to Omron, Dr. Ciprian held senior electrical engineering positions at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Diversified Technologies where her research & development activities focused on power electronics and power conversion.Rosa Ciprian received her Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA in 2007, she received her B.Sc Electronics Engineering degree from Potificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, Lima-Peru.



Casey Schulz
Electrical Engineering Manager, Omron Adept Technologies Inc
Casey Schulz is a Systems Engineer at Omron Adept Technologies (OAT). She currently leads the engineering and design verification testing for a new mobile robot.Prior to OAT, Casey worked at several Silicon Valley startups, a biotech consulting firm, and the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Labs. Her focus is the development of new robotics technologies to better society.Casey received her masters in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA in 2009 by doing research in biologically inspired mobile robotics with a grant from the National Science Foundation. She received her bachelors in mechanical engineering from Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, CA in 2008 by building a proof-of-concept urban search and rescue mobile robot.Casey enjoys sharing her passion for robotics and technology through outreach workshops for young girls and other under-represented minorities in STEAM

Anna Segal
Electrical Engineering Manager, Omron Adept Technologies Inc


Anna Segal is currently a Quality Engineer at Omron Adept Technologies, the Robotics Division of Omron Corporation, where she is responsible for Quality Assurance of design, manufacturing and post-delivery of mobile robots.Prior to Omron, Anna worked as a Quality Engineer in Semiconductor Robotics company and Aerospace companies. She has been providing Quality Engineering support for complex systems which combined mechanical, electrical and software elements. Her focus was in improving processes and products driven by product performance data analysis.Anna Segal received her B.S.c degree in Quality Engineering in 2008 from Technion, Israeli Institute of Technology, Israel. She has also received her M.B.A in 2012 from Lincoln University, Oakland, CA.

Karina Bond
Electrical Engineering Manager, Omron Adept Technologies Inc


Karina Bond is currently a software engineering manager for Fixed robots at Omron Adept Technologies, the Robotics division of Omron cooperation, where she leads a team of embedded software engineers.Prior to Omron, Karina worked as a senior software engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where she worked on several imaging projects from computed tomography to infra-red imaging to gamma-ray imaging. Earlier on in her career, Karina developed software at Intel and GE Healthcare for wireless communications applications.Karina received a Masters in Electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2002. She received her B. Sc. in Electrical engineering from the University of Mumbai in 2000.

Dawn Roe
Director, Executive Education at University of Washington Bothell


Dawn L. Roe is currently Director of Executive Education at the University of Washington Bothell where she works with businesses to develop and deliver custom educational programs for their employees. Prior to that, she was Director of Executive Education for New York University, Abu Dhabi, where she established the Office of Executive Education and developed and delivered education programs for businesses in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. In total, programming generated revenues amounting to $3.2 million in the first year and a half.Ms. Roe has over 25 years of professional and managerial experience in human resources, performance management, coaching, training, employee and leadership development, consulting, marketing, and sales with global corporations, post-secondary institutions, and government entities. She has worked in a variety of industries including retail, aerospace, manufacturing, engineering, consumer packaged goods, enterprise and wireless software, semiconductors, telecommunications, advertising & marketing, consulting, healthcare, and education. In addition to her regular day job, Ms. Roe spent over ten years teaching general business, marketing, communications, leadership, and human resource courses for U.C. Berkeley Extension. At the University of Washington Bothell, she currently teaches Human Resource Strategy in the MBA program.Ms. Roe holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California and an M.B.A. in Marketing, with Distinction, from National University. She is a certified executive coach and training facilitator, an Achieve Global certified instructor, and a Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) certified facilitator.



Brittany Sickler
Outreach and Partnership Strategist, Office of Innovation U.S. Small Business Administration
Brittany Sickler serves as outreach, training, and partnership strategist for the SBA’s Office of Investment and Innovation. Her primary duties support the advancement of the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/ STTR) programs, which enable a diverse range of small businesses to explore their technological potential and profit from its commercialization. She focuses on support organizations across the US who work with potential applicants, and oversees initiatives such as the SBIR Train the Trainer as well as the SBIR Road Tour, which brings together Program Managers from the participating Federal Agencies for face to face meetings with entrepreneurs, and will stop in 18 states during 2018. She also manages the Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program, which provides $3 million annually to 21 states seeking to build and grow the pipeline of women and socially/economically disadvantaged individuals working on next generation technologies, and breakthrough ideas.Sickler spent over three years in SBA’s North Dakota District Office as an Economic Development Specialist, building and strengthening connections throughout the region, particularly with grassroots startup networks and rural communities. She served as Special Advisor in SBA’s Office of Entrepreneurial Development, advancing strategic initiatives and coordinating SBA’s first Virtual Conference for Resource Partners.Prior to SBA, she was a Peace Corps Volunteer and Volunteer Leader in Guatemala in the Sustainable Community Tourism program, a combination of economic development and environmental conservation. She was a Masters International Fellow, completing a Master’s in International Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University. Sickler also holds degrees in Business Administration and Spanish from Indiana Wesleyan University. Her career in economic development started in Southern Florida with microlender ACCION USA, providing small business loans to individuals who could not access traditional credit.Her community work includes organizing Techstars Startup Weekends, the last of which was in November 2017 at Gallaudet University and was the first deaf-inclusive event in the network. She volunteers with Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) activities, and is the co-founder of GROUP THINK Fargo, a platform for social change



Magdalena Jaworowicz
Quality Engineer at Omron Adept Technologies Inc
Magdalena Jaworowicz has over 10 years of experience planning and executing communications for international engineering firms, currently works as a Senior Communication Coordinator at Omron Adept Technologies (OAT).Communication is her profession but also area research interests – she has PhD and M.B.A degree in marketing and public relations.Magdalena is a natural born educator – she is MBA Lecturer, Author of 5 books, Member of Program Board of diverse Business Schools and Universities.She is a change and challenge oriented pioneer spirit with ability to motivate others, what she does as a certified coach and TEDx public speaking trainer.



Farhin Ali
Neurofeedback & Board of Directors, Blockchain and Crypto Education Network (BCEN)
Farhin promotes emerging technologies. Beginning a career as an electrical engineer in the welding & motor industry she has experience with a wide variety of fields. Farhin specialties include business startup, health & wellness (neurofeedback & research) and blockchain. Farhin co-founded BCEN (www.BCEN.io.), a nonprofit to connect, develop and accelerate education on blockchain and digital ledger technologies. BCEN originally started as a meetup by Farhin to develop much-needed educational resources on blockchain when her highschool age son wanted to build a mining computer. As President and a member of the board, she is responsible for steering the BCEN mission to democratize knowledge for the masses with affordable learning opportunities. BCEN prioritizes underrepresented individuals in tech and finance to ensure an inviting and inclusive environment at bimonthly presentations and tech events. Farhin is also co-founder of Frisco Neurofeedback, which uses a number of advanced technologies to provide drug-free, nonmedical interventions to decrease symptoms associated with ADHD, anxiety, insomnia, PTSD and mood disorders. Frisco Neurofeedback offers services, rentals, education & engages in research. The company is currently embarking on research on the effects of neurofeedback on symptoms of Dysautonomia/POTS/EDS. Both neurofeedback and blockchain technologies are on parallel paths of disrupting their respective industries by providing unprecedented outcomes, efficiency and individual empowerment. Farhin cherishes her role in the exploration of these technologies for the advancement of humanity.

Gregg Lemler
Vice President, Electric Transmission Pacific Gas and Electric Company


Gregg Lemler is vice president of Electric Transmission Operations for Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). He is responsible for operating the electric transmission grid, a system consisting of over 18,600 miles of electric transmission line (60kV to 500kV) and 960 transmission and distribution substations throughout Northern and Central California. His current responsibilities include providing leadership and strategic direction for PG&E’s transmission business, the company’s state infrastructure program, the NERC CIP standards program, and PG&E’s competitive transmission and energy storage businesses. His responsibilities were recently expanded to include the company’s emergency preparedness/response program and executing the electric vehicle charging network programs.Lemler is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in the utility sector. He’s worked for Fluor (a global engineering and construction company) and throughout his career with PG&E, Lemler has served in various senior level leadership positions supporting the company’s power generation, gas and electric businesses.Lemler serves on the Board of Directors for the North American Transmission Forum (NATF), WIRES (an industry trade association), and HomeAid (a nonprofit organization supporting the homeless). He is also PG&E’s member representative on the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC – a FERC regional entity) and Peak Reliability (the Reliability Coordinator for the western interconnection).Lemler is a registered engineer in the state of California and holds his bachelor degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He also holds a MBA from California State University, Fresno and is a graduate of the executive program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth Colleg

Danielle Griffith
Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff Embedded Processing - Texas Instruments
Danielle Griffith has been with Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas since 2003 and is a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in the Connected MCU business unit. She develops circuits and techniques for reducing cost, power consumption, and circuit board area for wireless connectivity products that support standards such as Bluetooth Low Energy and Zigbee. Her current focus areas are low power oscillators and MEMS circuitry. She has published >40 papers, most of them in IEEE journals or conferences. She has written a book chapter titled “Synchronization Clocks for Ultra-Low Power Wireless Networks” which was published by Springer as a part of the book “Ultra-Low-Power Short-Range Radios”. Danielle holds 16 issued US patents and has given multiple university and IEEE conference tutorial and workshop sessions. She was a member of the IEEE RFIC Technical Program Committee for conferences years 2014 and 2015, and has been a member of the IEEE International Solid State Circuits Conference Technical Program committee since conference year 2015. Danielle received the B.S.E.E. and M.Eng. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge in 1996 and 1997, respectively.



Sreenivasan Koduri (KK)
TI Fellow
Sreenivasan Koduri (KK) leads the technology and competitive assessment strategy for Texas Instruments’ Analog organization. He is recognized in the semiconductor industry for his technical leadership and innovation in electronic packaging and miniaturization. KK holds 52 granted U.S. patents and several international patents. More than 100 billion semiconductor units are shipped every year that use one or more of KK’s patented technologies. These units enable a wide range of devices in the personal electronics, industrial equipment, communications/Internet infrastructure, automotive, medical and military markets. There is hardly an individual who is not benefiting in some way by KK’s technologies every day!KK holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Kumaraguru College of Technology, and received his Masters and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University. After starting his professional career at Texas Instruments in 1993, KK received his MBA and Masters in Finance degrees from the University of Texas at Dallas. KK also serves as the Chair for Southern Methodist University’s (SMU) Electrical Engineering Executive Board where he is helping to redefine student development and education, and prepare students for future professional careers.
Tuesday Speakers



Sheila Armitage
Principal at The Wind Horse Journey
Dr. Sheila Armitage has worked and consulted internationally for Fortune 10-500 companies in the healthcare, hi-tech and government sectors for over twenty years on large-scale training, change, strategy, collaboration, leadership and transformation projects. Noticing increased levels of organizational stress, talent turnover and other adverse business impacts, she researched and developed a resilience model, assessment and program to transform stress into faster recovery and performance. Her presentation was well-received by an international audience at South by Southwest. Global engineers were hungry for insights, stating that they were experiencing high staff burnout. They reported that they learned some practical tools and conversation starters.She combines experiential learning with neuroscience, applied to business projects for measurable results.



Janel Joseph
Principal at J.E. Joseph Consulting
Janel Joseph, principal, is a Business Consultant and an Executive Coach with over 25 years of global experience working with leadersto get results. Janel has collaborated and coached leaders on aligning talent to strategy, culture change,organization development, facilitating solutions through strategic sessions and targeted leadership development. She has experience at Fortune 500 firms in consumer electronics, computer software/hardware, personal computers, retail, services, manufacturing and aerospace. In addition, she has experience in semiconductor, health care, non-profits and the public sector. Her straight forward approach to collaborating and finding solutions is thoughtful, innovative and helpful.Janel’s passion is helping leaders define individual success and build high-trust environments. Her work has evolved to include neuroscience based behavioral techniques, evidence-based resilience practices, and the useof breathing and yoga to create sustainable changes.Janel earned an M.S. degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Kansas State University and a B.S.degree in Psychology from Colorado State University. Janel is a certified coach through the International CoachFederation. She is Adjunct Faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership and has certifications in a number of behavioral assessments including the Hogan, MBTI, DISC, 5 Behaviors of a Team, and many other cognitive andbehavioral assessments. She has participated as a volunteer Board member and as a mentor for non-profit organizations.



Myra Nawabi
Executive Director and Board Member, Menina Kaj Femme Inc Senior Project Engineer, Lockheed Martin Space System
Myra is an exceptional leader and role model. She has dedicated her career to help women increase their self confidence by creating safe and supportive communities for women globally.Myra works with rocket scientists at Lockheed Martin to build next generation space equipment; yet finds time to give back to the community with engaged participation. A Silicon Valley Business Journal Woman of Influence Congressional Honoree for 2016, Myra also takes pride in being a loving mom to a budding lawyer.Before joining MKF on its Board, Myra facilitated the largest Lean In Circle in North California to enable women create an environment for mutual growth and success.At MKF, Myra spearheads the Women in STEM program which works to nurture and grow the intellectual, economic and social potential of women. Myra also leads the charge of executing a behavior science working group for gender behavior research within the program. This group works to define and create solutions for gender bias using elements of behavior science. Myra is responsible for creating an ecosystem where the best investors, thought leaders and technology executioners become enablers of a social change for enabling women to realize their own potential.Myra holds a BA in Liberal Studies and a MS in Educational Leadership from California State University, East Bay, with minors in Mathematics and History and options in Early Childhood Development and Urban Teacher Leadersh.

James Lukaszewski
Chairman at The Lukaszewski Group


James (Jim) E. Lukaszewski (Loo-ka-SHEV-skee) is one of America’s most visible corporate go-to people for senior executives when there is trouble in the room or on the horizon. As America’s Crisis Guru®, Lukaszewski is known for his ability to help executives look at problems from a variety of sensible, constructive and principled perspectives. He has spent his career counseling leaders of all types who face challenging situations that often involve conflict, controversy, community action or activist opposition. He is known for taking a business approach rather than traditional PR strategies by teaching clients to take highly focused, ethically appropriate action. He is the very model of a trusted strategic advisor. Lukaszewski’s principal role is helping leaders in organizations large and small in literally every standard industrial classifications (SIC), for-profits, non-profits, government, military, private and public organizations. He provides personal coaching and executive recovery advice for executives in trouble or facing career-defining problems and succession or departure issues. He is the author of “Why Should The Boss Listen To You, with 7 Disciplines of Trusted Strategic Advisor”, Jossey-Bass 2009 and has devoted much of his career to teaching, coaching, and training those who advise and counsel leaders. His goal is to help these individuals, especially women, succeed in having the influence, access and impact they seek, and deserve.Lukaszewski has written 13 books and hundreds of articles and monographs. He has lectured at the corporate, college and university level and has earned many professional recognitions in his field. Corporate Legal Times once listed him as one of 28 experts to call when “All Hell Breaks Loose.” Lukaszewski currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with his wife, Barbara, and is an avid audio book listener, writer and continues to serve as pro bono counsel for many non-profit organizations.

Candy Barone
CEO at You Empowered Strong, LLC


"Candy Barone (the ""Pull-No-Punches Accountability Powerhouseâ€), CEO of You Empowered Strong, is a leadership development expert, trainer and executive coach, as well as an international speaker and Amazon best-selling author. She is a catalyst and change agent who works with executives and emerging leaders to help bring “heart†back to leadership while feeding the soul of their business. With nearly 20 years in corporate, combined with a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering, certification as a Six Sigma Black Belt, and MBA, she is a master at building exceptional, high-performing teams, maximizing and leveraging ROI, growing emerging leaders, creating metrics for greater accountability, and catapulting individuals to achieve explosive growth. Candy has delivered her message and leadership training into companies such as GE Healthcare, Clabber Girl, Nothwestern University, Texas Tech, Northwestern Mutual, Austin Water Designs, to name just a few. She was named a 2014-15 VIP Woman of the Year by the National Association of Professional Women, was recipient of the 2015 Public Speakers Association Local Collaborator Award, and was nominated as a 2015 Profile in Power Central Texas Woman of Influence. Candy also has been showcased in CNN, The Austin Statesman, Austin Business Journal, Be the Boss Magazine, OffBeat Business Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, ciLiving TV, Femmes Under 40 Magazine, along with numerous radio shows and podcasts. In addition, she serves as a call leader for the Evolutionary Business Council, a Partnering Director for the Public Speakers Association, is a member of the Good Deed Society, and volunteers within her community."

Sarah Hassaine
Senior D&I Specialist at Qualcomm


Sarah is on the Global Inclusion & Diversity team at Qualcomm where she helps with strategy building, program implementation, and leads conference engagement. She has worked in both the private and non-profit sector, specializing in program strategy and design, process improvement, marketing and communications, and community development. Prior to Qualcomm, Sarah was on the Strategic Recruiting Team at Amazon, where she also managed the engagement strategies at conferences worldwide, as well as for internal events like technical talks, open houses and summits. She also managed processes related to candidate experience. Sarah spent the first part of her professional career in Washington DC, where she cultivated strong experience in business and web consulting for international development focused companies and then moved into the non-profit sector designing journalist and media training programs for implementation in the Middle East/North African region. After her Bachelors, she spent a year doing socio-economic work in refugee camps in Lebanon and later spent a year in Saudi Arabia leading a women’s organization focusing on skill-building and professional development. Sarah is a native of San Diego and obtained her Bachelor’s in International Relations from the University of California, San Diego, and her Master’s in Public Policy from George Washington University. Outside of the office, Sarah teaches English to Syrian refugees, dances salsa, and is addicted to her passport and travels as much as possible.



Reine Abbas
Co-Founder/Founder at WixelStudios/SpicaTechAcademy
"With more than fifteen years in the gaming industry and eleven years in higher education,I founded Wixel Studios in 2008 with Ziad Feghali and Karim Abi Saleh. It was the first Indie gaming company in Lebanon and one of the first in the Middle East.Under my leadership, Wixel studios raised equity funds from 2 Lebanese high profile investors to create our products for the international market.I founded Spica Tech Academy for kids and teens to target education in 2014, the fundamental and most important pillar in the gaming industry. The project is lead by game veterans and educators, with the professional support of Wixel Studios.Spica Tech aims at teaching kids (5+), teenagers and university young adults game development as a way to reshape Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math. Alongside my Wixel role, I’m a tutor and advisor for some of the most talented Lebanese students in two major private universities in Lebanon, Balamand (ALBA) and the Holy Spirit University (USEK) in which I created the animation curriculum for the multimedia MA students.Honors and Awards- Winner of the WIT Women in Technology Award 2010- Speaker at TEDx Beirut 2011- Selected one of The top 20 Lebanese entrepreneurs by executive magazine- Winner of the WOW award for artistic expressions 2013 (6th New Arab Woman Forum)- Selected one of the most 5 powerful women in gaming by inc.com in 2013- Selected one of 25 Awesome Women in Gaming in 2014- Selected one of Top 10 High Profile Women in Video Games in 2014- Selected one of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Arab Women in 2014- Selected one of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Arab Women 2015 by arabianbusiness.com http://www.arabianbusiness.com/the-100-most-powerful-arab-women-2015-583884.html?itemid=583873- Winner Of the MITEnterpriseForumPanArabRegion competition 2017"



Terri Mead
IT Consultant / Angel Investor at Solutions2Projects, LLC
Terri Hanson Mead is President of Solutions2Projects, LLC, a consulting company that provides IT strategy and IT compliance services in the life sciences space in addition to expert witness consulting services. She is an active angel investor and former Vice President of Sand Hill Angels, regularly advises startups and in her spare time, flies helicopters. She recently launched her podcast called Piloting Your Life where she interviews people who have chosen not to be victims of their circumstances and have, instead, chosen to be the pilots in their own lives. She is passionate about supporting, and advocating for, female founders and investors.



Maja Vukovic
Research Manager and Scientist at IBM Research
Dr. Maja Vukovic is a Research Manager and Scientist at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center at Yorktown Heights, NY. Maja's research expertise is in AI for Cloud and Service Management. Maja is IEEE Senior Member. Maja is an IBM Master Inventor, with over 100 patents filed, and also has over 80 publications published at top international conferences and journals. Maja is a Member of IBM Academy of Technology. Maja has pioneered the area of enterprise crowdsourcing and has received several IBM corporate awards for her contributions to the business through innovative technical and scientific solutions, including the work on API Economy. Maja is an active member of research community, having served on TPC of many conferences, such as, IEEE SCC, IEEE BigData, WWW, HCOMP, etc. Maja has organized a number of internal workshops on enterprise and ubiquitous crowdousring, as well as social web for disaster management.Maja received her PhD from University of Cambridge, UK, for her work on context aware service composition. Beyond her technical work, Maja serves as an advocate for promoting the participation of women in technical disciplines, through volunteering and mentoring.

Chen (Liana) Lin
Ph.D. of Computer Science at North Carolina State University


Chen Lin joined IBM T.J. Watson Research Center as a Research Staff Member in 2018. Chen earned her Ph.D. degree from the Department of Computer Science at NC State University and her Bachelor degree from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Zhejiang Gongshang University, China. Her research primarily focuses on building machine learning and data mining models to solve real life challenges in fields such as education, health care, bioinformatics, and information technology. During her PhD, she developed a framework that automatically generated images reflecting patients’ health status using electronic health records to predict septic shock. Her other research interests include computational linguistic, natural language processing, and computer vision.

Ramune Nagisetty
Senior Principal Engineer at Intel Labs


Ramune Nagisetty is a Senior Principal Engineer in Intel Labs. She currently leads research in tangible computing and systems engineering in the Anticipatory Computing Lab. Ramune earned a BSEE from Northwestern University in 1991 and an MSEE specializing in solid state physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1995. She joined Intel as a rotation engineer in 1995, and spent the next ten years working on process technology and transistor device physics within Intel’s Logic Technology Development group. She was the lead device engineer for Intel’s world class 65 nm technology, taking it from path finding through manufacturing transfer. From 2006-2009 she was the Director of Intel’s Strategic Technology Programs where she worked with other senior technologists and executives to understand opportunities and gaps in Intel’s future technology roadmaps. She has authored nine technical publications and has twelve issued or pending patents related to device physics, high performance process technology, and wearable technology usage models. In 2008 she received the Emerging Leader Award from the Society of Women Engineers.



MG Schanely
"Commanding General 416th Theater Engineer Command"
Major General Schanely’s career in the U.S. Army spans more than three decades. She was commissioned in 1986 through the United States Military Academy at West Point and served on active duty as an Engineer officer for more than seven years, with assignments in Germany and Panama with humanitarian deployments to Honduras, Guyana, Uruguay, and El Salvador. Since transitioning to the U.S. Army Reserve in 1993, she has served in a variety of units and she has commanded at every echelon including Company, Battalion, Brigade and Division.Major General Schanely holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Management from the U.S. Military Academy, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Rochester, a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, and a Master of Arts in Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University. Her awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit (with two Bronze Oak Leaf Clusters), Meritorious Service Medal (with Silver Oak Leaf Cluster), the Army Commendation Medal (with Silver and Bronze Oak Leaf Clusters), the Army Achievement Medal, the Parachutist Badge, and the Jungle Expert Badge.In 2013, Schanely became the U.S. Army’s first Japanese-American female to be promoted to General Officer. She recently became the first female Engineer Officer in the U.S. Army to be promoted to Major General (2-star).In her civilian career, Major General Schanely is the Executive Director of the State University of New York (SUNY) North Country Consortium, a partnership of six SUNY campuses that collaborate to bring a variety of undergraduate and graduate degree programs to Fort Drum and the Northern New York community. She and her husband Steve reside in Black River, New York, and have two grown children, Michael and Teresa.



Fahmida Chowdhury
Program Director in the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) at the US National Science Foundation (NSF)
Dr. Fahmida Chowdhury is a Program Director in the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) at the US National Science Foundation (NSF). Prior to joining NSF in 2008, she was a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA, USA, where she held the W. Hansen Hall and Mary O. Hall Endowed Chair in Computer Engineering. Dr. Chowdhury has been active in IEEE for many years; she served on the editorial boards of two IEEE Transactions: on Control Systems Technology and on Neural Networks. She has served as an elected member of the IEEE Control System Society's Board of Governors, and also on the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society's AdCOM. She was one of the Founding Members and Chair of IEEE Control Systems Society’s “Women in Control” committee. She has remained actively engaged in promoting women in STEM throughout her academic and government career.Her research interests include complex systems modeling and analysis, non-traditional applications of dynamic systems theory, and detection of abnormal conditions (faults) in dynamic systems. She was a Fulbright Scholar in 2001, a Visiting Professor at the Helsinki University of Technology (Finland) in 2004, and a US State Department Embassy Science Fellow in 2013. She has deep interest in international science, technology and educational collaborations, science diplomacy, and serving society through humanitarian technologies and policy-level activities.



Virginia Balcom
Executive in Residence at Venture Labs
Virginia is engineer by training and an innovative marketer by experience. From her early experience in as a new engineer in a government regulated telecommunications company, Virginia had one foot in marketing. Virginia has helped large and small companies bridge from exciting new technologies to products customers want – from Consumable IP at Abatis, acquired by Redback Networks, to affordable supercomputers at OctigaBay, acquired by Cray, to trusted IoT at Sierra Wireless, and most recently simple, shared securely big data at PHEMI. Today, as an Executive in Residence for VentureLabs, a leading business accelerator for tech- and science-based businesses, Virginia helps new ventures bridge the gap between concept and growth. She’s passionate about the need to deliver customer value, and to clearly communicate the vision and the value along the way.

Monique McIntosh
Sr. Environmental Engineer at Applied Materials


Monique McIntosh graduated from Georgia Tech with a PhD in Materials Science andEngineering. She starting at Applied Materials out of college as a Sr. Applications / Process engineer with the Applied Global Services Division. After 10 years she transferred internally to the safety department as a Sr. Environmental Engineer. She is the current president of the Women’s Professional Development Network (WPDN) at Applied Materials, Santa Clara and spearheads intra‐company diversity events and fosters university‐industry relationships via speaker exchanges. Monique is also extremely active in her community through church and family.

Marla Britt
Sr. Technical Program Manager at Applied Materials


Marla Britt Fields received her BS in Chemical Engineering from MIT and came to work forApplied Materials. Marla worked as a senior level process engineer in the Rapid Thermal Processing division for 13 years and then transferred to the Etch Division as a Sr. Technical Program Manager. Marla is a founding officer for the Applied Materials LEAD ‐ Black Employee Network, wasthe president of the Applied Materials Women’s Professional Development Network for 5 years and the 2016 chair of the Corporate Women’s Initiative Consortium of Silicon Valley. Marla is a recipient of the 2014 Top 40 under 40 in Silicon Valley awarded by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and the2015 Top 40 under 40 Minorities in Tech awarded by the Registry Bay Area. Marla is extremely active in the community as a mentor, coach, speaker and volunteer with organizations such as Technovation Challenge, TechBridge, Girl Start, Break Through, 2nd Harvest Food Bank, GreeneScholars Program and Girls on the Run.

Julie Kratz
Founder & CEO at Pivot Point


Julie Kratz is a highly-acclaimed leadership trainer who led teams and produced results in corporate America for nearly two decades. After experiencing her own career “pivot point,†Julie developed a process to help women leaders create their winning career game plan. Focused on promoting gender equality in the workplace and encouraging women with their “what’s next†moments, Julie is a frequent keynote speaker and executive coach.She holds an MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and is a Certiï¬ed Master Coach. Julie is the author of Pivot Point: How to Build a Winning Career Game Plan and ONE: How Male Allies Support Women for Gender Equality.



Ingrid Gavshon
Executive Coach at Gavshon 1 sur 4 Context: BJ2 Gavshon Houlihan Caleshu Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute
Ingrid Gavshon serves as a lecturer at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business in Leadership Communications, Seminar in International Business ( South Africa ) and at UC Berkeley Undergraduate course, Creativity and Leadership. She also teaches at UC Berkeley Executive Education's popular course High Impact Leadership. She is also guest lecturer the Berlin School of Creative Leadership. She is a partner at the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute in charge of International Projects and serves as executive coach and senior training consultant.Ingrid is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has made several documentary films about Nelson Mandela. Ingrid draws on her filmmaking skills integrated with the executive coaching process that helps leaders discover their authentic selves and helps them actualize their vision, dreams and aspirations.Ingrid facilitates programs at a number of international companies, in the USA, South Africa, Asia and the Middle East. These include Mubadala UAE, Dusit Thani Hotel Group, Eastwater Group Thailand, Adobe Systems, Salesforce.com San Francisco, Cisco Systems, Bio-Rad Laboratories, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, and the Peterson /CAT Corporation. She specializes in leading Brand Ambassador programs, which are large-scale culture change projects that empower all employees as they learn to live the company’s values, culture and vision.



Susan Houlihan
Executive Coach at Gavshon 1 sur 4 Context: BJ2 Gavshon Houlihan Caleshu Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute
Susan Houlihan is a communications consultant, executive coach, and electrical engineer who leverages her 15+ years working in engineering and operations in the high-tech sector in Silicon Valley to bring a perspective firmly rooted in business applications to her consulting and coaching work. Susan teaches at business schools including: Lecturer for leadership, coaching and communications in the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business EWMBA/EMBA programs, Instructor at the UC Berkeley School of Data Science, UC Berkeley Coleman Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership, UC Berkeley Center for Executive Education and serves on the Faculty of the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute.A native of Ireland now based in the US, Susan is an experienced cross-cultural communicator, who has worked extensively with individuals and Fortune 500 companies in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Clients include Salesforce.com, Adobe, Facebook, Biorad, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital of Oakland, Cisco Systems, Qualcomm, Peterson CAT, Financial Women of San Francisco, IEEE, UCSF, UC Hastings, Genentech, Novartis, Cypress Semiconductor, McKinsey (Dubai), Fattals (Lebanon), Odgers Bernstein (Russia), Siam Cement (Thailand), and The Berlin School (Germany)



Jennifer Caleshu
Director of Marketing, Facilitator & Executive Coach at Gavshon 1 sur 4 Context: BJ2 Gavshon Houlihan Caleshu Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute
Jennifer Caleshu is a lecturer, facilitator and certified executive coach for programs in leadership, communications, design thinking and innovation. Her coaching work is informed by more than 15 years of leadership in the cultural sector with functional expertise in strategy, marketing and communications, including most recently as Director of Earned Revenue for a museum. She is a member of the professional faculty at the University of California’s Haas School of Business where she teaches in MBA and undergraduate programs as a Lecturer for the core design thinking course Problem Finding / Problem Solving, and Building Trust-Based Relationships, Team Coach for applied innovation consulting course, and Assistant Lecturer for leadership and communications courses. She has also facilitated both leadership and innovation programs through the UC Berkeley Executive Education, including KAUST Saudi Leadership Program, High-Impact Leadership, Leading Strategic Growth, Leading and Managing Globally, Accelerating Change Readiness & Agility and Leading Innovative Change.She is a facilitator and executive coach for the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute, where she facilitates leadership, communications and coaching programs with diverse clients in the US, Thailand and in Singapore.

Nancy Marmolejo
#DeepGenius Firestarter, Coach, Corporate Trainer,Speaker at TalentAndGenius.com


Nancy Marmolejo is an executive coach who teaches leaders, professionals, and entrepreneurs how to tap into their Deep Genius, the hidden strength we all hold that uncovers our next levels of leadership capacity, problem solving, and creativity. As the founder of TalentAndGenius.com, she’s committed the past 15 years to uncovering what makes us great and putting meaning into what we create. Dubbed a “professional paradigm shifter”, Nancy’s been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, Univision, Smart Money, Redbook, as well as many popular podcasts. She recently wrote a book about navigating grief in the world of social media and is working on another about creativity for leaders. Nancy lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her amazing family and a very large orange cat.

Coach Allison
Breast Cancer Thriver / Bestselling Author / Professional Speaker at Health Coach for the Insanely Busy


Breast Cancer Thriver / Bestselling Author / Professional Speaker Coach Allison INHC ® is a health and lifestyle coach, licensed professional civil engineer in California, bestselling author, professional speaker, and cancer survivor. She is certified in Integrative Nutrition and Corporate Wellness. She continues her career as a civil engineer while she coaches.After completing her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering, Coach Allison INHC ® lived a crazy busy corporate life as a licensed civil engineer for about 20 years and thrived under pressure. In her attempts to live her life to the fullest and achieve what she understood as success, she often surpassed human expectations in order to get things done. Sleep, nutrition, and basic selfcare sat on the back burner for much of her corporate career. She became a certified health coach after her victory over a very aggressive breast cancer.Coach Allison INHC ® helps corporate executives and managers with holistic selfcare regimen that leads to optimum performance and anti-cancer lifestyle. She is passionate about helping busy professionals and burned out overachievers find energy and mental clarity, which in turn helps them get more done in less time. Her Whole Systems Approach ® to selfcare, which includes emotional, mental, and physical components, have been highly successful in helping people heal from inside out, achieve better balance, and claim the joy that is rightfully theirs.It’s life-work, not work-life! ®

Karen Catlin
Advocate for women in the tech industry


After spending 25 years building software products, Karen Catlin is now an advocate for women in the tech industry. She’s a leadership coach, a TEDx speaker, and co-author of "Present! A Techie’s Guide to Public Speaking." Formerly, Karen was a vice president of engineering at Macromedia and Adobe.Karen holds a computer science degree from Brown University and serves as an advisor to Brown's Computer Science Diversity Initiative. She’s also on the Advisory Boards for The Women’s CLUB of Silicon Valley, WEST (Women Entering & Staying in Technology), and Women Serve on Boards.In 2015, the California State Assembly honored her with the Wonder Women Tech Innovator Award for outstanding achievements in business and technology and for being a role model for women.



Tina Cheung
Program Manager, Organizational Content & Outreach at Anita Borg Institute
Tina is a Program Manager in the Organizational Transformation team at AnitaB.org.Tina comes to AnitaB.org with diverse program and project management experience as an advocate working with underserved communities on affordable housing, community development, social justice, and access and equity in the decision-making process. She is passionate about technology and its ability to connect people to opportunities, and believes that the builders of technology should reflect the communities that use them.Part of 2018 Technical Executive Forum Organizing Committee.



Anar Simpson
Global Ambassador, Technovation
Anar is a key influencer for Women, Girls and Technology. She is the Global Ambassador forTechnovation - which is building a pipeline of young girls to enter STEM careers which has nowreached over 100 countries. She was appointed as a Deputy to the UN High Level Panel onWomen's Economic Empowerment led this initiative at Mozilla. Anar works with governments,international agencies and technology companies on the digital inclusion of women. In additionshe has been instrumental in the growth, outreach and experience of the US StateDepartment’s TechWomen initiative which empowers, connects and supports the nextgeneration of women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)from Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East with their counterparts in SiliconValley.Anar has a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and a Masters in Communications,University of Calgary and a graduate of Program in Innovation & Entrepreneurship at theGraduate School of Business at Stanford University.Anar has been recognized for her leadership and outstanding contribution to closing the industrygender gap by the University of Calgary as a Distinguished Alumni, UN Women and ITUGEM-Tech Award, GSMA Global Mobile Leadership Award for her leadership and outstandingcontribution to closing the industry gender gap. In 2017 Anar was recognized as a Women ofInfluence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.



Radhika Arora
Sr. Manager, Image Sensor Group (ISG) at OnSemi
Radhika Arora is a Sr. Manager at ON Semiconductor - Image Sensor Group (ISG). She is currently driving the strategy for Autonomous Vehicles at her organization. Prior to that Radhika held a variety of roles in marketing and management at large semiconductor companies as well as her own start-up company. She holds an MS in Electrical Engineering and a BS in Electrical & Computer Engineering from University of Rochester.

Heather Quinn
Description


Heather Quinn has a B.A. in mathematics and physics from Knox College, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University. She has been researching FPGAs for nearly twenty years, including software/hardware codesign issues with integrating FPGAs into traditional computation systems and fault-tolerant space-based FPGA computation. For the last fifteen years she has been focused on radiation effects on the Xilinx Virtex devices as part of the LANL DAPS, Soprano, CFE, MRM, and JAS teams. She has supported by the Air Force Research Laboratory through the FPGA Mission Assurance Center. Her research into the radiation effects on these devices has focused on collecting experimental evidence on how single ionizing particles create multiple-cell single-event upsets that affect the viability of using triple-modular redundancy fault-tolerance methods on FPGAs, and creating tools that estimate the hardness assurance of triple-modular redundant designs implemented on FPGAs. For the last eight years, she has been studying the effect of single-event effects on microprocessors, including research on software resilience. She has created tools that estimate the hardness assurance of triple-modular redundant designs implemented on FPGAs, and developed several software reliability techniques. She has several publications on FPGA and microprocessor research topics and has presented numerous talks at a variety of international workshops and conferences. She is an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science and a Senior Member of the IEEE.

Hanna Makruk
Technical Staff Member/R&D Scientist 4, Los Alamos National Laboratory


Hanna Makaruk came from Warsaw, Poland, where she received a master degree in physics from University of Warsaw, and a PhD in applied science from Polish Academy of Sciences. She worked for 1.5 years for the Polish Academy of Sciences before coming Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), US as a visiting scientist. Her further career relates to LANL, where she started as a postdoc, stayed as a regular scientist, and currently serves as one of the project leaders in the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) super-computing program run by National Nuclear Security Administration (a part of the Department of Energy). Her scientific work started from theoretical and mathematical physics, more recently she has been involved in experimental data analysis and image processing.

Dolores Black
Principle Member of Technical Staff, Sandia National Laboratories


Dolores Black currently works for Sandia National Laboratories in the Radiation Effects Sciences and Applications Center. She moved to Sandia in 2013 and is focused on radiation effects circuit analysis, simulation and modeling. Prior to joining Sandia, Dolores worked for the United States Air Force, Honeywell Defense Avionics, Xilinx and Vanderbilt University. She received her education from the University of New Mexico (BSEE, 1991) and Vanderbilt University (MSEE, 2006, Ph.D., 2011). Her 27 years of experience have covered hardware design, ASIC design, formal validation and verification of ASICs, satellite survivability, fault tolerant computing, and radiation hardening testing and simulation of microelectronics. Dolores began her electronic career as an Airman in the USAF as a technician repairing autopilot, flight control, compass and navigational systems on B-52, KC-135, A7 and F16 aircraft from 1984-1991.



Teri Roberts
Retired from LANL/Owner, teri.tech
Teri is retired from Los Alamos National Laboratory after serving for over eighteen years. With an educational background in computer science and electrical engineering, her work experience covers a diverse spectrum of projects that include data mining in federal and state agencies, network deployed automated testing of nuclear codes, and requirements traceability for a nuclear intelligence application.She is a prolific volunteer who has encouraged and recruited the next generation of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) professionals through various roles in the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge. Through her Bradbury Scientist Ambassador efforts, she has interacted with a wide range of ages, ethnicities, and educational backgrounds in a general public museum setting and with students in New Mexico schools using a self-developed, hands-on, exploratory exhibit that explains how computers work. Also, she supported and mentored a group of young graduate women engineers at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in a summer program aimed at mentoring, retaining and advancing women in engineering leadership positions at LANL.She was the 2008 winner of IEEE Outstanding Leadership and Professional Service Award for Region 6. Teri nominated and supported local women in senior member elevation and in leadership and governance positions in the Los Alamos & Northern New Mexico (LA&NNM) IEEE Section and subordinate Chapters.Teri promoted and helped establish the WIE Affinity Group in Los Alamos. As Section Historian, she acted as the liaison for LA&NNM Section to facilitate use of an IEEE Foundation grant by the Atomic Heritage Foundation, dedicated to supporting the Manhattan Project National Historical Park and capturing the memories of the people who harnesses the energy of the atom.



Lori Risse
Deputy Section Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Lori graduated from Cal State University, Northridge with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. She worked at JPL as a member of the technical staff in Spacecraft Data Systems. Since that time, she has held positions as an Applications Engineer, Project Manager, and Marketing Specialist for a manufacturer of industrial instrumentation. She has also worked for several years as an Account Manager for semiconductor distributors. Rejoining JPL 11 years ago, she now works as a Deputy Section Manager in the Office of Safety and Mission Success, managing a staff of 33 Mission Assurance Managers supporting flight projects. Prior to that Lori held technical group supervisor positions in Component Engineering and Assurance. She was the Mission Assurance Manager for the OCO-3 project. She also worked as a Project Parts Engineer for Grail, OCO-2 and Jason-3. Lori is married and has two sons serving in the United States Air Force.



Dr. Raheleh Dilmaghani
PhD APM S&T, PMW 790 Shore & Expeditionary Integration Program Office
Dr. Raheleh Dilmaghani received her PhD from UCSD in Electrical and Computer Engineering with focus on improving communication with application to emergency response. Dr. Dilmaghani was recruited by SPAWAR System Center, pacific from IBM Watson Research lab where she had extended her work and research in wireless communication and policy-aware service composition with application to coalition scenarios and contributed to Global Technology Outlook. At her current position, she oversees S&T projects and impacts technology Roadmap within the Program Office. Earlier, she led in-house S&T effort on Software Defined networking (SDN) for two years on evaluating SDN to support the Naval warfare communication and control. She served as the Chief Engineer in the Cyber domain on the Cyber TASE program for two years helping assessing various Cyber technologies and acquiring Cyber testing instrumentation. She has expanded her S&T collaboration with DARPA and IARPA serving as SME in Dispersed Computing and secure analytic, and control, VirtUE. She is DAWIA System Engineer level 2 (SPRDE) and COR certified. She has a diverse background in the area of networking and cyber security Science and Technology (S&T). She has proposed and chaired several workshops in the area of next generation of wireless communication and mobile cloud and has served as Technical Committee member with NIST, GlobeCom and Milcom 2015. She is an IEEE Senior member and served as a judge at UCSD Research Expos in 2015 and 2016. She has published in prestigious IEEE and ACM conferences and journals, and holds 11 patents. She has published her recent work on SDN in MILCOM and ICCRTS. She represents Navy at TTCP C3I TP2, a long-standing International organization to cooperate on defense science and network technologies. She has also worked as Power Engineer on protection and control of substations and communication to SCADA. She has mentored several graduate students from Navy Post Grad School and during her work at IBM.

Sharissa Young
Principal Member of Technical Staf at Sandia National Laboratories


Sharissa Young is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. Her 28-year career spans a wide variety of technical domains including materials characterization and failure analysis, environmental restoration and regulatory compliance, energetic materials characterization and component engineering, systems integration and evaluation, systems analysis and independent assessment. She has been a Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP) since 2007 and holds a bachelor of science degree in geology and a master of science degree in Materials Engineering specializing in energetic materials.
Virtual Track



Amy Wettenhall
Ericsson
Holding more than 15 years’ experience, Amy is a senior executive within the Media and ICT sectors.Amy joined Ericsson in 2006 as Commercial and Governance Manager and within 4 years was running the technology division. She served for 5 years as Head of Technology Commercial Management at the BBC and in her current role, Commercial Director, Europe & Latin America at Ericsson, leads the commercial strategy and implementation for the Digital Services Portfolio, which represents 40% of Ericsson's global Digital Services Business, spanning over 100 countries.Amy also holds the role of non-executive Director at TeenTech, was named Women in IT Business Leader of the Year 2016, and in 2017 was named in the Management Today Top 35 under 35 Women in Management list.Amy has a BA in Politics and an MBA from Imperial College London, is single mum to 6 year old Millie and is a regular speaker on women in ICT, both in England and abroad.



Hanna Mauer
Ericsson
Hanna Mauer Sibley is Head of Pre-Sales, Networks and Managed Services in the Customer Unit Northern and Central Europe within Market Area Europe and Latin America at Ericsson. Together with her team extending to 17 countries, Mauer Sibley is engaged in the mission to enable the full value of connectivity, 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) for Ericsson’s customers. This builds on her broad experience and expertise from the telecommunications and ICT industry.During her career at Ericsson, Hanna Mauer Sibley has contributed to creation of the industry-leading mobile broadband solution portfolio. She first started at Ericsson in 1993 and has served in various positions across the US and Europe. Prior to taking up her current position, she headed Network Product Unit responsible for pre-sales and solution design for Business Unit Networks products in the region Western and Central Europe. At Business Unit Radio, she held a position of Head of Mobile Broadband and Technical Sales Support. Earlier, in the Business Unit Networks her positions included Head of Mobile Broadband in Product Area Radio as well as various Product and System Manager roles responsible for mobile broadband products.Hanna Mauer Sibley holds a Master of Science in Engineering, Engineering Physics from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm. She resides in Stockholm, Sweden with her family.



Roz Murray
CEO RPM Management Services LLC
Roz Murray is CEO of RPM Management Services, LLC, a management consultancy delivering strategic planning solutions to the corporate marketplace. Roz is a speaker, consultant and trainer, but her expertise lies in using sound business practices to help clients develop strategies, skills and sensibilities needed to sustain thriving, profitable businesses.



La Tondra Murray
Productivity Coach, Ona Partners, LLC
La Tondra Murray is a productivity coach, speaker and educator with a background in information technology, business and academia. As the President of ONA Partners, LLC she helps individuals leverage their natural talents to do more of what matters most. La Tondra has coached more than 200 individuals in the areas of talent assessment, work-life integration, productivity and emerging leadership. She is a Certified Personal and Executive Coach (CPEC) credentialed by the International Coach Federation (ICF). La Tondra is also a Certified Gallup Strengths Coach, well versed in the StrengthsFinder assessment. As a seasoned facilitator, La Tondra has conducted 50+ workshops for diverse groups of graduate students, faculty and staff employees as well as non-profit and private organizations. La Tondra has ~20 years of leadership experience in large-scale technology-based corporate and higher education environments. She additionally holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering as well as undergraduate degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Linda Stacy
CEO and Founder, LivingBluPrints


"Linda Stacy is a Productivity Specialist who created her proprietary model, The H.O.W. Advantage (TM), to help people, teams, and organizations optimize their workday, their workplace, and their workforce.For more than 15 years Linda has held positions in management consulting serving teams in the support of hundreds of companies, including Fortune 500 and Inc 5000 players.Linda has holds a BA from UC Santa Barbara and an MS from Simmons College."