Emerging Technologies | Better Environment

Session 1A. Energy Generation and Management

Panelists:

"A Changing Energy Landscape" – Debbie Powell, Vice President - Power Generation, Pacific Gas & Electric
" Partnership of the AI community and the power industry towards a more intelligent grid"- Sanam Mirzazad, Technical Leader, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
" Using X-rays to see how Batteries Work" – Michael Toney, Head of Materials Sciences Division, SLAC National Laboratory

Session Chair:

Hongrui Liu, Assistant Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering, SJSU

Session Summary:

Energy is one of the most imperative aspects of the country’s technological progress. Efficient use of energy and its saving is essential for sustainable development. In this session, we have invited Ms. Deborah W. Powell from PG&E to talk about the energy generation and the new challenges and opportunities posed to energy management; Ms. Sanam Mirzazad from EPRI to talk about how AI has been used in power energy industry and the bottlenecks, and Dr. Michael Toney from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to talk about using X-rays to see how Batteries Work to promote sustainable energy materials.

Debbie Powell
Vice President - Power Generation
Pacific Gas & Electric

Debbie Powell is Vice President, Power Generation for Pacific Gas & Electric Company. In this role, she is responsible for the safe, reliable, efficient operation, and licensing of the Utility’s 5400 MW portfolio, consisting of Hydro, Fossil and Renewable generating units. Powell joined PG&E in 2010, and has held leadership positions within the Power Generation and Electric lines of business. Prior to joining PG&E, Powell led the Lower Colorado River Authority’s 425 MW Thomas C. Ferguson Power Plant, as Plant Manager. Powell began her career in the United States Navy and served in a leadership capacity on several combatant ships. Powell has a B.S. in General Science from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Sanam Mirzazad
Technical Leader
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)

Sanam Mirzazad is a Technical Leader at Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). In her current position, she leads the integrated grid activities associated with the EPRI’s artificial intelligence (AI) initiative where she leverages her expertise in closing the gap between the power industry and AI community. Sanam holds a Master’s degree in Power systems from Sharif University of Technology and a Ph.D. in Control systems from The Pennsylvania State University. Before joining EPRI, she worked as a research scientist at Fujitsu labs of America where she worked on multiple projects in smart energy, human-computer interaction, and natural language understanding.

Michael Toney
Head of Materials Sciences Division
SLAC National Laboratory

Michael Toney is head of the Materials Sciences Division and a distinguished staff scientist at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), part of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He is a pioneer in the use of X-ray diffraction and small angle scattering for the determination of molecular and mesoscale structure of organic and polymeric thin films and for the determination of atomic structure of electrode-electrolyte interfaces. His research interests focus on fundamental understanding of phenomena that underlie functioning of electrochemical energy storage and conversion materials.

Emerging Technologies | Increasing Productivity

Session 2A. Machine Learning Applications

Panelists:

- "AI in the Enterprise: Challenges and Opportunities" – Jorjeta Jetcheva, Senior Manager, Accenture
- " Building Domain-Specific Knowledge Bases with Human in the Loop"- Yunyao Li, Senior Research Manager, IBM Research – Almaden
- " Exploring Knowledge Graphs via Natural Language Interfaces" – Fatma Ozcan, Principal Research Staff Member, IBM Research

Session Chair:

Feruza Amirkulova, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, SJSU
Juzi Zhao, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering, SJSU

Session Summary:

AI, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Advanced Analytics are boosting business performance. In this session, we will learn AI applications in enterprise by speakers from leading companies. Ms. Jetcheva from Accenture will share with us the challenges and opportunities in AI in the enterprise. Ms. Li from IBM will describe the Role of AI in enterprise applications. Ms. Ozcan will speak on Exploring Knowledge Graphs via Natural Language Interfaces.

Jorjeta Jetcheva
Senior Manager
Accenture

Jorjeta Jetcheva is a Senior Manager and Distinguished Research Scientist in Artificial Intelligence at Accenture. She is the R&D lead for the Virtual Assistant portfolio within Accenture Operations.

Jorjeta has received multiple innovation and research awards, including top 10 finalist in the Fujitsu Next Generation Product Idea Contest (out of 454) in 2016 for her project "Robo Butler", and the Best Paper Award at SmartGridComm 2014.

She is currently a Board Member for the N2Women organization and serves as its mentoring co-chair. In 1998, Jorjeta co-founded women@scs at Carnegie Mellon.

Jorjeta received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and a B.A. degree in Computer

Yunyao Li
Senior Research Manager
IBM Research - Almaden

Yunyao Li is a Senior Research Manager with IBM Research - Almaden, where she manages the Scalable Knowledge Intelligence department. She is a member of the New Voices program of the American National Academies. She is a Master Inventor and a member of IBM Academy of Technology. Her expertise is in the areas of NLP, databases, human-computer interaction, and information retrieval. Her contributions have resulted in 50+ research publications, 30+ patent filings and recognized by multiple prestigious IBM internal awards.

She received her PhD and master's degrees from the Univ. of Michigan-Ann Arbor and bachelor's degrees from Tsinghua University. She is deeply passionate about improving the diversity for the STEM field and currently leads the Almaden Women's Interest Network Group at IBM.

Fatma Ozcan
Principal Research Staff Member
IBM Research

Fatma Özcan is a Principal Research Staff Member and a senior manager at IBM Almaden Research Center. Her current research focuses on democratizing analytics via NLQ and conversational interfaces to data, platforms and infrastructure for large-scale data analysis, and query processing and optimization of semi-structured data. She has over 17 years of experience in industrial research, and has delivered core technologies into IBM products. She is the co-author of the book "Heterogeneous Agent Systems", and co-author of several conference papers and patents. She serves on program committees of leading data conferences, and editorial boards of journals, as well as NSF panels. She is an elected member of the SIGMOD Executive Committee, and is on the board of trustees for the VLDB Endowment.

Emerging Technologies | Improving Health

Session 3A. Robotics and Medical Devices

Panelists:

"Managing challenges in Product Development Process" – Neeta Mhatre, VP, Program Management Office, New Product Development, Intuitive Surgical
"“Introduction To Collaborative Robots” - Norm Williams, Director of Robotics, Omron Corporation and Mimi Parker, Product Engineer - Robotics, Omron Corporation

Session Chair:

Winncy Du, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, SJSU

Wencen Wu, Assistant Professor, Computer Engineering Department, SJSU

Session Summary:

Robots are intelligent systems that can replace humans to perform various tasks. Today, advanced robots are changing the world around us: from restaurant service to assistive surgery to military mission. The increasing application of robots in medical device has greatly reduced operating costs, improved clinical outcomes, and increased efficiency and accuracy. Experts from two well-known robotics companies, Intuitive Surgical and Omron/Adept Technology, will share their experience on developing da Vinci robots and compliant/intelligent robots, followed by a real robot demonstration.

Neeta Mhatre
VP, Program Management Office, New Product Development
Intuitive Surgical

Neeta is an accomplished medical industry leader with over twenty years of global experience in diverse organizations from startups to large corporations. She joined Intuitive Surgical in Feb 2015 to form the Project Mgmt Office. Neeta was with Siemens for 12 years and had various leadership roles, from Business Head South Asia Cluster to Chief Information Officer within the Siemens Ultrasound Leadership Team, as well as, Senior Director of Product Management for Product, Portfolio & Strategy team at Siemens.

Neeta has an MBA from Santa Clara University and a BS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Bombay, India.

Norm Williams
Director of Robotics
Omron Corporation

Norm Williams is the Director of Robotics for Omron Corporation. Norm is leading Omron’s robotics sales and support for the America’s and his team is responsible for developing and implementing robot solutions that promote harmony between humans and machines. With the introduction of collaborative robots, the adoption of robots working in conjunction with humans is skyrocketing.

With over 25 years of experience in the automation and robotics industry, Norm has focused his career around bringing new technologies to market. From starting and selling automation business to working with start-up robotics companies in Silicon Valley, he has been providing leading technology solutions to companies within the life sciences, semicon/digital, automotive, and food & packaging industries.

Mimi Parker
Product Engineer - Robotics
Omron Corporation

Mimi Parker works with industrial and collaborative robots as a Robotics Product Engineer at Omron. Her work focuses on applications and solutions development for the robot product line and coordinating her tasks with software development engineers, robotics application engineers, service engineers, as well as safety product experts. She is a recent graduate from UC Berkeley with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering where she did her research on exoskeleton design. Her interest in robotics grew while interning as an undergrad at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and prior to that, she worked as a professional audio engineer in Los Angeles. She looks forward to meeting other engineers who are excited about their work!

Emerging Technologies | Better Living

Session 4A. Tech for Good

Panelists:

"Using Artificial Intelligence for Social Good" – Kristin Tolle, Chief Data Scientist, Microsoft Tech for Social Impact
"Getting Virtually Personal: Responsible and Empathetic “Her" for Everyone"-Michelle Zhou, CEO, Juji, Inc.

Session Chair:

Ayca Erdogan, Assistant Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering, SJSU

Session Summary:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are being used to address challenging health, environmental, and social problems. This section introduces two speakers who will discuss the use of AI for social good. Dr. Kristin Tolle will talk about the AI for Good program in Microsoft Philanthropies, and her role in the Tech for Social Impact Team investigating how AI can deliver impact that benefits the world while ensuring right to privacy. Dr. Michelle Zhou will talk about building AI agents who can understand users’ feelings and responsibly guide their behaviors and show initial applications to talent selection, student learning, and user experience research.

Kristin Tolle
Chief Data Scientist
Microsoft Tech for Social Impact

Currently I am the Chief Data Scientist in Microsoft’s Tech for Social Impact team where we design and build cloud-based, AI-enabled solutions for non-profits. I am also a Machine Learning lecturer and Senior Data Scientist at the eScience Institute at University of Washington. I’ve held many leadership positions in Microsoft’s Engineering organization, from Visual Studio to our Artificial Intelligence product team. Most of my career has been in Microsoft Research building and managing research initiatives from biomedical computing, natural user interactions, environmental science and data science. I’m also the co-editor and co-author of the earliest books on big data, The Fourth Paradigm: Data Intensive Scientific Discovery.

Michelle Zhou
CEO
Juji, Inc.

Dr. Michelle Zhou is a Co-Founder and CEO of Juji, Inc., a high-tech startup located in Silicon Valley, specializing in building responsible and empathetic Artificial Intelligence agents that can deeply understand users and guide their behavior based on their psychological characteristics. Prior to starting Juji, Michelle led the User Systems and Experience Research (USER) group at IBM Research – Almaden and then the IBM Watson Group.

Michelle’s expertise is in the interdisciplinary area of intelligent user interaction (IUI), including conversational systems and personality analytics. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed, refereed articles and filed over 40 patents. Michelle is currently the Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems (TiiS) and an Associate Editor of ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST). She received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University and is an ACM Distinguished Scientist. https://juji.io/people/mzhou

Professional Development | Career Planning

Session 6A. Securing Future Jobs

Panelists:

Julie Lin, People Analytics & HR Technology Strategy, Dropbox

Shurti Patil, Senior Engineer, Eightfold.AI

Sarena Riggi, Technical Recruiter, SAP North America

Session Chair:

Catherine Voss Plaxton, Director, Career Center, SJSU

Session Summary:

The walls between labor market analysis, recruiting, and employee development are disappearing. Learn from professionals in labor market intelligence, AI-informed recruiting, and talent development how future jobs will be defined, candidates will be recruited, and employees will be developed and retained. Explore how to prepare for this future of job searching.

Julie Lin
People Analytics & HR Technology Strategy
Dropbox

Julie is currently on the People Analytics and Technology team at Dropbox. Prior to Dropbox, she also had Workforce Planning/HR Analytics/Reporting and HR Merger & Acquisitions experience in Retail, Insurance and Entertainment industry where her primary focus was on bettering HR and recruiting decision making through strategic use of data. With a bachelor degree in Economics and master degree in HR, she is very passionate about revolutionizing Human Resource function through strategic people analytics and cutting-edge technology.

Shruti Patil
Senior Engineer
Eightfold.ai

Shruti is an early engineer and a technical lead on the data platform component at Eightfold.ai. Before Eightfold, she was a technical lead and an early engineer at YouTube. At YouTube she worked on scaling YouTube infrastructure during its hyper growth phase. She has led product and mobile teams whose work reached millions of users. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family, gardening, reading and doing yoga.

Sarena Riggi
Technical Recruiter
SAP North America

Sarena Riggi is a Technical Recruiter for SAP North America. Sarena left the Semiconductor industry to join SAP in the summer of 2014 and celebrated her 4-year anniversary in August. These days, she is passionate about talent branding, early talent mentoring, project management, and the candidate experience. Being a California native, camping, time on the water, a good cup of coffee, and anything where her dog Rio can join is considered a good time to this recruiter.

Emerging Technologies | Better Environment

Session 1B. Smart Transportation

Panelists:

"The Future of Transportation" – Vicki Guan, Engineering Manager, Bird
" Technology Educational Satellite and the revolution of technology"-Ali Guarneros Luna, Program Manager, NASA Ames
" A better Safer Future" – Chen Wu, Senior Engineering Manager, Waymo, Google

Session Chair:

Francesca Favaro, Assistant Professor, Aviation Program, SJSU

Session Summary:

This session will cover Smart Transportation broadly defined: from the novelty of e-scooter, to self-driving cars, and then moving up to the sky, describing what the world of micro satellites can do to improve and redesign our future. We are assisting to a revolution of how we conceive transportation, and how smart approaches to these technological challenges can lead to better services for our communities. Speakers from Waymo, Bird, and NASA will showcase how advancements in transportation technology can lead to a safer world, where transportation of people and goods is optimized.

Vicki Guan
Engineering Manager
Bird

Vicki leads the Core App Experience team at Bird, where she ensures the scooter renting experience is both user-friendly and community-friendly. Previously she was an Engineering Manager at AutoFi, where she developed patented algorithms to enable real-time auto loan comparisons. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a MS degree in engineering and a BS degree in finance and mathematics.

Ali Guarneros Luna
Program Manager
NASA Ames

Ali Guarneros Luna works with the Office of System Safety & Mission Assurance at NASA Ames. Prior to this position, Ali worked in Ames’ Engineering Directorate as expert for small satellite development and payloads bound for the International Space Station. Ali has served as system engineer and mission/ground ops/launch expert for multiple CubeSat projects at both the Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites National Lab, as well as in the Edison Program. She is currently the deputy project manager for SOAREX 10, and Safety Mission and Assurance expert for TechEdSat 5 and 6.

Ali was born in Mexico City and now lives in San Jose. She received her BS and MS degrees in Aerospace Engineering from SJSU in 2010 and 2013.

Chen Wu
Senior Engineering Manager
Waymo, Google

Chen Wu is a senior engineering manager in the perception team at Waymo. Her team is responsible for perceiving the world through various sensor modalities available on the self-driving car. This involves computer vision, machine learning, as well as building robust and real-time self-driving systems. Chen received her Ph.D. and M.S. from Stanford, and her B.S. from Tsinghua University, China. Prior to working on self-driving cars, Chen worked on camera and vision projects at Google Glass and YouTube.

Emerging Technologies | Increasing Productivity

Session 2B. Blockchain

Panelists:

"The Next Generation of Identity - One that Belongs to You" – Armin Ebrahimi, CEO, ShoCard, Inc.
" The Next Revolution: Enterprise Blockchain"-Pratima Gluckman, Engineering Leader, VMware
" Blockchain: what is real and what we need to focus on to make it real" – Dulce Ponceleon, Principal Research Staff Member, IBM Research - Almaden

Session Chair:

Younghee Park, Assistant Professor, Computer Engineering, SJSU

Session Summary:

Blockchain technologies have impacted various cyberspaces because they have their unique advantages with immutability and decentralized trustless transactions. In particular, decentralized Applications (dApps) have emerged as a new model for building massively scalable services in digital payments, Internet-of-Things, health systems, and social networks. However, the potential implications of Blockchain technologies go far beyond their decentralized applications as the technological backbone for cryptocurrencies. This session discusses the future roles and directions of Blockchain technologies with three industry speakers who are currently leading in blockchain technologies.

Armin Ebrahimi
CEO
ShoCard, Inc.

Ebrahimi is Founder and CEO of ShoCard, a distributed digital identity platform that protects users privacy through patented use of mobile devices and the blockchain. Before ShoCard, he was the CEO of ADR, an AOL company. Prior to filling this role, he was Senior Vice President of Platform Engineering at Yahoo, with responsibility for Yahoo’s registration and anti-fraud platform services. He also built Yahoo’s original Display Advertising platform that served more than 20 billion transactions a day. Armin founded and was CEO of TRIicon Solutions, acquired by Tandem Computers.

Armin holds a doctorate in organizational management from Capella University, as well as Master and Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science from California State University – Chico.

Pratima Gluckman
Engineering Leader
VMware

Pratima Gluckman has worked in the software engineering field for two decades where she has both developed and driven software solutions for Silicon Valley startups and several Fortune 500 companies. At VMware, she spearheaded several engineering initiatives in Compute and Networking space. She runs Blockchain engineering and is an intrapreneur at heart.

She is passionate about diversity in the workplace and has led the charge on several initiatives for gender and diversity efforts both internally and for the company’s campus recruiting. She recently published a book detailing leadership journeys called Nevertheless She Persisted: True Stories of Women Leaders in Tech and speaks at conferences, universities and companies around the world. www.pratimagluckman.com

Dulce Ponceleon
Principal Research Staff Member
IBM Research - Almaden

Dulce Ponceleón is a Principal Research Staff Member in the Infrastructure for Intelligent Information Systems group at IBM Research-Almaden. Her broad interests across different disciplines include natural language processing, machine learning, blockchain, and security. She has worked in information retrieval, multimedia content analysis, numerical linear algebra, and content protection. She led IBM’s Content Protection team resulting in significant contributions to Blu-ray Content Protection Standard’s consortium. While at Apple Computer, Inc. she was a key contributor to QuickTime Conferencing. She received her Master and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. She earned her B.S. degree (Cum Laude) in CS from Universidad Simon Bolivar, Caracas, Venezuela.

Emerging Technologies | Improving Health

Session 3B. Next Generation Diagnostics

Panelists:

"Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and Liquid Biopsy" – Gloria Chui, Staff Scientist, Technology Development, Guardant Health
" Enabling precision medicine and clinical cancer research with next-generation sequencing"-Stephanie Yaung, Principal Scientist, Medical & Scientific Affairs Bioinformatics Liaison, Roche Sequencing Solutions

Session Chair:

Miri VanHoven, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences, SJSU

Session Summary:

With new technologies that allow mapping and sequencing of genomes in weeks, rather than decades, we have the potential to make treatments more effective by personalizing them. The field of personalized medicine has the potential to revolutionize medicine, allowing us to better understand the molecular underpinnings of diseases, and tailor treatments to individuals. This session will focus on how personalized medicine is being moved forward both in academic settings and in Silicon Valley.

Gloria Chui
Staff Scientist, Technology Development
Guardant Health

Gloria Chui received her Bachelor’s degree in Public Health from National Taiwan University, her Master’s Degree in Environmental Science from Rutgers University, and her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at U.C. Berkeley, studying the mechanisms of eukaryotic DNA replication direction with Dr. Stuart Linn. She then joined Dr. Ron Davis’s laboratory at Stanford University, where she constructed mutant thermal DNA polymerases and studied DNA damage and repair.

Dr. Chui has worked in several biotech companies, developing analytical test methods for molecular diagnostic products and blood immunophenotyping assays for cancers. Currently, Dr. Chui is developing cancer diagnostic products using Next Generation Sequencing technologies.

Stephanie Yaung
Principal Scientist, Medical & Scientific Affairs Bioinformatics Liaison
Roche Sequencing Solutions

Stephanie Yaung leads a global team of bioinformatics scientists to support clinical studies and product development at Roche Sequencing Solutions. Stephanie joined Roche in 2015 after earning a Ph.D. in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and completing her thesis research in George Church’s lab at Harvard Medical School. Stephanie received dual B.S.. degrees in Biological Engineering and Management Science with minors in Mathematics and Biology from MIT.

Emerging Technologies | Better Living

Session 4B. Machine Learning Systems

Panelists:

"The Autonomous Mobile Agent Development Challenge" – Cynthia Kaschub, Principal Engineer, Intel
"Cloud TPU Profiling"- Qiumin Xu, Software Engineer, Google
"Considerations for Scaling GPU Ready Data Centers" - Renee Yao, Senior Product Management and Marketing Manager, NVIDIA

Session Chair:

Hyeran Jeon, Assistant Professor, Computer Engineering, SJSU

Birsen Sirkeci, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering, SJSU

Session Summary:

In this session, we will learn machine learning systems by exploring interesting use cases and performance profiling tools as well as challenges faced as women in AI tech from speakers of three leading companies. Cynthia Kaschub from Intel will overview various challenges that should be considered for designing fully autonomous agents and show the effectiveness of UX for improving productivity and deriving smarter decisions. Qiumin Xu from Google will introduce Google's machine learning accelerator, TPU, and show the interactive visualization tool that profiles the performance of TPU on Google Cloud. Renee Yao from NVIDIA will share her experiences as a woman leader working in the AI industry by exploring unique opportunities and challenges that women face in tech.

Cynthia Kaschub
Principal Engineer
Intel

Cynthia is a Principal Engineer in Intel’s Visual Computing Products Group. She currently leads User Experience (UX) for Video Analytics and led UX for the Autonomous Driving Data Center Research & Development Platform. Cynthia holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology. She is passionate about increasing women’s representation in the tech industry and co-founded the Women in Big Data Forum in 2015 with now 6000+ Linkedin members and chapters worldwide. (https://www.womeninbigdata.org/).

Qiumin Xu
Software Engineer
Google

Qiumin Xu is a Software Engineer at Google. She creates interactive visualization to understand the performance of machine learning models running on large scale accelerators. She is a main contributor to TPU performance tools on Google Cloud. Before joining Google, she spent six years in Los Angeles obtaining a PhD in computer architecture at University of Southern California.

Renee Yao
Senior Product Management and Marketing Manager
NVIDIA

Renee Yao is a senior product management and marketing manager at NVIDIA, focusing on vertical AI solutions on DGX POD, a proven design approach for building your GPU-accelerated AI data center. She graduated from Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and was named the top 50 B2B product marketers to watch by Kapost in 2016. When she has free time, she enjoys competitive Latin dancing, horseback riding, golfing, sculpturing.

Professional Development | Your Career Paths

Session 5B. Make the Most of Professional Mentoring

Panelists:

Rosie Cofre, Belonging and Diversity - Principal, Workday

Cristina Sandoval, Manager, Workforce Development & University Initiatives,SEMI

Deborah Sloan , Sr. Engineer, Supplier Development - Chemistry & Reagents,Cepheid

Stephanie Wemusa , Human Resources Business Partner, HP Inc

Session Chair:

Kelly Masegian, STEM Career Counselor, SJSU Career Center

Session Summary:

A key factor in workplace success is feeling engaged in and connected to the people, culture, and processes of an organization. Another success factor is learning to build on your strengths and improve on your weaknesses. Being a mentee in a professional mentoring relationship is a powerful way to work on these success factors. Learn from panelists engaged in professional mentoring and inclusion initiatives on how you can make the most of your professional mentoring opportunities. Hear about an initiative at SJSU to grow professional mentoring connections.

Rosie Cofre
Belonging and Diversity, Principal
Workday

Rosie Cofre is a Belonging and Diversity, Principal at Workday, a software company that develops Finance and HR Cloud Based ERP solutions.

She has over 15 years experience as a Belonging, Inclusion and Diversity Leader working with High Tech companies as they embark on game changing strategies. She has been featured in Mother Magazine: "June/July, 2013 Best Companies for Multi-Cultural Women" and is a recipient of the “Best Service Delivery Optimization-Enterprise Support” award from the Services and Support Professional Association.

She has lived in Europe and South America and loves traveling within the US and Internationally. Rosie received two undergraduate degrees from San Jose State University and a Master Degree from Golden Gate University.

Cristina Sandoval
Manager, Workforce Development & University Initiatives
SEMI

Cristina joined SEMI as a workforce development manager to help the microelectronics industry address talent challenges. She is leading SEMI's mentoring program, university initiatives, and supports SEMI's diversity and inclusion efforts. Cristina is a first generation latina who graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a bachelors of science in cognitive science and a specialization in neuroscience. She's passionate about bringing diverse talent to tech, and hopes that her programs will have a long term effect on the microelectronics industry.

Deborah Sloan
Sr. Engineer, Supplier Development - Chemistry & Reagents
Cepheid

Debbie has a Master's in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford, where she did graduate research in molecular spectroscopy. She also has a Bachelor's in aerospace engineering, a professional certificate in genetics and genomics, and a graduate certificate in bioinformatics. She has worked in the aerospace and semiconductor industries, before finding her home in biotech. Currently Debbie is leading a technical team within the supply chain group at Cepheid, the global leader in molecular diagnostics.

Debbie logged over 300 skydives while in her 20's, but has since retired from the sport. She currently enjoys philosophy, reading, learning new skills, and backpacking with her husband in the summer.

Stephanie Wemusa
Human Resources Business Partner
HP Inc

Stephanie is a HR Business Partner at HP, working with the CTO Labs in Palo Alto and the UK, a Human Resources and Talent Life Cycle Professional with over fifteen years of experience developing inclusive workplace practices to source, recruit, engage and advance diverse employees. Prior to joining HP, she has worked with some of SF Bay Area’s signature organizations such as: Apple, eBay, Yahoo!, Juniper, Solectron, and IBM.

Stephanie holds a BA in Behavioral Science from SJSU and an MS in Human Resources Organization Development from USF.

In addition, Stephanie currently enjoys teaching ENG 100w course in the Engineering Department at San Jose State University and previously taught Leadership Fundamentals at Santa Clara University Levy School of Business.

Professional Development | Career Planning

Session 6B. What Employers Are Looking For?

Panelists:

Jasmín Garcia, Sr. Technical Recruiter, Google

Nury Phillips, Director, Global Talent Acquisition & Mobility, Agilent

Alice Xiong, Senior Product Manager, LinkedIn

Session Chair:

Andrea Schwartz Boone, Founding Executive Director, Braven

Session Summary:

You’ve put in the hard work in your classes, and now it’s time to land a strong internship or job. But how can you stand out to employers? Join two technical recruiting leaders and a product manager as they share their personal stories and best advice to future job seekers. They’ll save time to answer your questions, too!

Jasmín Garcia
Sr. Technical Recruiter
Google

Jasmin is a Sr. Technical Recruiter at Google and an SJSU alum. Before joining the Diversity Staffing team, Jasmin was a top producing recruiter for the Ads Product Area at Google. As a Bay Area native, Jasmin has the unique opportunity to combine all of her passions into one determined objective: bringing opportunity to underrepresented talent to excel in technology with the purpose to innovate and improve the world. She is currently working on projects focused on reaching local communities and talent in Mexico. While work is both fun and challenging, Jasmin makes time to incorporate some favorite hobbies into her routine. She practices yoga and mindfulness regularly, actively follows and supports social justice causes, loves to dance salsa, and spends quality time with her family.

Nury Phillips
Director, Global Talent Acquisition & Mobility
Agilent

Nury Phillips has been with Agilent 25 years, starting with HP as a campus hire and moving to Agilent at the time of the company split in 1999. Nury has had the opportunity to hold various positions in order fulfillment, IT, and HR. Nury has been the Director of Global Talent Acquisition and Mobility since 2014. In this role, she has honor of attracting and hiring the best talent to Agilent. Agilent's values, global reach, and mission, to improve the quality of life, are a huge draw for Nury. She enjoys the adventure of a challenge, in addition to being constantly inspired by her team. Nury received her BBA and MBA from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. For more information regarding opportunities at Agilent, please visit our website at www.agilent.com/go/careers.

Alice Xiong
Senior Product Manager
LinkedIn

Alice Xiong is the Product Lead for Search and Discovery at LinkedIn. Before LinkedIn, Alice has worked in product management in Oracle, Motif Investing, and Airbnb. She has a B.S. in Computer Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Masters from MIT. She is an activist for women in tech and women in product, and has been giving talks and panel discussions about product management and women in product.

Emerging Technologies | Better Environment

Session 1C. Smart Cities

Panelists:

- "San Jose’s Vision to be a Smart City" – Denzil Eden, Technology Strategist, City of San Jose - Mayor's Office of Technology & Innovation
- " Resilient Oakland"- Alexandria McBride, Chief Resilience Officer, City of Oakland
- " The Future of Mobility at the Curb" – Melissa Ruhl, Planner, Arup

Session Chair:

Mahima Agumbe Suresh, Assistant Professor, Computer Engineering, SJSU

Session Summary:

Technological advancements have equipped us with capabilities to connect and automate better than ever before, which open exciting new opportunities for Smart Cities. However, the adoption of these technologies come with unique challenges. In this session, we will learn about how the cities of San Jose and Oakland leverage the latest technology and overcome obstacles, and how important it is to manage curbs, an important component of Smart Cities.

Denzil Eden
Technology Strategist
City of San Jose - Mayor's Office of Technology & Innovation

Denzil is a San Jose native with a passion for disrupting stagnant industries through the use of technology. She last worked as a software engineer at Yammer (secretly, a Microsoft company). Before that, Denzil tackled the roles of PM at PowerPoint and an adjunct lecturer of Computer Science at Foothill Community College and San Francisco State University. Her interests include crowdsourcing community initiatives, leveraging data to find innovative solutions to long-standing challenges, and creating solutions to help users increase productivity while building their digital footprint.

In her spare time, Denzil enjoys playing the piano and authoring op-eds and fiction while sipping green tea. Denzil holds a MBA from Harvard Business School, and a BS & MS in computer science from MIT.

Alexandria McBride
Chief Resilience Officer
City of Oakland

Alexandria McBride is the Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) for the City Of Oakland. In her role, she joins a network of CRO’s in the 100 Resilient Cities initiative tackling local urban resilience challenges. Prior to this role, Alexandria was the Director of Environment & Sustainability at ITI, a Washington, DC-based trade association where she advocated energy and sustainability policy for tech companies. Alexandria has also held leadership roles at the Tishman Environment and Design Center, The Engine Room, Groundswell and ExxonMobil Environmental Services. Alexandria has a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Howard University and an M.S. in Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management from the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy.

Melissa Ruhl
Planner
Arup

Melissa Ruhl is a planner for Arup in San Francisco where she manages projects on transportation innovation. Partnering with cities and transit agencies, Melissa helps communities plan for tomorrow while improving quality of life today. She has published a number of articles on future mobility and recently co-authored Autonomous Vehicles: A Horizon Initiative Perspective Paper on behalf of the San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Commission. She regularly speaks in both California and nationally on autonomous vehicles and the future of cities. In June 2018, the Northern California American Planning Association granted her the Special Recognition Award – Emerging Planner. Melissa earned a Master of Urban Planning from San Jose State University and a Master of Arts in History from the University of Oregon.

Emerging Technologies | Increasing Productivity

Session 2C. Internet of Things

Panelists:

"Future of IoT – Woosuk Chang, Head of Technology, Panasonic Ventures
" Level up! How IoT is Enhancing Our Lives"- Jenifer Piccioni, Manager and Product Management, Cisco Systems
" Building Emotional Connections & Human Resilience" – Mirjana Spasojevic, VP, Head of Immersive Experiences Lab, HP Inc

Session Chair:

Dahyun Oh, Assistant Professor, Materials Engineering, SJSU

Session Summary:

The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to dramatically change the pattern of everyday life in a smart way for a wide range of applications. These include home appliances, healthcare, transportation, and urban infrastructure, which nearly doubles the IoT market in the near future, 2021. Based on the easy network between electronic devices and human life, the development of IoT platform will be accelerated along with breakthroughs in sensors, machine learning, and data management. Silicon Valley is leading the advancement of key technologies for IoT development. This session introduces the future of IoT and related product development in Silicon Valley.

Woosuk Chang
Head of Technology
Panasonic Ventures

Woosuk Chang is working on creating new business with new technology. It is helping to set the direction of the technology by analyzing the technical trends that will appear in the future. He is responsible for finding and mentoring startups, building a corporation partner network and evaluating new technologies and businesses. Woosuk leads a pilot project that evaluates the compatibility of technologies with new businesses. He also participates in hands-on coding.

Jenifer Piccioni
Manager, Product Management
Cisco Systems

Jenifer Piccioni is a seasoned product management leader with 20 years of experience in the high-tech industry. With a career experience spanning various technologies such as voice, video, and security, she has guided the direction of product strategy for IoT at Cisco from concept to market.

Jenifer is an advocate for women in technology, dedicating time to mentoring and supporting women in this field. Jenifer is a proud graduate of San Jose State University.

Mirjana Spasojevic
VP, Head of Immersive Experiences Lab
HP Inc

Mirjana Spasojevic heads the Immersive Experiences Lab at HP Labs which focuses on people and practices in order to craft the best experiences with future HP products and technologies. This entrepreneurial team of engineers, designers, and researchers address the areas of blended reality and UI/UX for new devices, applications and services.

Previously, Mirjana co-founded educational startup Kindoma, served as Director of Exploratory Research at the Nokia Research Center, Silicon Valley and led research activities and technical teams at Harman, HP, Yahoo and Transarc.

Mirjana is a recognized expert in HCI and Ubicomp fields and has a PhD in Computer Science from Penn State University. In 2017 she was awarded Women Worth Watching in STEM Award by the Profiles in Diversity Journal.

Emerging Technologies | Improving Health

Session 3C. Flexible Electronics and Wearable Devices

Panelists:

"Designing Health for Technology: the User Study Perspective" – Caroline Currie, Manager, Health Data Acquisition, Apple Inc.
" Wearable Devices: Expanding What’s Possible"-Tracy Giest, Manager of R&D Operations, Fitbit
"Design considerations & trade-offs when designing wearable products" - Meeta Roy, Head of Operations, Bose

Session Chair:

Lili He, Professor, Electrical Engineering, SJSU

Session Summary:

Flexible and wearable electronics are attracting wide attention due to their enormous applications in various technological areas: flexible displays, flexible solar cells, wearable skin-like pressure sensors, and conformable RFID tags and more. Flexible/wearable electronics have generated great impact in today’s economy and have brought unbelievable convenience in our daily lives. It is no doubt that they will be the most important area of future electronics. In this session, we invite three Bay Area experts/leaders working in this exciting area to present recent developments in flexible/wearable electronics and share their personal experience and contributions to this industry.

Caroline Currie
Manager, Health Data Acquisition
Apple Inc.

Caroline Currie is the manager of health data acquisition on the Health Sensing Software team at Apple. She has over 10 years of experience in program management and process development in a variety of health research, engineering, and clinical settings. She spent her early days at Apple developing guidelines and best practices for designing and conducting engineering health studies, and since then, she has managed the data collection strategy for many health-related Apple Watch features. Before Apple, Caroline's work focused in sports medicine, childhood obesity research, and health behavior change methodology, driven by her passion for improving overall wellness through technology innovation.

Tracy Giest
Manager of R&D Operations
Fitbit

As the Manager of R&D Operations at Fitbit, Tracy Giest leads Fitbit’s Human Research Lab and the Research’s program management team. Giest’s fascination with human movement and physiology led her to pursue a Ph.D. at the Georgia Institute of Technology followed by a post-doc investigating wearable robotics. Her research has focused on the intersection of neurological control and biomechanics as it relates to human walking and running, amputee locomotion, and stroke rehabilitation. As a former middle school teacher with Teach for America and industrial biomechanics consultant for one of the largest railroad companies in the U.S., Giest has a unique blend of professional experience that has led her to her current leadership role at Fitbit.

Meeta Roy
Head of Operations
Bose

Meeta Roy is the Head of Operations at Bose where she is responsible for defining and implementing strategic objectives for Bose Frames, and ensuring the team is firing on all cylinders to execute on goals. Prior to Bose, Meeta was the Chief of Staff at Jawbone where she was a strategic partner to the executive staff and senior leadership in driving operational excellence, innovation, and program management.

Meeta is also the founder of MERORA, an apparel and accessories brand reclaiming the word geek. She created this line to encourage a culture of innovation, advocacy, and activism in designs that range from celebrating women in tech, to advocating for equality and rising up together, to promoting inclusion and diversity in STEM fields. She received her BSEE from SJSU in 2003.

:Emerging Technologies | Better Living

Session 4C. Augmented/Virtual Reality

Panelists:

"Science, Art, and Virtual Reality" – Talia Lyric Weiss, Lab Manager / Head of Medical VR, Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Stanford University
"This is Your Brain: VR in Neurosurgery"- Malie Collins, Program Manager of the Stanford Neurosurgical Simulation and VR Center, Stanford Health Care
"Inventing the Future of AR/VR" - Dharani Govindan, Senior Technical Program Manager, Google

Session Chair:

Valerie Carr, Assistant Professor, Psychology, SJSU

Session Summary:

Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) have the potential to change numerous aspects of our daily lives, ranging from the manner in which we learn, to how we conduct business, practice medicine, and entertain ourselves. In this session, you’ll discover how university researchers, health care providers, and tech companies are combining the real and virtual worlds to create exciting new experiences. Learn about the technology involved, its application to a wide range of disciplines, and potential career paths for students interested in AR/VR. Join us as our speakers share their journeys and discuss the promise and challenges of AR/VR.

Talia Lyric Weiss
Lab Manager / Head of Medical VR
Virtual Human Interaction Lab
Stanford University

Talia received her Bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College, where she studied Neuroscience and Digital Art. Interested in more deeply exploring the intersection of these two fields, she went on to pursue a Master's degree in Biomedical Visualization from the University of Illinois at Chicago. While in graduate school she discovered a passion for developing virtual reality applications for medical education and simulation. Talia has experience designing, programming, 3D modeling, and animating for VR and AR applications. As the lab manager of VHIL, she facilitates research projects, coordinates lab outreach, and maintains the lab's software and hardware. Talia also directs the lab’s medical VR projects. vhil.stanford.edu | www.talialyric.com

Malie Collins
Program Manager of the Stanford Neurosurgical Simulation and VR Center
Stanford Health Care

Joining Stanford in 2017, Malie Collins leads the first medical 3D VR program in the greater Pacific Northwest, including the first ever VR-enabled clinic for functional neurosurgery in the United States. She has brought patient-specific, virtual models to over 800 patients across the clinic and operating room to-date. She continues to develop this technology as a patient engagement and surgical planning tool for specialties such as skull base and cerebrovascular neurosurgery. Other interests include researching the impact of VR on patient education and comfort, and the application of VR and immersive technologies in medical school curricula. Malie earned her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from USC and her M.S. in Medical Sciences from the Boston University School of Medicine.

Dharani Govindan
Senior Technical Program Manager
Google

Dharani Govindan is a Senior Technical Program Manager at Google. She was the first Program Manager for Augmented and Virtual Reality products called Daydream. Currently she is working on next generation wearables and technologies. In 14 years of working at Google, she has worked on Chrome browser, Chromebooks and the first Mobile apps such as Google Mobile Maps, YouTube and Search. She received her BS in Electronics and Communication in India and MS in Computer Science in San Jose State University. In her free time, she spends it with her family in the Bay Area. She also enjoys adventuring to different places and eating variety of food.

Professional Development | Career Planning

Session 6C. Career Stories and Strategies

Panelists:

Erica Lockheimer, Software Engineering – LinkedIn Learning, Women In Tech Lead – LinkedIn WIT Executive Team

Meagan Pi, Vice President, Google

Sonar Thekdi, Vice President of Business Operations, Internet of Things Business Group, Cisco

Session Chair:

Sheryl Ehrman, Don Beall Dean, Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering, San Jose State University

Session Summary:

This session will provide conference attendees with an opportunity to gain professional and personal insights from three San Jose State University alumnae who are not only highly accomplished in their respective fields of endeavor, but also passionate in their advocacy of women as leaders and innovators in technology careers. Each of our panelists will share personal and professional challenges faced, lessons learned, and successes achieved during their college years and their careers. They will also reveal what employers are looking for and how to land that first job as a college graduate.

Erica Lockheimer
Sr. Director, Software Engineering – LinkedIn Learning
Women In Tech Lead – LinkedIn WIT Executive Team

Erica Lockheimer has been at LinkedIn for over 8 years and most recently held the role of Sr. Director of Engineering heading the Growth Engineering team, where her focus was on increasing growth in new members and deepening engagement with members across LinkedIn's products. She started the Growth Team from the ground up to now a high performing 120-person team. In January 2018, she moved on to her next play at LinkedIn and is now the head of Engineering for the LinkedIn Learning team, formerly known as Lynda.com. She is also responsible for LinkedIn's Women In Tech (WIT) initiative that is focused on empowering women in technical roles within the company. Prior to LinkedIn, she worked at Good Technology as Director of Server Engineering to securely manage and synchronize e-mail and calendar data between Exchange and mobile devices. She loves the challenge of starting with something nascent and carving out the right strategy, hiring the best people, and plotting a course to drive results. In 2014 and 2015, Erica was also voted amongst the top 22 women engineers in the world by Business Insider. Erica is a San Francisco Bay Area native, has 2 kids, loves to run and is a graduate from San Jose State University with a B.S. in Computer Engineering

Meagan Pi
Vice President
Google

Identifying as a “modern geek,” Meagan Pi leads gTech Velocity, an organization that is working to activate, accelerate, and scale Google’s biggest bets by being trusted advisors to internal and external partners. Meagan started her career at Google in 2002 as an engineer before becoming a manager and leader in Google’s technical account management teams. As a strong advocate for her team and their customers, Meagan believes investing in trust-based relationships and diverse team leads to the greatest success.

Outside of Google, Meagan enjoys running, skiing, and spending time with her two kids. Fun fact: Prior to University, Meagan had a childish and f

Sonar Thekdi
Vice President of Business Operations
Internet of Things Business Group
Cisco

Sonar Thekdi is the Vice President of Business Operations for Cisco’s Internet of Things Business Group. Sonar leads the business intelligence and analytics, strategic planning, program and release management, and technical documentation teams and is responsible for driving the organization’s business planning and strategic direction setting, operational framework and governance, quality and execution excellence to scale the business with speed and deliver aggressive growth. Sonar is also chartered to drive an inclusive, fun and innovative culture across the organization.

Prior to her current role, Sonar led Operations for the multi-billion dollar Data Center business for Cisco. Sonar has also held a variety of engineering and operations roles in the switching and wireless business groups during her seventeen years at Cisco and has been instrumental in bringing industry-leading products to the market. From 2010- 2011, Sonar was Cisco’s global engineering talent strategy director where she was responsible for establishing an inclusive culture for recruiting, retaining, and developing the best talent.

Sonar is passionate about mentoring and sponsoring women in tech. She actively engages in various mentoring activities across Cisco and her broader community.

Sonar holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Engineering from San Jose State University.

Engineering Career Panels

Panel I. Software & Information Technology

Panelists:

Helen Holder , Distinguished Technologist, HP

Narae Kim, Lead Software Engineer, Salesforce

Yanbing Li, Senior VP / General Manager, VMware

Marily Nika , Product Manager, Google

Sonar Thekdi, Vice President of Business Operations Internet of Things Business Group, Cisco

Session Chair:

Magdalini Eirinaki, Professor, Computer Engineering, SJSU

Helen Holder
Distinguished Technologist
HP

Distinguished Technologist and leader of the Nanolab in HP Labs, responsible for printed electronics, IOT tracking, display technologies, voice interfaces, and materials research.

Narae Kim
Lead Software Engineer
Salesforce

I have been with Salesforce for almost 5 years now. I work both as a data scientist and as a software engineer in various Salesforce Einstein products like lead scoring, forecasting, and engagement scoring, all designed to help improve sales reps' efficiency and better execute on sales quota on predictive revenue forecasting. I've made gradual transition into a data scientist from a regular software engineer role little over 3 years ago. In those years, I had gain experiences ranging from building the data pipeline, managing data product life cycle and designing and implementing scalable predictive models.

I graduated from Rice University in Houston, TX with B.S. in Computer Science and Master's degree with specialization in Machine Learning.

Yanbing Li
Senior VP / General Manager
VMware

Dr. Yanbing Li is a globally minded high tech executive with extensive leadership experience in the US and in China. She is the Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Storage and Availability Business Unit (SABU) at VMware and led the BU to become the fast growing business at VMware and a market leader in the past 2 years. Yanbing holds a Ph.D. degree from Princeton University, a Master's degree from Cornell University, and a BS degree from Tsinghua University (Beijing), in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering. She was inducted to the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame in 2018.

Marily Nika
Product Manager
Google

Based in San Francisco, Marily Nika works for Google as a Product Manager. Marily holds a Ph.D in Computer Science from Imperial College London and is also a part-time Teaching Fellow at Harvard Business School. Marily has delivered three TEDx talks and has received international recognition — including the Woman of the Year in tech 2018 Award as well as the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Influence Award in 2015, for empowering and mentoring the Women in tech community by having founded 3 women in tech groups, and for launching a mentorship app. You can find Marily on Twitter @marilynika.

Sonar Thekdi
Vice President of Business Operations, Internet of Things Business Group
Cisco

Sonar is passionate about mentoring and sponsoring women in tech. She actively engages in various mentoring activities across Cisco and her broader community.

Sonar holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Engineering from San Jose State University.

Engineering Career Panels

Panel II. Electronics & Semiconductor Equipment

Panelists:

Rose Castanares, VP of Business Management, TSMC

Rahima Mohammed, Senior Principal Engineer,Intel

Lena Nicolaides, VP & General Manager, KLA

Ellie Yieh, Corporate VP, Applied Materials

Session Chair:

Jinny Rhee, Associate Dean, College of Engineering, SJSU

Rose Castanares
VP of Business Management
TSMC

Rose is proud to lead a team of engineers (50% women!!) who are Sales Business Managers and Technical Managers. She joined TSMC in 1998 and is presently responsible for account management and sales for several system and fabless customers. Before her promotion to TSMC Vice President in 2015, she served as Senior Director in TSMC North Americas San Jose office responsible for an account team and major, mid-size and emerging customers; in Austin as Central Region Director for Texas where she managed regional sales and support; and as Deputy Director in San Diego responsible for several customers in the region.

Prior to TSMC she was in account management with Chartered Semiconductor and National Semiconductor. She began her technology career as a manufacturing engineer with GTE and Siliconix.

Rose holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Rahima Mohammed
Senior Principal Engineer
Intel

Rahima is a Senior Principal Engineer and leads the Customer Delight Office of Performance, Power and Competitive Analysis team of Intel Architecture Graphics Software team. Prior to this, she served as a Data Center Customer Solutions Technologist in the Manufacturing Validation Performance (MVP) team. Rahima led the data mining efforts on customer returned parts. She has been with Intel over 20 years after attending Graduate school at Yale. She also chairs various technical steering committees and serves on Industry advisory boards. She demonstrates consistent leadership in IP creation, and has published 100+ papers in Intel internal and external conferences and filed 5 patents. She is a diversity champion, and winner of the 2015 SWE PRISM award.

Lena Nicolaides
VP & General Manager
KLA

Dr. Lena Nicolaides, is the Vice President and General Manager of Laser Scanning and Swift products at KLA. She is responsible for P&L management, product development, customer relationships and international collaborations on semiconductor equipment.

Lena has held various technology and business leadership positions at KLA, including general manager of the Implant Metrology Division and chief technology supply executive where she was responsible for supplier business development. Prior to assuming her current role, Lena was vice president and general manager for macro inspection and SensArray products where she led high-performing teams to achieve profitable growth. Before joining KLA-Tencor, Lena held senior marketing and engineering roles at Therma-Wave Inc and PTD Inc.

Lena is the author of more than 50 technical papers, and holds more than 30 US patents. She is an active mentor for young professionals. Lena received her doctorate in Mechanical Engineering, in the field of photothermal science, from the University of Toronto.

Ellie Yieh
Corporate VP
Applied Materials

Ellie Yieh is corporate vice president for Advanced Product Technology Development at Applied Materials, Inc. She is responsible for the technical excellence of the company’s state-of-the-art Maydan Technology Center R&D lab and works closely with customers and business units to drive advanced product development and technology roadmaps. She is also a board member for Applied Ventures, LLC, the company’s venture capital fund. Yieh joined Applied in 1989 as a process engineer in the Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) group and has headed several successful product developments over her 20-plus years with the company. She has held a variety of positions including product unit head of the Low k Dielectric Division and general manager of the Gap Fill, Etch, and Dielectric System and Modules business units. She has led her teams to deliver significant profitability and market share growth, build strong customer relationships, and develop industry standard technologies.

Yieh received a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and holds more than 95 semiconductor engineering patents. In 2016, she was inducted into the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame for outstanding contributions to scientific and technological communities that improve society and business, and for her commitment to supporting and mentoring women and girls worldwide. She was also named one of the 2015 “Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology” by the National Diversity Council, and a 2010 “Women Worth Watching” by Profiles in Diversity Journal magazine.

Engineering Career Panels

Panel III. Biomedical

Panelists:

Hoang Nhan, Product Scientist, 23andMe

Denise Robello, Manager of Planning and Scheduling, Bayer U.S. LLC

Carol Schembri, Section Manager, Agilent Research Laboratories, Agilent Technologies

Allison Schulkins, Chief Operating Officer, Single Cell Technology, Inc.

Session Chair:

Melanie McNeil, Professor, Chemical Engineering, SJSU

Hoang Nhan
Product Scientist
23andMe

Hoang received her bachelor’s degrees in Neurobiology and English Literature from University of Washington. Fascinated by the brain, she went on to get a PhD in Neurosciences from University of California, San Diego, where she spent a lot of time searching for new types of brain cells (and she found one!). After her PhD, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the field of Alzheimer’s disease, researching the genetic basis of that devastating neurodegenerative condition. Prior to joining 23andMe, Hoang was a curation scientist at Illumina and an NGS scientist at Thermo Fisher. Currently, she is a Product Scientist at 23andMe, responsible for developing genetic health reports. She has made a switch from studying the brain to studying genetics because DNA is both intriguing and powerful. Our genes control everything, including our brain!

Denise Robello
Manager of Planning and Scheduling
Bayer U.S. LLC

Denise Robello grew up in Redwood City, CA. She graduated from SJSU in 1994 with a Chemical Engineering B.S. Degree. She first worked as environmental engineer for a few years during which time she passed the EIT. When the recession hit, she switched to contracting in different pharmaceutical manufacturing plants, worked as an electrical engineer at UL, and eventually came to work at Bayer in Berkeley. She’s been laid off more than once, and switched industries multiple times. Denise says: My career can be characterized as adapting to change, taking opportunities to learn, working hard, and not being afraid to take risks. Life isn’t just career, it’s also about balance. I have two teenagers, and a cat. I love being a mom, and I love to travel, to run, to run when travelling, and textiles.

Carol Schembri
Section Manager, Agilent Research Laboratories
Agilent Technologies

Carol Schembri manages an outstanding research team of engineers at Agilent Research Laboratories and leads many multi-disciplined projects involving engineers and scientists. Over her career, she has held a variety of research and development roles including individual contributor, manager, director and vice president. She has created innovative products and led teams at large companies and start-ups including Varian, LifeScan (Johnson & Johnson), Abaxis, eNeura, Applied BioSystems, Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies. She holds a MS in Engineering Management from Stanford and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell.

Allison Schulkins
Chief Operating Officer
Single Cell Technology, Inc.

Allison serves as COO at Single Cell Technology, where she has worked for 6 years. As a research associate, she made several breakthroughs and optimized critical processes to bring SCT's process to the marketplace. As a business development manager, she secured and managed projects for large pharmaceutical customers. Allison has presented materials at conferences and advises in marketing strategy for SCT's biopharma customers. She specializes in project management, business development, and contract negotiation. She has her B.S. in Biochemistry from University of California, Santa Barbara and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from San Jose State.

Engineering Career Panels

Panel IV. Building, Infrastructure, and the Environment

Panelists:

Ellen Greenberg, Deputy Director for Sustainability, Caltrans

Mary Hoang, Principal, HydroScience Engineers, Inc.

Lily Lim-Tsao, PE, Acting Deputy Director of Transportation Safety Operations and Parking, City of San Jose

Belen Verduzco, Project Superintendent, Turner Construction

Session Chair:

Nicole Okamoto, Department Chair, Mechanical Engineering, SJSU

Ellen Greenberg
Deputy Director for Sustainability
Caltrans

Governor Jerry Brown appointed Ellen Greenberg in 2016 as the Caltrans Deputy Director for Sustainability, a position created to lead the department's efforts in developing and implementing initiatives to align with California's goals on sustainability. Prior to joining Caltrans, Ellen was a Principal at Arup, working in San Francisco and London on major planning and infrastructure projects. Her career includes over three decades of work in the public, private and non-profit sectors. Ellen holds degrees in Geography, City and Regional Planning, and Transportation Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Mary Hoang
Principal
HydroScience Engineers, Inc.

Mary Hoang is a Principal and Vice President with HydroScience Engineers, a civil and environmental engineering firm specializing in water related projects. Mary has a BS in civil engineering and Master’s in Public Administration from SJSU. Mary was the Operations Manager for potable and recycled water for the City of San Jose and Director of Water Quality for San Jose Water Company, one of the largest urban water retailers in the US. She has over 28 years of experience, primarily in water utility management and water resources. She has worked for both public and private water utilities, and her experience ranges from engineering capital and development projects to operating and maintaining both potable and recycled water systems.

Lily Lim-Tsao, PE
Acting Deputy Director of Transportation Safety Operations and Parking
City of San Jose

Lily Lim-Tsao is a professional civil engineer and a 26-year transportation industry expert focused on moving people and traffic efficiently and safely for the City of San Jose. Lily leads San Jose’s Traffic Management Division and is credited for many of the City’s innovative traffic technology deployments that include a state-of-the-art-traffic management center, real time traffic monitoring capability and sensor rich technologies that enable deep data utilizations. Lily’s progressive traffic management strategies has made San Jose the innovation incubator for traffic sensor and management technologies. Lily is actively engaged in the City’s Autonomous Vehicle Pilot, Smart City solutions, and emerging technologies. She is a graduate of San Jose State University and a long-time supporter and mentor of SJSU’s engineering students. She has a deep passion for developing staff and has served as a mentor for the City of San Jose’s Department of Transportation for over 15 years.

Belen Verduzco
Project Superintendent
Turner Construction

Belen Verduzco joined Turner in 2003 after graduating from Santa Clara University with a BS in Civil Engineering. During her 15 years with Turner, she has worked on numerous exciting projects including Stanford Bing Concert Hall, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Safeway Corporate Headquarters, and various projects for Intel. Belen played a key role in delivering the Levi’s® Stadium ahead of schedule and also served as superintendent at Sacramento Entertainment and Sports Center. Belen is currently working on a Bio Med campus in south San Francisco.

2019 WiE Conference Schedule

Title Sponsor

Mark and Carolyn Guidry Women in Engineering Program Fund

Champion Sponsors

2019 WiE Conference Schedule

Title Sponsor

Mark and Carolyn Guidry Women in Engineering Program Fund

Champion Sponsors

Session 1A. Energy Generation and Management

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Session 2A. Machine Learning Applications

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Session 3A. Robotics and Medical Devices

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Session 4A. Tech for Good

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Session 5A. Design Your Future

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Session 6A. Securing Future Jobs

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Session 1B. Smart Transportation

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Session 2B. Blockchain

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Session 3B. Next Generation Diagnostics

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Session 4B. Machine Learning Systems

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Session 5B. Make the Most of Professional Mentoring

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Session 6B. What Employers Are Looking For?

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Session 1C. Smart Cities

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Session 2C. Internet of Things

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Session 3C. Flexible Electronics and Wearable Devices

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Session 4C. Augmented/Virtual Reality

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Session 5C. Develop Your Digital Story

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Session 6C. Career Stories and Strategies

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Panel I. Software & Information Technology

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Panel II. Electronics & Semiconductor Equipment

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