Speakers
Keynotes
Julia Grace
Julia is currently the VP of Product Engineering at Netflix. Prior to Netflix she was at Apple leading Product Engineering for Siri in the AI/ML organization, as well as Slack where she built the Infrastructure product and engineering team from 10 to 100+ people in 3 offices in 2 years. She spent many years early in her career in early stage startups, including founding and then later selling an electronics marketplace, Tindie.
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When she’s not chasing her young daughter or running on trails in Northern CA, she actively advises and invests in early and mid-stage startups, and sits on the board of Medcorder.
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Allison McHenry
Allison McHenry leads Engineering for the Standalone Products Group at The New York Times. The Standalone Products Group includes the flagship Games and Cooking apps, as well as new products in an earlier stage of their lifecycle. She has also been heavily involved in The New York Times' technical internship program and is passionate about supporting engineers in the early stage of their careers. She holds a BA in English Lit from The College of William & Mary and an MS in Software Engineering from Fairfield University.
Special Guests
Tarika Barrett
Dr. Tarika Barrett is the incoming CEO and current Chief Operating Officer at Girls Who Code.
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Girls Who Code is an international non-profit organization working to close the gender gap in technology by inspiring, educating and equipping young women with the computing skills to pursue 21st century opportunities. In her role, Tarika oversees the organization's free Summer Immersion Program and after-school Clubs Program, which have reached 300,000 girls around the world, in addition to International Programming, Alumni Programming, and People & Culture teams.
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Tarika also serves on the board of McGraw Hill, a leading learning science comp- any creating world-class educational content and providing best-in-class digital platforms for learners and educators. She also sits on the board of Eskolta, a nonprofit dedicated to helping urban public schools re-engage at-risk teenagers.
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Previously, Tarika worked as the Chief Program Officer at iMentor, leading the organization’s programmatic efforts to build mentoring relationships that support students from low-income communities in graduating high school and succeeding in college. Prior to iMentor, she worked in the Office of Postsecondary Readiness at the New York City Department of Education overseeing options or students significantly off-track academically, as well as developing new schools models including the Academy for Software Engineering. Tarika’s previous experience includes serving as Deputy Network Leader of the Brooklyn-Staten Island Network of New Visions for Public Schools, designing and implementing research and program evaluations for New York University's Center for Research on Teaching and Learning, teaching high school students, and working as a political organizer. A graduate of Brooklyn College, Tarika has an M.A. in Deaf Education from Columbia Teachers College and a Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning from New York University.
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Tarika lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.
Sophia Yeshi
Sophia Yeshi is a queer Black & South Asian illustrator and graphic designer in Brooklyn, NY.
She’s a digital native that discovered Photoshop at 12 years old while growing up in Baltimore, Maryland. She created Yeshi Designs to shine a light on Black women, women of color and folks in the LGBTQ+ community of all shapes and sizes that are bold, dynamic, and demand attention.
After graduating from the University of Baltimore, she spent several years cultivating social media strategy, growing brand awareness, and designing collateral for corporate brands. Now she works with beauty, fashion, lifestyle, tech, and media brands like Google, Instagram, and Refinery29 to create culturally-relevant work centered around topics she’s passionate about like climate change, mental health, body positivity, and self-confidence.
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Panels
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Jessica Whittaker
Jessica Whitaker is currently a Ph.D. student and Graduate Research Assistant at Howard University. Her computer science research is focused on cybersecurity and machine learning within the smart energy grid and smart homes. After completing her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in electrical engineering, she worked for over 15 years as a computer scientist and information technologist. Jessica has spent most of her life striving to devote a significant amount of time to various community service endeavors, especially in promoting STEM among underrepresented populations.
Marianna Mikhael
My name is Marianna Mikhael and I'm a junior (almost a senior 🎉) in Computer Information Systems at Clemson University. I first got hooked into computer science when my elementary school math teacher started a technology club and encouraged me to join, I immediately fell in love with the game-like nature of programming. Now I'm constantly learning about different aspects of computing, from data science to the intersection of business and tech. One of my biggest passions is advocating for women in tech, so I started a Girls Who Code College Loops chapter at Clemson and I'm the co-host of Cache Chat, a podcast about being women in tech from a college perspective.
Amber Horvath
I’m Amber Horvath, and I’m a 3rd year PhD in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. My journey with computer science began in high school when I was granted the opportunity to help with a research study understanding how people with no programming background can better learn how to program within an IDE. At the time, I barely knew what computer science, human-computer interaction, or even research was so after working with Dr. Burnett at Oregon State University and her team, I learned that this was an area I was interested in. Now, 8 years later, I am fully immersed in this world, and I want to give back by helping other young, talented women learn what computer science is, what it can be, and how to get involved.
Faythe Gomolka
Faythe Gomolka is a senior at Vanderbilt University double-majoring in Computer Science and Human and Organizational Development. She is passionate about the intersection of business and technology, and loves being able to experience both worlds through her two majors at school. Originally from Boston, she plans to move back when she graduates in May to pursue a career as a Software Engineer at HubSpot.
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Niloo Steele
Niloo Steele is the Chief Analytics Officer at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in NYC where she leads the organization’s enterprise data analytics and data science strategy, helping drive business transformation with data insights and telling stories using data. Prior to HSS she was the Corporate Director of Analytics at New York Presbyterian Hospital and prior to that, a Senior Manager in healthcare technology consulting. Niloo spent four years in higher education at Carnegie Mellon University, advising undergraduate students in addition to developing programming designed to expose students to a diverse range of social, artistic and community service experiences. This included the management of student art exhibitions & sales and coordination of the University Lecture Series. She has a passion for the arts and currently serves as the co-chair of the Board of Directors at Smack Mellon Gallery in Brooklyn. Niloo earned a B.S. in Mathematics as well as a Masters in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University.
Alex Vogelsang
Alex Vogelsang is a software engineer at Google on the News on Search team, which develops products that ranks and surfaces news content across Google platforms. Before joining News, she was on the Civics Search team at Google for 1.5 years. She graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from Princeton University in 2018. In her free time, Alex does crossword puzzles, bikes around NYC, and patiently waits for theater to reopen.
Callie Aboaf
Callie Aboaf is a current senior at Cornell University studying government, China & Asia Pacific Studies, and computer science. Throughout college, she’s worked as a research assistant on a number of projects, including web scraping the China Central Television (CCTV) website, researching US-China public health cooperation in Africa, and studying the rise in super commuting at NYU. Callie’s passion lies in cybersecurity, and next year she’s absolutely elated to be working in this field.
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