Speakers
Keynotes
Rana el Kaliouby
A pioneer in Emotion AI, Rana el Kaliouby, Ph.D., is Co-Founder and CEO of Affectiva, and author of the book Girl Decoded: A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology. A passionate advocate for humanizing technology, ethics in AI and diversity, Rana has been recognized on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list and as one of Forbes' Top 50 Women in Tech. Rana is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a newly minted Young Presidents' Organization member, and co-hosted a PBS NOVA series on AI. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and a Post Doctorate from MIT.
We’ve got some great speakers, so explore this page to hear all of the wisdom they have to share! You can hover over each headshot to see each speaker’s biography, and then go ahead and click on the embedded video to watch their presentations!
Anne Aaron
Anne Aaron is Director of Encoding Technologies at Netflix. She leads the team that innovates on media encoding and processing, with the goal of delivering the best picture and sound quality on Netflix. Anne is originally from Manila, Philippines and holds B.S. degrees in Physics and Computer Engineering from Ateneo de Manila University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. When she is not running after her two kids, she tries to catch up on the latest Netflix originals. Anne’s recent favorites are Bodyguard, Bojack Horseman, The Crown and Always Be My Maybe.
CS in College
12:30PM - 1:30PM Fireside Chat with Rana el Kaliouby
2:30PM - 3:30PM Keynote Presentation by Anne Aaron
If you missed the live fireside chat with Rana el Kaliouby or keynote presentation given by Anne Aaron, don’t worry! First, hover over their headshots to learn a little more about who our keynote speakers are. Then you can watch the full recordings below-- just click on the videos to get started!
Neri Oxman
A multi-disciplinary designer, Oxman founded The Mediated Matter Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010 where she pioneered the field of Material Ecology, fusing technology and biology to deliver designs that align with principles of ecological sustainability. Oxman became a tenured professor at MIT in 2017. ​
Oxman received her PhD in Design Computation at MIT in 2010. Prior to that, she earned a diploma (ARB/RIBA Part 2) from the Architectural Association in London, complementing her studies at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, and training at the Department of Medical Sciences at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Oxman was an architect, research consultant, and Parametric Design Workshop Instructor at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates in London from 2004-05, during which she also served as Visiting Associate and Evaluator for SmartGeometry Group.​
In addition to over 150 scientific publications and inventions, Oxman’s work is included in the permanent collections of leading museums around the world including MoMA, SFMOMA, Centre Pompidou, MAK Museum of Applied Arts, FRAC Collection for Art and Architecture, and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, among others. Her innovations have received recognition at the World Economic Forum, where she was named a Cultural Leader in 2016 and is a member of the Expert Network. In 2018, Oxman was honored with the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award and the London Design Innovation Medal. Most recently in 2019, Oxman received an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Contemporary Vision Award by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Watch a Special Presentation From Neri Oxman Here
Panelists
Interested in hearing from experts about what it’s like studying computer science in college or starting your own tech business? How about using computer science for good or to make beautiful art? You’re in the right place! Get ready to watch our four INCREDIBLE groups of panelists talk about all of their experiences in those areas-- just click on the videos below to get started!
CS in College
Beatrix Jones
Beatrix is currently a senior Computer Science major at Vassar College, where she also works as a teaching assistant in the department. She is the computer science liaison for Vassar's student-run group Gender Inclusivity in STEM, which aims to build community among underrepresented gender identities in the sciences on campus. She also has experience as both a student and a teaching assistant for the extracurricular coding workshops done by Kode With Klossy, a program dedicated to making programming accessible to middle- and high-school girls across the country. In 2017, she attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing as an Anita Borg student scholar. Professionally, Beatrix has interned as a software engineering intern at communications company Viasat Inc. during summer 2018, and most recently as a User Interface Engineer Intern at LinkedIn this past summer 2019. After graduation, she will be returning to LinkedIn as a full-time employee.
Apoorva Shastri
Apoorva is a senior studying computer science with a minor in Korean Language at the Pennsylvania State University. She has been involved at school as a Girls Who Code teaching assistant and a Women in Engineering math course facilitator. During her summers, she has worked as an engineering practicum intern and then software engineering intern at Google and most recently as a software engineering intern at Capital One. She is currently writing her undergraduate thesis in visualizing songs as graphs. Her interests and experience lie in front-end web and app development with a passion for creating a strong user experience.
Mackenzie Jorgensen
Mackenzie Jorgensen studies Computer Science (CS) and Philosophy at Villanova University. She has completed research projects in the U.S., U.K., and Germany on topics such as big data analytics, multi-agent communication and coordination, and hate speech moderation through machine learning. All of her research endeavors resulted in publications. Since she was 14 years old, she has made CS outreach a priority. She founded a non-profit which runs coding clubs for young girls in the Seattle area, and she has started similar coding club programs in Philadelphia (where she currently teaches at) and in the UK (while she studied abroad at Oxford during her junior year). After graduation, Mackenzie will pursue her Ph.D. in Safe and Trusted Artificial Intelligence at King’s College London on algorithmic fairness and will continue her outreach to inspire girls to code.
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CS in Art & Design
Jen Lewin
Jen Lewin is an internationally renowned new media and interactive sculptor currently based in New York. Over her 20-year career, Lewin has honed her architectural background and a highly technical medium to fabricate large-scale interactive, public sculpture that encourages community interaction and play. At once organic and electronic, Lewin thinks beyond traditional art exhibitions to create an experience that brings vibrancy to public spaces. Lewin’s playful sculptures exist where art, technology, and communities meet, leaving viewers enchanted while encouraging delight through engagement with the work. She creates connected human experiences where participants not only interact and enjoy the playfulness of the sculpture but more importantly, also interact and connect with each other.​
Lewin’s technically complex works have been featured at events including the Istanbul Light Festival, Vivid Sydney 2014 and 2018, iLight Marina Bay, Signal Fest and Burning Man, art Biennales in Denver, Colorado and Gwangju, South Korea and solo exhibitions across the United States and in Mexico, Portugal, and England. Jen Lewin has designed and installed permanent public interactive sculptures worldwide including the Side Walk Harp in Minneapolis, Magical Harp in Palo Alto, Promenade in Denver Colorado, Ascent in Coral Springs Florida and has worked in collaboration as a dynamic lighting designer for permanent, public installations with Claes Oldenburg in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Lawrence Argent in Vail, Colorado.
Danielle Beecham
Danielle is a researcher and designer focused on digital products. Danielle is passionate about using design to solve big-picture problems. She worked for five years as a freelance UX Design consultant helping start-ups and entrepreneurs launch their products and create scalable designs. She is currently a Senior UX Researcher helping financial services clients answer questions about their customers' evolving needs. She has also had the pleasure of working with fellow designers at Fjord and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.​
Danielle received her MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design and participated in the Product Studio at Cornell Tech.
Jennifer Jacobs
Jennifer Jacobs is Assistant Professor at UC Santa Barbara in Media Arts and Technology where she directs the Expressive Computation Lab. Trained in computer science, design, and fine art, She received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab and completed her postdoctoral research in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. She also received an M.F.A. and B.F.A from Hunter College and the University of Oregon respectively. Her research has been presented at international venues including SIGGRAPH, DIS, CACM, Ars Electronica and CHI, where her work has received multiple best paper awards. Her research examines ways to support expressive computer-aided design, art, and manufacturing by developing new computational tools that integrate emerging forms of computational creation and digital fabrication with traditional materials, manual control, and non-linear design practices.
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CS for Good
Abigail Klein
Abigail Klein is a software engineer on the accessibility team for Google Chrome and ChromeOS where she focuses on ensuring that the Chrome browser is universally accessible to all users. She previously worked on Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides accessibility. She has a bachelor's and master's degree in computer science from MIT, where she co-founded an assistive technology hackathon and was a lab assistant and guest lecturer of the assistive technology class.
Priscilla Wang
Priscilla Wang leads a multi-faceted life as a software developer, educator, and pageant girl. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion in high-tech, and has focused her efforts on educational initiatives for women and underrepresented minorities. Priscilla’s most recent project is Girls Talk Tech: a YouTube series which aims to inspire a new generation of engineers by showcasing amazing women who work in technology. She has also volunteered her time at the National Science Foundation, corporate community outreach initiatives, and university hackathons, where she has mentored aspiring engineers and scientists on how to build the technologies of tomorrow.​
Priscilla is a proud graduate of Columbia University and Scripps College. She is currently working at JP Morgan on digital markets technologies and has previously worked at high-tech startups in Silicon Valley and Taiwan.
Aimee Barciauskas
Aimee is a data engineer and leads the Earth Data Infrastructure team at Development Seed. As a part of Development Seed, Aimee works with organizations such as NASA and ESA to make vast collections of Earth Observation data cloud-friendly to end-users such as researchers and decision makers. Previously Aimee worked as an engineer at Nava PBC developing Healthcare.gov and Medicare's Quality Payments Program (QPP). Aimee cares deeply about using data, data science and machine learning to drive positive social change. She’s a chapter leader of DataKind DC, where she volunteers on projects ranging from a program referral portal for DC’s Child and Family Services Agency to analytics tools for open-air quality.
Anna Gomez
Anna Gomez is the U.S. and Latin America program manager of Force for Good, a social innovation program that leverages JPMorgan Chase's experts and resources to develop technology solutions for socially-focused organizations. In her previous role at JPMorgan Chase, she managed the firm's university hackathons sponsorships, encouraging students to use their problem solving and coding skills for social good. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion in STEM and the empowerment of communities through social enterprise, education, and technology. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Government from Harvard University.
CS and Entrepreneurship
Ali Kriegsman
Ali Kriegsman is the co-founder and COO of Bulletin, a venture-backed retail technology startup on the rise. Named a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient and one of "The Most Creative People in Business" by Fast Company, Ali has spent the last four years building a brand and platform that democratizes access to physical retail space for digitally native brands. Since launching in 2015, Bulletin has helped hundreds of brands access physical retail space for the very first time, unlocking one of the most powerful commerce channels at their disposal. In addition to helping emerging brands grow their physical footprint, Bulletin's marketplace helps retailers access vetted, fool-proof products for their stores. Check us out at www.bulletin.co, and follow Ali at @alikriegs on Instagram. Ali will be publishing her first book, How to Build a Goddamn Empire, with Abrams Books on September 15, 2020.
Jordana Kier
Jordana Kier is the co-founder of LOLA, the first lifelong brand for her body. Created for women, by women, LOLA aims to address every reproductive life stage with a commitment to product transparency and a community built on candid dialogue about all of the things we don’t openly talk about. Before co-founding LOLA, Jordana received her MBA from Columbia Business School, during which she worked at Rent the Runway and Quidsi. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 2008 and was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2016 and Crain’s 40 Under 40 in 2019. Jordana also serves on the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network Advisory Board.