Breakout Session Speakers and Facilitators

Noora Abdulla Al Mulla graduated from the Higher Colleges of Technology, Dubai Women's College from The Information Administration Program with Honors and Highest Distinction in June, 1999. Starting off as a Teacher-in-Training at Dubai women's College, she was then promoted to an IT Faculty position. With a Post Graduate Certificate in Educational Technology from the University of Southern Queensland, in Australia, in 2002, Noora is currently in the process of working on her Master's degree in Education Management.

Noora manages a student run business called Al Jawdah Zone, which is a real work environment inside the college.  The business is operated by Information Administration students. Its main objective is to train students and give them a real world experience and management opportunity. It is considered as a help center that provides services to students and faculty and gives students experience in running a business and being responsible for fulfilling its many requirements.

Noora attended The Twelfth International World Wide Web Conference in May, 2003, in Budapest, Hungary with a group of students who participated in a panel discussion about women and education in the UAE.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Josephine Nkiru-edna Alumanah has an M.A. in Development Studies and a Ph.D. in Health Sociology. She is currently a Senior Lecturer/Researcher in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology on the Faculty of the Social Sciences Department at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, Nigeria. Her area of concentration is Gender, Health, and Development.

Dr. Alumanah is the Executive Director of the NGO Friends of the Fourth World Foundation (FoFWoF) which focuses on Microcredit, Information Technology, training, and

counseling mainly for underprivileged, women, and young people.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Margaret Ashida is the Director of Worldwide University Talent Programs for International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation. She provides leadership across IBM in attracting the diverse top talent needed to drive innovation and growth though programs on campus and at conferences such as Project View and other recruiting events, and the Extreme Blue internship program. She was a member of the Skills Working Group of the National Innovation Initiative led by the U.S. Council on Competitiveness in 2004. Margaret is a member of IBM's Asian Executive Task Force and a graduate of the LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacific's Inc.) Leadership Development Program. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees for the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology; she chairs the MentorNet Advisory Board; and is a member of IBM's Women in Technology Executive Advisory Committee. Her background includes experience in operational analysis, financial planning, customer support operations, marketing operations, e-business, and university relations at IBM, the ROLM Company, and the Xerox Corporation. Margaret holds a B.A. from the University of Rochester and is an honorary member of the University's Trustees'Council. She also holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.   [Return to Symposium Program]

As Director of Business Marketing for the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED), Caroline S.A. Baker brings extensive business experience to her work with the state, including more than seven years of management experience in emerging technology companies.

Ms. Baker joined DBED in March of 2004. She is responsible for raising awareness of the State of Maryland as a global center of business and technology innovation and finding new ways to effectively leverage Maryland's wealth of resources for economic growth. Her expertise includes business strategy, corporate communications, and product marketing, as well as technology commercialization and technology-based economic development. Prior to working with DBED, Ms. Baker led several entrepreneurial businesses, including her own consulting firm, where she advised clients on all aspects of business and marketing strategy including competitive analysis, market research, strategic planning, and product design and positioning. Ms. Baker has held management positions in a number of technology-based businesses including LaunchFuel, a consulting firm for technology startups; AmericasDoctor.com, a healthcare information portal; and Magnet Interactive, a high-end interactive agency, where she managed accounts for clients including the Kellogg Company.

Earlier in her career, Ms. Baker served on the management team of IntraACTIVE, an intranet software company, where her responsibilities included marketing, business development, and product management. During her tenure at IntraACTIVE, Ms. Baker led a major upgrade of the company's core product, InTandem, which was later acquired by Mail.com for $14M.

Ms. Baker holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in English from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and has also studied at St. Catherine's College at Oxford University in Oxford, England.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Beverly Bickel is an Associate Vice-Provost of Professional Education and the Director of the English Language Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Dr. Bickel's research explores the social construction of transformative knowledge in the transnational public space of the internet. It focuses on how marginalized or segregated groups employ technologies to negotiate diverse sources, discourses and intellectual practices in order to construct the nuanced local and global knowledge necessary for social change projects. She has worked with peer-to-peer collaborative cultural and linguistic learning projects in K-12, adult and higher education settings and developed and delivered professional development programs for teachers in the U.S., Latin America and the Middle East. Her most recent teaching projects include an undergraduate research course involving an online exchange between Cuban and U.S. students and online English teacher professional development courses. She has a Bachelor's degree from Duke University, an M.A. in Instructional Systems Design (ESOL/Bilingual Education) from UMBC, and a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy and Culture from UMBC.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Charity Binka is currently the Assistant Chief Editor and Head of the women's Desk Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Accra, Ghana, where she ensures that one-third of the items in all major news bulletins on Ghana Radio focus on gender-related issues. Ms. Binka previously worked with the African Newspapers of Nigeria Limited in Ibadan, Nigeria, as a Senior Reporter. She became the Ogun State Correspondent before leaving for Ghana in 1986. Charity has done several presentations on gender and media issues and has covered several international conferences. She is committed to giving women public voice and visibility. This is premised on the belief that to create a demand for women as leaders, women must be seen and heard in the public arena. Charity has established an NGO to train women in media skills as tools for advocacy and self-development.

Charity Binka is a member of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT), a Chevening Fellow and former President of the Ghana Chapter of the Society for Women Against AIDA in Africa (SWAA). She holds a Master of Arts degree in Gender and Development from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom, and a Graduate Diploma in Communication Studies from the University of Ghana, Legon. She has recently completed an Executive Masters degree program in Public Administration (EMPA) at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).   [Return to Symposium Program]

Suzanne G. Brainard, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Center for Workforce Development (CWD) at the University of Washington. She is an Affiliate Professor in Technical Communication in the College of Engineering and in the Department of Women Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She is one of three co-founders of the Women in Engineering Programs & Advocates Network (WEPAN), and the immediate Past-President. She is Past-Chair of the congressionally-mandated Committee on Equal Opportunity in Science & Engineering (CEOSE) and served on the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Committee on Diversifying the Engineering Workforce and the AAAS National Mentoring Committee. She is a Fellow of AAAS and AWIS and is the recipient of the 2001 Maria Mitchell Women in Science Award.

Her primary areas of research include program evaluation, mentoring, diversity and climate studies in engineering and science. More specifically, her research has focused on longitudinal studies examining issues of retention and advancement in engineering and science and the workforce, institutional climate studies at the University of Washington and national climate surveys in engineering and science. In addition, she conducts evaluations of intervention programs focused on increasing the participation, retention and advancement of women and minorities in science and engineering. The National Science Foundation, the Department of Education (FIPSE), the Department of Energy and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation have funded her research. Dr. Brainard is currently co-directing an international initiative with WEPAN, AAAS and AWIS, the Global Alliance in Science and Engineering to Diversify the Workforce.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Shirley Collier is the CEO of Optemax, LLC, a mobile wireless optical technology transfer company from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Prior to that, for 15 years, she was the President and Founder of Paragon Smart Technologies, LLC, a systems integration firm in Maryland.

Ms. Collier received the 1999 Woman of the Year award from the Business Women's Network of Howard County. She was awarded the EBO Outstanding Woman in Business award in 1997. Shirley was named one of Maryland's Top 100 Women in 1996 and again in 2000 by The Daily Record. In 1995 she founded "Computer Mania," a free computer symposium for girls in the public school system to foster confidence in technology, mathematics and science. Computer Mania is now being funded by AT&T and Dell Computers in conjunction with UMBC to reach middle-school girls throughout the region. In 2003, Shirley was inducted into the women's Hall of Fame by the Howard County women's Commission. In 2004 Shirley received a Distinguished Leader Award from the YWCA at their first annual women's Leadership Luncheon. Shirley and Paragon Smart Technologies also were awarded the Torch Award for ethical business practices by the Better Business Bureau of Greater Baltimore. Finally, Shirley has spoken at numerous conferences, meetings, and workshops on the issues relating to girls and women and ICTs in order to encourage their full participation.

Ms. Collier earned a BS in Marketing from LSU and an MS in Management, also from LSU. She is a member of the board of the Center for Women and Information Technology and has published over 50 articles, but none related to girls and technology.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Joanne McGrath Cohoon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at the University of Virginia. In addition to this appointment in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, she advises graduate students in the Curry School of Education. Dr. Cohoon employs perspectives and methods from sociology to study the interplay of gender, technology, and education. She conducted the first nationwide studies of recruitment and retention in computer science departments at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the United States. Current studies include one organized by the Computing Research Association and funded by the National Science Foundation to investigate the outcomes of participation in the Grad Cohort Program for Women. Dr. Cohoon received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Virginia, her MA in Student Personnel Administration in Higher Education from Columbia University, Teachers College, and her BA in Philosophy from Ramapo College of New Jersey. She is now also a Senior Research Scientist for the National Center for Women in Information Technology.   [Return to Symposium Program]

M. Bernardine Dias is Special Research Faculty at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. She earned her B.A. from Hamilton College, Clinton NY, with a dual concentration in Physics and Computer Science and a minor in women's Studies in 1998, followed by a M.S. (2000) and Ph.D. (2004) in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.  Her thesis work developed the "TraderBots" market-based framework for efficient multirobot coordination in dynamic environments.  Dr. Dias'current research interests are in enabling efficient coordination of heterogeneous human-robot teams, and in relevant computing technology for developing communities.  She founded and directs the TechBridgeWorld initiative that aims to facilitate technology research relevant to, and in partnership with, developing communities throughout the globe.  Dr. Dias also has a strong interest in encouraging diversity, and especially women, in computing and in science, and is a founding member of women@SCS.   [Return to Symposium Program] 

Marion Esch is scientific director of Femtec GmbH. She was born in 1964 and studied media science, political science and educational science at the Technical University of Berlin. She wrote her doctoral thesis in the Department of Political Communication at the Institute of Media Sciences.

From 1996 to 2002 Dr. Esch was Scientific Director of the European Academy for Women in Politics and Business (EAF). Her responsibilities included Innovation through E-Quality Management, a program for young executives and leaders. She has been a member of the executive board of the EAF since 2004.

In 2003 she was appointed Assistant Professor to Professor Joachim Herrmann, holder of the chair of Quality Sciences at the Technical University Berlin. In this function she is also Scientific Director of Femtec GmbH. Marion Esch is married and lives with her partner in Berlin.   [Return to Symposium Program]

In 1974, Eva Fabry earned her Ph.D. at the University of Oslo in Norway. She currently serves as EU Project Manager and Advisor for the European Union in addition to acting as a consultant in and for new member countries. Dr. Fabry has also served as a Diplomat for the Hungarian embassy in Sweden and Head of the Scandinavian Desk for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Budapest. Proficient in Swedish, English, Norwegian, German and Hungarian, Dr. Fabry holds membership in the Swedish National Federation of Resource Centers for Women (NRC) and the European Network for Promotion and Exchange of Best Practices within Wider Europe (WEnlargements).   [Return to Symposium Program]

Carol Frieze is /Women@SCS/ Director and co-Director of the Sloan funded /Women@IT/ program. She is pursuing a self-defined Ph.D. in the field of cultural studies and computer science in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Carol proposed in March of 2005 and is currently working on her thesis. She brings to /Women@SCS/ an interdisciplinary and diverse perspective, having taught Cultural Studies for four years while a graduate student in Carnegie Mellon's English Department, and having a previous background in inner-city London high school teaching and hospital teaching at the Royal National Orthopeadic Hospital School in England.   [Return to Symposium Program]

In July 1997, Monique Frize joined Carleton University, as a Professor in the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, and the University of Ottawa in the School of Information Technology and Engineering. Dr. Frize was the first woman to enter in and complete a degree in Engineering at the University of Ottawa, graduating in Electrical Engineering in 1966. She completed a Master's in Philosophy in Engineering in Medicine at Imperial College of Science and Technology in London (UK), an MBA from Université de Moncton, and a Doctorate from Erasmus Universiteit in Rotterdam (Netherlands).

Monique was a biomedical engineer in hospitals for 18 years. In l989, she was appointed as the first holder of the Nortel-NSERC Women in Engineering Chair at the University of New Brunswick and Professor in the Electrical Engineering department. Her mandate was national and consisted of attracting and retaining a larger number of women into engineering. In 1992, Monique Frize received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Ottawa (D.U.); in June 1993, a Ryerson Fellowship; in 1994, an Honorary Doctorate in Science (D.Sc.) at York University; in 1995, an Honorary Doctorate in Engineering at Lakehead (D.Eng.). She was inducted as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering in 1992 and as Officer of the Order of Canada in October 1993. She received the YWCA Women of Distinction Life Achievement Award in May 2000 and received the Queen's Jubilee Medal in the fall of 2003 from the Governor General of Canada. Monique is a founding member of the International Network of Women Engineers and Scientists (INWES) and currently serves as the President. Born in Montreal, Monique's mother tongue is French, and she is fluently bilingual. She is married to Peter Frize and they have a son, Patrick Nicholas.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Nancy J. Hafkin has been working on issues of gender and information technology and development for nearly thirty years. In 1976, she co-edited Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change (Stanford University Press). From 1976-1987 she worked as Chief of Research and Publications at the African Training and Research Centre for Women of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In the area of information technology Nancy Hafkin spearheaded the Pan African Development Information System (PADIS) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) from 1987 until 1997. She then served as Team Leader for Promoting of Information Technology for Development, of the Development Information Services Division of ECA (UN) from 1997 until 2000, where she was Coordinator of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), the African governments'mandate to use ICTs to accelerate socio-economic development in Africa. Nancy also served as a facilitator in establishing the Partnership for Information and Communication Technologies in Africa (PICTA), a coordinating body of donor and executing agency partners in support of the AISI. Dr. Hafkin headed a number of early efforts at electronic connectivity in Africa, particularly through the Capacity Building for Electronic Communication in Africa project, 1993-1996 (CABECA) and the organization of major conferences including the Regional Symposium on Telematics (1995), Global Connectivity for Africa (1998) and the first African Development Forum: Challenges to African of Globalization and the Information Age (1999). Retired from the United Nations since 2000, Nancy is now working as a consultant on gender and information technology and is Director of the consultancy Knowledge Working). In 2000 the Association for Progressive established an annual Nancy Hafkin Communications Prize competition, with the first prize allocated to women-led initiatives. In 2001 she co-authored Gender, Information and Developing Countries (published by USAID). She serves on the boards of PACT and SATELLIFE, and on the technical advisory groups for infoDev and USAID Dot.com. She has a Ph.D. in African history from Boston University.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Catherine Hill is a Research Associate at the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. Before coming to AAUW, Dr. Hill was a researcher at the Institute for Women's Policy Research and an Assistant Professor, at the University of Virginia. She has written articles and reports on women's issues, and teaches on an adjunct basis in the Women's Studies Department, at George Washington University. She has a Bachelor's and a Master's degree from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in public policy from Rutgers University.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Ann Holmes is the principal consultant in Ann Holmes & Associates, consulting in education and social issues. She worked in the Ontario government for two decades developing and realizing partnership projects on gender equity in education with community-based organizations and education groups. Based in Toronto, Canada, she has published and spoken nationally and internationally on gender, science and technology education issues. Ann is licensed by Status of Women Canada to deliver training in gender-based policy and program analysis. Her current work also includes analysis of support for women and other groups under-represented in the engineering profession.

Dr. Holmes is a member of the advisory committee for the NSERC/HP Chair for Women in Science and Engineering (Ontario Region). Ann has been commended by the Minister Responsible for Women's Issues for her leadership in promoting equality for women and, in particular, the advancement of women in education, training and employment in Ontario.

Ann began her career as a teacher and has 13 years experience in the Ontario classroom. She continues to contribute to the workings of two international organizations, the Gender and Science and Technology Association and Women in Global Science and Technology.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Sophia Huyer is the founding Executive Director of Women and Global Science and Technology (WIGSAT), an international NGO based in Canada which promotes women's use of ICTs for gender equality in the global context. She has published and spoken widely on international gender, science and technology issues policy, including ICTs and social development. She is also Senior Research Advisor for the Gender Advisory Board of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development, and has done work for international agencies such as the Canadian International Development Agency, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), UNESCO, the Organisation of American States, the UN Institute for Training and Research on Women (INSTRAW), and others. Recent publications include "ICTs, Globalisation and Poverty Reduction: Gender Dimensions of the Knowledge Society" for the Gender Advisory Board–UNCSTD, and "Overcoming the Digital Divide: Understanding ICTs and their Potential for the Empowerment of Women", synthesis paper of the INSTRAW Virtual Seminar Series on Gender and ICTs. She is a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Global Women's Leadership Centre at Santa Clara University. She received her Ph.D. from York University, Toronto.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Jennifer Jones is a Sales Vice President for AT&T Business Services in the Mid-Atlantic Region, one of the largest in the company. She supports a team of Sales Directors, Client Business Managers, Account Consultants, Customer Project Managers, Data Technical Consultants and District Area Managers responsible for the communication and networking needs of large business customers. The team focuses on teaming with customers to explore new ways to help them grow their business through new and emerging technology solutions.

Jennifer has held a number of leadership positions within AT&T in a variety of areas including Sales, Finance, Marketing and Offer Management. Prior to joining AT&T 16 years ago, she was a financial planner with the investment firm of Merrill Lynch.

A native of Detroit, Michigan, Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Wayne State University (MBA). She is also an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve and a Gulf War (I) veteran.

Jennifer serves on the UMBC Board of Visitors and is active in her church and local community. She and her husband Robert have a son Brandon (12) and reside in Northern Virginia.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Irina Khomeriki currently serves as the head of both the International Projects'Coordination Center at the Georgia Technical University of Georgia and Georgian Branch Office of the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC). She headed the Moscow Department of the International Association Georgian Women for Peace and Life. She holds membership in the International Women's Club, the Board of the Georgian Association of German Alumni, and the Scientific Research Society Sigma Xi-Georgia. Her job experience includes research and educational work. She has been the Laboratory Assistant to a Professor at the Georgian Technical University since 1984. Before that she served as the Manager of Public Relations for the Eastern European Corporation ICN Pharmaceuticals in Moscow, Russia. In 2004 she was awarded a State Premium in the sphere of science and technology.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Based in Beijing, Ms. King is the practice lead for the service provider of Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group for Asia Pacific and the theater lead for China.  Lea brings over 20 years of industry experience (telecommunications and computing) to IBSG.  In her current role, she provides advisory and strategy consulting service in accelerating customers' success in the internet economy.

Prior to Cisco, Ms. King was the President and Chief Executive Officer of BestB2B.com, an online B2B exchange for consumer electronics and peripherals.  As President and CEO, she was responsible for the overall strategy and operations of BestB2B.com.

Lea started her IT career with General Electric as a Systems Programmer, and then joined AT&T in Virginia, USA, as a member of the programming staff.  For the next fourteen years, she held a variety of positions in programming, complex data design, technical marketing, sales, channel management, marketing, product management and then onwards to overall business management.

In 1995, Ms. King moved from AT&T headquarters in New Jersey to Hong Kong to head up the Product Management organizations in Asia.  She successfully launched the AT&T Global Clearinghouse in 1998 resulting in one of the key asset bases for IP services for the AT&T/BT global venture.  As head of the AT&T Global Clearinghouse, Lea managed the overall business as a self-funding internal startup, led a global team in launching IP value added services such as data/voice roaming, intranet/extranet, VPN service and IP toll free service.

Ms. King has an MBA in International Business from George Washington University and two Bachelor's degrees (Mathematics and Spanish) from the University of Virginia.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Marina Larios is Director of Inova Consultancy, an organization providing consulting services that respond to the needs of organizations and individuals in the area of diversity and equal opportunities. Inova specializes in the field of gender and SET (Science, Engineering and Information Technology) in appropriate positive intervention strategies to address diversity issues and, in particular, to redress the imbalance of women in non-traditional courses and careers. Marina has been a speaker at various European conferences presenting positive actions to increase the representation of women in SET. She is currently an advisor for the Cambridge Centre of Gender Studies, a consultant expert in European project management and evaluator of national and EU initiatives.

Her work includes market research, implementation of mentoring programs, facilitation of workshops, project management, training, process consulting and intercultural programs. Inova Consultancy also represents the UK branch of the European Association for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (WiTEC), which is based in 13 countries across Europe and works together to promote and support women in these fields.

In addition Marina holds an MA in Communication Studies and an MSc in Organization Development and Consultancy, which have given her valuable insight in the implementation of change programs and a sound knowledge in organizational culture. Her main research interests are equal opportunities, diversity and the management of change.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Jane Long is Director of the Centre for Women's Studies at the University of Western Australia, Associate Professor in the School of Social and Cultural Studies, and UWA's Dean of Undergraduate Studies. A historian by training and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Jane has published in the field of late nineteenth-century gender history, as well as histories of citizenship, the body, and Victorian women's working lives. In the past decade, her fascination with the process of change both in history and in the future, and the impact of technology in everyday life, has seen her publishing in the field of cybercultures and cyber identities. She is particularly interested in the ways in which the early ‘promise'of digital communication is playing itself out in gendered communities globally, locally, and within families.

At her own university, Dr. Long actively engages her first-year Women's Studies students in the acquisition of online learning skills. She also devises upper level units that involve students in the critical analysis of cybercultures. Her most recent offering, ‘Self.net: Communicating Identity in the Digital Age', incorporates the study of gender and difference in online communities, and the global and personal ethics of cybercultural engagement. In her role as Dean, she actively promotes equity and diversity in student recruitment, curriculum development, and planning. She is a member of the international Association of Internet Researchers, and, in 2004, convened a major symposium of national and international scholars in Western Australia entitled Media Networks: Code, Culture, and Convention.

A firm believer in translating research into constructive action, part of her time in 2005 will be devoted to two ICT-related teaching and learning projects: the development of guides to instruct teachers about the provision of accessible online resources for students with Color Deficient Vision; and the development of UWA's eLearning Strategy. Jane lives in Perth, and has one daughter (the family's computer guru).   [Return to Symposium Program]

Kelly Lyons joined the IBM Toronto Lab in 1985 after receiving a BSc in Computing Science from Queen's University, at Kingston, Ontario. After two years, she went on an educational leave of absence to complete her Master's and Ph.D. (also at Queen's University). In the last two years of her Ph.D. Dr. Lyons was an IBM Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) Fellowship Student. Upon completion of her Ph.D., Kelly returned to IBM as the Principal Investigator of the Data Management for Electronic Commerce project in CAS, during which time, she was the Industrial Co-Leader of a major project in the Canadian Institute for Telecommunications Research (CITR).

After four years in CAS and two wonderful maternity leaves, Kelly joined the IBM Toronto Lab DB2 Performance and Advanced Technology Department working on complex query performance for IBM's database management system. Soon after that, she became the Manager of a DB2 Advanced Technology Department with responsibility for advanced technology projects such as Self-Managing and Resource Tuning (SMART) databases in DB2, next generation fabrics, and XML performance, as well as coordination of DB2 performance regression testing. Kelly also managed the CAS/DB2 projects which involved 12 students and 10 professors.

In 2001, Kelly started leading Project ARISE (Advanced Research Initiative for Software Excellence) which is looking at additional opportunities to collaborate with universities including participating in courses and seminars using distance learning technologies. Recently she took that responsibility with her as she took on the role of the Head of the IBM Toronto Lab Centre for Advanced Studies.

Dr. Lyons is also a member of IBM Canada's Canadian Technical Excellence Council. She has written several papers, has served on program committees for CASCON and the International Workshop on Multimedia Database Management Systems, has co-chaired many workshops, and has refereed numerous papers for journals and conferences. She is very interested in promoting Women in Technology initiatives and has given several presentations to young women and teachers on this topic.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Claudia Bauzer Medeiros is Full Professor of Computer Science at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. She is the head of the database research group in this university. Her projects center on design and development of scientific databases applications, with emphasis on geographic data and biodiversity.

She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, Canada (1985), a MSc. in Informatics from PUC-Rio (Brazil) and a degree in Electrical Engineering from the same university. She has held visiting appointments at INRIA (Rocquencourt), France, at the University of Munster, Germany, and at the Université Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France. She is an author or co-author of about 50 papers on databases and software engineering methodologies and has been (co)PI on over 30 research and development projects - some of which involved partners in Germany, France, Argentina, Chile and the USA.

Presently Dr. Medeiros is the President of the Brazilian Computer Society and Chair of the Latin America Liaison Committee for ACM SIGMOD. She is a member of the editorial board of the VLDB Journal and Kluwer's GeoInformatica. She was awarded the Newton Faller Prize of the Brazilian Computer Society and twice the Academic Merit Prize of the University of Campinas.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Jayshree Mehta is a scientist with majors in physics and mathematics. She has studied in India, the United States, and the UK. She has been awarded many honors and certificates. She has been a Merit Scholar of the University and the Government of India.

Ms. Mehta has worked extensively in the areas of Science Education; Gender, Science and Technology issues; and women's development. She has participated in national and International research teams and has coordinated a number of projects. She has worked in urban and rural areas for the empowerment of women and their use of technology. She has served as a Chair of GASAT (Gender and Science and Technology) Association, IOSTE (International Organization for Science Education) and OFAN (Once and Future Action Network). She has participated actively in the Beijing conference for women and has worked closely with many international organizations including UNIFEM and UNESCO.

As a Chairperson of Ladies'Wing and Human Resource Development (HRD) of Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industries (GCCI) she has initiated the program for training and establishing internet Dhabas (Centres) run by women in the smaller towns in Gujarat. The group has developed a number of training programs for women in ICT. She is a founding member of the SATWAC (Science and Technology for Women and Children) Foundation which works in the area of education and improving the livelihood, skills, training in technology. She set up the SATWAC Foundation that is working in rural and urban areas using Science and Technology for 4E (Education, Employment, Equality and Empowerment). She has been invited to many international conferences to deliver the key-note address.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Nicole Melander is Senior Director of Worldwide Higher Education Strategy at Microsoft Corporation. Dr. Melander recently joined Microsoft to provide thought leadership to drive Microsoft's strategy in this important area. She is responsible for designing and developing global programs for post-secondary education and engaging directly with education leaders and influential organizations.

Before joining Microsoft, Dr. Melander spent 16 years at Oracle Corporation. During this time, she held a variety of positions in consulting, education, sales, and operations. Her most recent role was Vice President for Oracle's ThinkQuest program where she oversaw all aspects of the project including partner management, product development, operations, and support. Prior to her role with ThinkQuest, she directed the international roll-out of the Think.com collaborative environment and implemented the Oracle Academic Initiative for Higher Ed in the US, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific. As part of the Education Initiatives team, she also helped design, develop, and deploy the Workforce Development Program and the Oracle Internet Academy.

Dr. Melander received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from West Chester University, a Master of Science in Technical Management from Johns Hopkins University, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Information Technology from George Mason University. Dr. Melander has a patent pending in the area of Information Retrieval.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Samia Melhem is a Senior Operations Officer for the World Bank Group's Global Information and Communication Technology Department. She is responsible for improving workflow processes, overseeing internal coordination and interaction with the Bank and donors, and maintaining overall quality control of the program's content, processes, and outcomes. Her experience is in ICT development including telecommunications policy and regulation, public sector reform, and private sector development. She has organized national ICT and e-readiness strategies, which use ICT as a tool for e-government and/or capacity building to improve literacy, create jobs, alleviate poverty, and help bridge the digital divide with relation to gender. Ms. Melhem's expertise includes planning, developing, and implementing large-scale information systems for government and education agencies. She has also managed a large tax computerization and customs automation project in the Philippines, a Central Bank reform project in Madagascar, and contributed to education reform and trade/export development projects in MNA and Africa (Tunisia, Guinea, Egypt, Jordan, Senegal, Yemen, etc.).   [Return to Symposium Program]

Dunja Mladenic has worked at the Department of Knowledge Technologies of the J. Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia, since 1987, first as an undergraduate student and, since 1992, as a researcher. She graduated in Computer Science at the Faculty of Information and Computer Science, University of Ljubljana, and continued as a Ph.D. student focused on Artificial Intelligence. She got her MSc and Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Ljubljana in 1995 and 1998, respectively. Most of her research work is connected with the study and development of machine learning and data mining techniques and their application on real-world problems from different areas, e.g., medicine, pharmacology, manufacturing, economy. Her current research focuses on using machine learning in data analysis, with particular interest in learning from Text and the Web, including personal intelligent agents. She was at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, as a visiting researcher in 1996-1997 and as a visiting faculty in 2000-2001.

Dr. Mladenic is the Slovenian member of the Enwise Expert Group "Promoting women scientists from the Central and Eastern European countries and the Baltic States to produce gender equality in science in the wider Europe." She coordinated the EU Fifth RTD Framework Program project Data Mining and Decision Support for business competitiveness: A European virtual enterprise (Sol-Eu-Net) involving 12 partners from 7 countries (2000-2003). She is on the Management Board of several EU projects.

She has published several papers in refereed conferences and journals. She is co-editor of the book Data Mining and Decision Support: Integration and Collaboration, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. She has served in the program committee of different international conferences (i.e. International Conference on Machine Learning, SIAM Conference on Data Mining, International Conference on Data Warehousing and Knowledge Discovery). She also co-organized several international conferences and workshops.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Almudena Moreno Mínguez is a Professor in Sociology on the Faculty of Ciencias Sociales Jurídicas y de la Comunicación, at the University of Valladolid, Spain. She achieved her Degree on Sociology at the University Complutense of Madrid and Ph.D. at the University Autónoma de Barcelona. Since graduation in 1994, she has been working as part of the Faculty of Education at the Department of Sociology, where she currently teaches several sociology courses. Her main research interests include sociology of family, family policies, welfare states, and gender. As a researcher, she is developing some projects about family policies and family and employment in southern countries, supported by Ministry de Asuntos Sociales y Junta de Castilla y León. Dr. Almudena Moreno is married.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Since 1998, Tomoko Moriya has been a member of the executive board of Fujitsu Social Science Laboratory Ltd. (FSSL) which develops computer software. She studied mathematics at the Ocyanomizu Women's University. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree 1967. For three years she worked for Japanese Tobacco Company where she learned management information engineering. After that, she joined FSSL and developed the language, LISP for artificial intelligence for the first time in Japan. She is currently overseeing the Internet business in the company.

Ms. Moriya has been supporting women in technical, scientific and engineering industries for several years. From 2002 to 2004 she was the President of Japanese Women Engineers Forum (JWEF), an NPO for Japanese women engineers, which was established to promote networking, to improve the living and working environment for women, and thus enhance the contribution of women to society. Currently, JWEF has about 150 members.

In 2002, Ms. Moriya presented "How We Can Motivate Girls to Choose Science and Technology Fields?" at an International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists, with JWEF members, held in Canada. In 2004, she presented "The Current Status of Female Technical Engineers in Japanese Companies" at the International Symposium "The Science, Technology Policy and Gender" held at the Ochanomizu University. In 2004, she presented "How Can Women Fare Well in the Growing Knowledge-Based Industries?" at the UNU-IAS Yokohama Roundtable.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Claudia Morrell is the Executive Director of the Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Under her leadership, the Center's programs and resources have expanded dramatically, including the development of a CWIT Scholars program that retains 93% of its students; increased funding of $6.5 million in scholarships, research, and program funding to support girls'and women's participation and advancement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers in education and industry; and the expansion of personnel from two to thirty-nine staff, students, teachers, and faculty. She also served as the executive producer for an international award-winning women and technology video entitled "You Can Be Anything." Ms. Morrell effectively maintains an active 25-member advisory board with CEOs, CIOs, and high level executive women and men representing business, education, and government leadership. Currently, she is directing several major initiatives that will increase the participation of girls and women in IT, from middle school through the college and university to the workforce and technology entrepreneurship. Ms. Morrell was instrumental in drafting legislation that was signed into law on May 26, 2004, that established in Maryland the first statewide Governor's Taskforce on the Status of Women and IT, and she now serves as co-chair of the Taskforce. The Center's website is recognized internationally as "the best resource for women and IT on the web."

Ms. Morrell speaks at state, national and international events, including the recent March 7, 2005 presentation to delegates and non-government organizational representatives at the Commission on the Status of Women meeting at the United Nations. CWIT also hosted the first International Symposium on Women and IT June 12- 14, 2005, in Baltimore, Maryland. Ms. Morrell serves on multiple statewide, national, and international advisory boards.

Claudia Morrell received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Master of Arts degree from Loyola College of Maryland, and a Master of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She lives in Maryland with her husband and three daughters. Her eldest daughter just completed a computer science degree at Loyola College in Maryland.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Carol B. Muller, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of MentorNet, the E-Mentoring Network for Women in Engineering and Science, a nonprofit organization, and Consulting Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. An educator and social entrepreneur, she has spent more than 25 years in higher education, including work in academic administration, strategic planning and budget development, external relations, faculty recruitment, admissions, educational program development, implementation, and evaluation, and facilities program planning and development. A longstanding interest in gender equity in education and employment, coupled with professional work in engineering and science education beginning in 1987, prompted her to develop a number of new initiatives to tap the full range of human resources in scientific and technical pursuits. Both the Women in Science Project at Dartmouth, developed when she served as Associate Dean for Thayer School of Engineering, and MentorNet have been awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. Dr. Muller has authored numerous papers, is frequently an invited speaker, has received grants for her work from private foundations, corporations, and the federal government, a variety of awards, and serves on a number of boards. A.B. 1977 (philosophy/English), Dartmouth College; A.M. 1981, Ph.D. 1985 (Administration & Policy Analysis), Stanford University.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Stella Odebode, a Consultant in the area of Gender and Rural Development, is a lecturer in the University of Ibadan (Premier University) in the Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, where she conducts research focusing on Women, ICT, and Rural Development in Agricultural Extension. At the University, Dr. Odebode teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students courses on women and ICTs, and trains women in the use of ICT for enhancing rural women's income generating capabilities. As a consultant, Dr. Odebode has conducted assignments with FAO, World Bank and DFID. She was invited to critique a proposal on the Biofortification of food for solving malnutrition problems in developing countries by the World Bank, in Washington, D.C., in May, 2002. Dr. Odebode has attended many international workshops and conferences on the topic of training women in agriculture and rural development in Germany, Austria, China, India, Ghana, and USA. She is a member of the Nigeria Gender Network Society, and United States Information Network (USAIN).  [Return to Symposium Program]

Nezhat Olia has 20 years of teaching and research experience at the graduate level in instructional design, evaluation, psychology and special education, at the University of Oklahoma and Gallaudet University, the only higher education institution for the Deaf in the world. During her tenure at Gallaudet University, Dr. Olia was involved in the development of a Master's degree program in Instructional Technology and Special Education. She conducted research and projects in Multi-Cultural Education, Cognitive Styles, and Mental Imagery that took her to countries like Costa Rica, Iran, and Greece.

As the Associate Director of the Division of Professional Education and Training (DPET), at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and recently, as Director of International Relations for the Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT), also at UMBC, Dr. Olia has been involved with international program development initiatives. She has traveled to China and Thailand to advance professional development projects, and establish relationships. Dr. Olia is fluent in Persian and Sign Language, and enjoys watching movies and reading Persian poetry.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Maria Palasik is an Associate Professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Budapest, Hungary, and she also serves as the European Association for Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology (WITEK) Coordinator for Hungary. A primary focus of her research includes the study of women and technology in Hungary. She is spoken widely on the issue at such prestigious international conferences as the Conference of Women in Science of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and the Symposium of the International Committee for the History of Technology. She has also authored several publications on the topic.

Dr. Palasik received her Ph.D. from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1995 and her Doctor Universitatis in 1983 from the Etvös Loránd University of Arts and Sciences.   [Return to Symposium Program]

A. Nancy Pascall is the Gender Policy Co-Coordinator for the European Commission - DG INFSO/G - Components and Systems. She has a BSc Psychology, an MA in Culture and Media Studies, and an MBA.

In the Commission since 1984, Ms. Pascall has been working on gender integration and mainstreaming since 1992. During these years she has contributed to the formulation of a number of policies relating to mainstreaming and, in particular, to the complete integration of women in the Information Society at all levels.

Before joining the Commission, she worked as a Technical Administrator and as a Marketing Director for an international and a Greek company respectively.

Author of four anthologies of poetry, she has been awarded a number of Greek and international poetry awards.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Dillip Pattanaik is the Director of the IRMA-India (Information Resource Management Association), a division of OSVSWA (Orissa State Volunteers and Social Workers Association) in Orissa, India. With a professional degree in Computer and Telecommunication Engineering, he has relentlessly pursued research and action to uplift rural/tribal communities through various developmental activities including Information and Communication Technology. Reiterating his commitment to ensuring and enhancing access for rural/urban/tribal/disabled women and children to Information Technology, he has gathered experience over more than twelve years at the grassroots level.

He has been a diligent technical member of the teams of the Pilot Project in Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning, supported by the International Labor Organization (ILO) since 2000, and Project on Improving Access and Mobility of Tribal Communities in Orissa, supported by the European Commission (EC) since 2002. His involvement with OSVSWA as Technical Advisor in Information Technology has further strengthened his professional competence.

Mr. Pattanaik's enthusiasm is expressed in his commitment to helping Persons with Disabilities and Children with Disabilities gain access to information related to their rights, education, health and livelihood in rural and tribal areas. Being a part of the Indian Institute of Education and Care (IIEC) in India, he has proved his extensive and intensive understanding and application of Information Technology for exploring new frontiers and vistas of learning in the interest of marginalized segments of the society like women, children and tribal people.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Beth Perlman is Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President at Constellation Energy. Ms. Perlman joined Constellation Energy in 2002. As Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President, Ms. Perlman is responsible for all company-wide information technology initiatives, including the standardization of systems and architecture.

Before joining Constellation, Ms. Perlman was Vice President of Enron Wholesale Trading Technology where she was responsible for 750 technologists and a budget of $180 million. Ms. Perlman, who began her career with Enron in 1995 as Director, Risk Management Administration, was named Senior Director, Strategic Systems Initiatives in 1997, Senior Director, Enron Europe Limited Technology in 1999, and was promoted to her last position in 2000.

Prior to joining Enron, Ms. Perlman was Project Manager, Equity Derivatives Technology for Lehman Brothers from 1993 to 1995. She was also Group Manager, Finance & Accounting Systems for Kidder, Peabody & Company from 1990 to 1993. Prior to that, she worked for J.P. Morgan from 1982 to 1990.

Ms. Perlman serves as a board member of the American Technion Society, The Baltimore Opera, and the Center for Women and Technology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. A New York native, Ms. Perlman graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Management Information Systems and Finance from Syracuse University.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Tegwin Pulley, Vice President, Texas Instruments (TI), is responsible for Workforce Development, Diversity and WorkLife Strategies. Previously, she directed staffing for TI. Before moving to human resources, she directed financial and capacity planning for TI's Semiconductor Group worldwide.

Currently, Ms. Pulley chairs the Texas Education and Technical Consortium of 9 technology companies and 33 colleges and universities. She is co-chair of the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) Regional Workforce Leadership Council and founder of the DFW Semiconductor Executive Council, an industry/education cluster focused on workforce development. In addition, she is President of the Dallas Summit and serves on the boards of the Texas Business and Education Coalition, the Dallas County Community College District Foundation, Media Projects, the Dallas County WorkSource Board, the Women's Museum: An Institute for the Future, and is a member of the Board of Regents for Texas Woman's University.

Ms. Pulley is a recipient of the Athena Award from the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce, the "Women Helping Women" Maura Award from the Women's Center of Dallas, and the Women of Excellence Award from Women's Enterprise and the YWCA.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Chat Garcia Ramilo is a Filipino national residing in the Philippines. She has been specializing in gender, information and communication technology and women's electronic networking for the last nine years. Ms Ramilo is currently the Global Coordinator of the Association for Progressive Communications' Women's Networking Support Program. For the last three years, she has managed APC WNSP's ground breaking Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM) project.

As a gender and ICT specialist, Ms Ramilo has worked as a gender and ICT consultant for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), United Nations Economic and Social Council for Asia and Pacific (UNESCAP), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women, and the World Bank. She has also been a speaker and resource person in international workshops and conferences in many countries. The most recent of these are at the UNESCO Expert Group Meeting on Gender Issues in the Information Society (Paris, July, 2003), United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, 47th Session (New York, March, 2003), Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on the World Summit on the Information Society (Tokyo, January 2003), Expert, Expert Group Meeting  on "Information and Communication Technologies and Their Impact on and Use as an Instrument for the Advancement and Empowerment of Women," United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women (Seoul, November 2002).   [Return to Symposium Program]

Anne-Mari Rannamae has been President of NGO QUIN-Estonia since it was founded in April, 2001. QUIN-Estonia is the only Estonian organization working towards the encouragement of inventive and innovative women. Its goal is to provide a system of training and consulting for Estonian inventive and innovative women. The system will focus on trademarks, intellectual property legislation, implementation of the legislation in the private sector, and entrepreneurship.

Anne-Mari and other members continue to work towards the development of QUIN-Estonia by focusing on the creativity of women and the necessary support systems needed to introduce idea solutions and the encouragement of activity using one's creativity to improve women's self-development and self-confidence.

Ms. Rannamae has experience in mechanical engineering, technological projecting and international women's networking which develop relationships for idea exchanging and marketing. She is an independent entrepreneur. Her hobbies include foreign languages (Russian, English, Finnish, German), traveling, art and architecture.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Debra Richmond is currently a Certified Black Belt for Sun Microsystems. She started her career over 20 years ago as a semiconductor engineer for Motorola, Inc., in Austin, Texas. There she was a designer of the world's first 32-bit microprocessor, the MC68020. Deb then moved back to Maryland to join The Johns Hopkins Hospital where she managed the development and integration of state-of-the-art clinical applications. One project included a nursing unit clinical workstation years ahead of its time. Moving from engineering and development, Deb joined the sales organization at Digital Equipment Corporation as a Senior Consultant. In 1997, she began her employment with Sun and has worked as a Manager of Systems Engineers and most recently as a Six Sigma Black Belt within the U.S. Sales organization.

Ms. Richmond is a published author, is a member of various organizations such as IEEE and the Society of Women Engineers, and is very active with her children's schools and the local school systems, especially as a technology advocate.

Deb received her B.S.E.E. with Honors from Lafayette College in 1981.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Sue Rosser received her Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1973. Since July 1999, she has served as Dean of Ivan Allen College, the liberal arts college at Georgia Institute of Technology, where she is also Professor of History, Technology, and Society. From 1995-1999, she was Director for the Center for Women's Studies and Gender Research and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Florida-Gainesville. In 1995, she was Senior Program Officer for Women's Programs at the National Science Foundation. From 1986 to 1995 she served as Director of Women's Studies at the University of South Carolina, where she also was a Professor of Family and Preventive Medicine in the Medical School.

She has edited collections and written approximately 115 journal articles on the theoretical and applied problems of women and science and women's health. Author of the books Teaching Science and Health from a Feminist Perspective: A Practical Guide (1986), Feminism within the Science and Health Care Professions: Overcoming Resistance (1988), Female-Friendly Science (1990) from Pergamon Press, Feminism and Biology: A Dynamic Interaction (1992) from Twayne Macmillan, Women's Health: Missing from U.S. Medicine (1994) from Indiana University Press, and Teaching the Majority (1995), Re-engineering Female Friendly Science (1997), and Women, Science, and Society: The Crucial Union (2000) from Teachers College Press. Her latest book is The Science Glass Ceiling: Struggles of Academic Women Scientists (2004) from Routledge. She also served as the Latin and North American Co-editor of Women's Studies International Forum from 1989-1993 and currently serves on the editorial boards of NWSA Journal, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering and Women's Studies Quarterly. She has held several grants from the National Science Foundation, including "A USC System Model for Transformation of Science and Math Teaching to Reach Women in Varied Campus Settings" and "POWRE Workshop." She currently serves as co-PI on a $3.7 million ADVANCE grant from NSF. During the fall of 1993, she was Visiting Distinguished Professor for the University of Wisconsin System Women in Science Project.   [Return to Symposium Program]

David Rowlands is the Vice President of Lean Six Sigma for Xerox North America. In this position, he leads the deployment of Xerox Lean Six Sigma in sales, service, and marketing. This is a full deployment across all functions, with over 200 Black Belts and Master Black Belts. As part of this deployment, David led the first "At the Customer, For the Customer" project with a large customer and led the Executive Green Belt training for the Senior Leadership Team.

David joined Xerox in 1990, working as a business and finance analyst in Materials Management. He followed this assignment with several operational positions, including operations manager, product manager, and manager of the worldwide Fuser Delivery Unit. In these positions, he was responsible for technology development, advanced product concepts, design engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain operations. He has also managed the productivity office for worldwide manufacturing within Xerox and is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Currently, he is a member of the Board of Governors for the Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing and a member of the Operations Committee for The Juran Center for Leadership in Quality. He has been a featured speaker at The Conference Board, The Six Sigma Summit, The Shingo Prize, and is co-author of What is Lean Six Sigma? (McGraw Hill, 2003) and The Lean Six Sigma Pocket Toolbook (McGraw Hill, 2004).

Previous to Xerox, David was a consultant with Andersen Consulting, specializing in productivity and lean enterprise transformations, and has worked extensively with some of the original members of Toyota's Autonomous Study Group (Toyota Production System).

David Rowlands was born March 30, 1961, in Tokyo, Japan. He received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Houghton College in 1983 and concurrently completed his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry (University of Rochester, 1987) and his MBA (Rochester Institute of Technology, 1986). He and his wife, Anne, reside in the small town of Honeoye Falls, New York with their four children.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Margarita Salas Guzman is a Program Officer for Bellanet International's regional office in Latin America and the Caribbean. She is responsible for developing the ICT program line. Prior to that, in 2003, she was a Project Assistant for the area of online Learning Communities at Fundacion Acceso.

Ms. Salas Guzman is a member of the Colectiva por el Derechoa Decidir, a feminist group of women committed to defending, promoting and vindicating women's rights to fully decide over their own sexuality and reproduction by processes of political advocacy, research and networking.

She earned her BA degree in Psychology at the University of Costa Rica in 2002 and is currently working on a thesis in psychology.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Jo Sanders has been a researcher specializing in gender, technology, science and mathematics in education and employment for nearly thirty years. She developed and directed over a dozen multi-year, primarily national projects. Most were funded by the National Science Foundation, with some funding by the U.S. Department of Education and corporate and philanthropic foundations. Particular interests include girls and women in technology, gender in teacher education, single-sex education, the psychological dimensions of learning, and recently the gender dimensions of boys' learning patterns.

Presently an independent consultant, Ms. Sanders has carried out her projects at the Washington Research Institute and the University of Washington in Seattle, the Center for Advanced Study in Education at the City University of New York Graduate Center and the Women's Action Alliance in New York, and Technical Education Research Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Ms. Sanders has published widely on gender issues with dozens of books, book chapters, articles, and papers. Her most recent writing project is a research review article, "Gender and Technology" for the Handbook of Gender and Education, to be published in 2006 by Sage in London. Americans were invited to write only a third of the three dozen chapters in this international book.

Jo Sanders has spoken and taught widely to educators at all levels, with many dozens of workshops, speeches, and professional development sessions nationwide and in lecture tours abroad. Currently, Ms. Sanders is maintaining formal mentoring relationships with two professional women and a sixth-grade girl.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Lucy Sanders is CEO and Co-Founder of the National Center for Women and Information Technology.  A recipient of the Bell Labs Fellow Award, Ms. Sanders retired as a CTO and Vice President of R&D at AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent Bell Labs and Avaya Labs.  She joined the University of Colorado's ATLAS (Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society) Institute, whose broad mission includes bridging information technology with the arts, humanities, and social sciences.   Ms. Sanders serves on a number of non-profit boards, as well as on the boards of several high-tech companies.  She also holds 5 patents in the telecommunications area.  Ms. Sanders recently received the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award from the College of Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Lucy Sanders received her BS and MS in Computer Science, from Louisiana State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, respectively.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Neeran Saraf is President and CEO of SARAF Software Solutions and has more than 20 years of technical and business experience in the IT industry. She has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Imperial College, University of London, and a Master's in Computer Science from George Mason University in Virginia.

Ms. Saraf was awarded the 2004 Office Depot / WIPP Business Woman of the Year.

In 1996, Ms. Saraf co-founded SARAF Software Solutions, Inc., a scientific-based software consulting company that merges the latest technologies with existing system designs proven to be effective and other specific solutions tailored to the needs of businesses. Today, she continues to supervise and mentor SARAF's technical team members and works closely with the SARAF Senior Team to ensure continued growth by producing superior technical products and services that yield high customer satisfaction.

As an Iraqi-American, Ms. Saraf has lectured and participated in numerous panels and conferences about Iraqi culture to help teach businesspeople and other individuals traveling to Iraq about the people and culture. She has presented at the Marine Corps, Rotary Clubs, DLA, State Department, and Reconstruction conferences, as well as conferences for women focusing on professional and social challenges, both in the United States and in the Middle East.

Prior to SARAF Software Solutions, Ms. Saraf was instrumental in founding and developing other software and high-tech consulting companies.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Olga Savinskaya is a consultant of the Institute of Social and Gender Policy [former Women's Network Program, of the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation), Russia] and a research scholar of the Institute of Sociology, the Russian Academy of Sciences. She was a regional scholar of the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., in 2000. She defended her kandidatskaya (Ph.D.) degree devoted to qualitative methodology at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1999. From 1996 to 1998, Dr. Savinskaya worked as Manager of the Project "Women Human Rights in Russia" in the Moscow Center for Gender Studies, which was supported by the J. and K. MacArthur Foundation. Since 1999, she has conducted external operational evaluations as outside expert on gender mainstreaming in the programs of the Women's Network Program of OSI-Russia - Soros Foundation. The results of this work were published in the book: Gender Integration: the Opportunities and Limitation of the Social Innovation. She has written several articles in Russian on the methodology of social research and gender studies. Her current fields of research include gendered organizational analysis, gender analysis of corporate social policies, gender aspects of new professional groups, and life/work balance in transitional societies.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Heidi Schelhowe is Professor of Digital Media in Education at the Computer Science Department of the University of Bremen. Her special field of research and teaching is Application of Digital Media in Schools as well as in University Teaching and Vocational Training. She is head of an interdisciplinary team of about 20 researchers.

Early in the 70s she studied Theology and German in Freiburg/Brsg and Muenster and worked as a teacher in Bremen. After the birth of two daughters, she studied Computer Science in Bremen (degree 1989). Later she worked at the "Interdisciplinary Research Center for Work and Technology" (artec), University of Bremen and at the Computer Science Department of the University of Hamburg (1992-1996) and at the Computer Science Institute at the Humboldt University of Berlin (1996-2001). Her special research interests, besides Digital Media in Education, are Computers and Society and Gender Questions in Computing Sciences. Interaction and interactivity are main concepts in her research and teaching.

Dr. Schelhowe has been in charge of several research projects, e.g. the Virtual International Women's University, Gender and Information Society Technology (GIST), and others.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Dr. Sevo is Program Director at the National Science Foundation for a funding program in education called Research on Gender in Science and Engineering. Before that, she worked in information technology in the government holding a range of technical positions from programmer, analyst, systems planner, to manager of software development and customer support. She is a graduate of Antioch College in literature and has three advanced degrees from the University of Chicago in South Asia area studies and information science. Dr. Sevo worked at the Library of Congress for seven years as a Systems Librarian. She has been at the National Science Foundation since 1988. Her current position oversees the former "Program for Women and Girls" with a $10 million annual budget and about 300 total grants to date, with the purpose of increasing the participation of women in science and engineering.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Celine Shen received her Ph.D. from City University of Hong Kong and is currently the Executive Director of the Peking University eBusiness Center, the first non-profit academic institution in China engaging in e-Business research and education.

Dr. Shen's research focuses on the economic/organizational/political impacts of information technology, the economics of information systems and electronic markets, e-government and government reform in China, the business value of IT, and trust mechanisms of information transparency in business chains. Her research methodology involves both economic modeling and empirical analysis. The research projects and publications she chaired and has been involved with include: The White Paper of Internet and e-business Application of Chinese Enterprises, 2001, sponsored by the State Economic and Trade Commission; The Information Systems and e-Business Application of Chinese Trade Companies, 2003, sponsored by the State Economic and Trade Commission; e-Government of China: Provincial and Perfectural Report, 2003, sponsored by the State Information Office; Net Readiness of Chinese SOE Enterprises, 2003, sponsored by China; e-Trust and Eachnet, 2004, sponsored by e-bay; Zhongguancun Science Park Development Report, 2003-2004, sponsored by the Beijing Zhongguancun Administrative Council.

Dr. Shen's work experience includes Business Development Analyst in E-Commerce Resources Ltd (HK), Hutchison Whampoa Group, specializing in market research, business planning and implementation, analysis in e-commerce strategies and solutions. During this period, she was responsible for the recruitment of alliance partners and JV in Internet and collocation business, B2B Procurement Model and Site Development in the Hong Kong and the greater China areas.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Kayoko Shibata is a Gender Knowledge Management Analyst for the Gender and Development Group of the World Bank. She has organized the ICTs and Gender Seminar Series at the World Bank since October 2000 (www.worldbank.org/gender/digitaldivide). She co-managed the Bank's Engendering ICT study program, which was financed by the Government of Japan from 2002-2003. Additionally, she worked on knowledge dissemination as part of the Gender and Rural Transport Initiative in Africa. Ms. Shibata has held the positions of Visiting Research Fellow at Kobe University (March 2005) and Visiting Scholar at Nagoya University (1998), both in Japan. Before joining the World Bank, she was a Corporate Information Specialist for a major telecom corporation in Japan. She holds an MA in International Educational Development with a specialization in Instructional Technology from Columbia University in New York, an MFA in Photography from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and a BA from Sophia University in Tokyo.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Carol Sholes is the Vice President of Information Technology for The Baltimore Sun in Maryland. Before joining The Sun in January 2001, she was Director of Information Systems for The Syracuse Newspaper. Prior to that, she was Vice President and Co-Owner of RJ Wallace & Associates, a software development and IT consulting firm, for 11 years.

Ms. Sholes is on the External Board of the Center for Women and Information Technology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the Board of the Girls Scouts of Central Maryland, and is a 2003 graduate of the Greater Baltimore Committee Leadership program.

Ms. Sholes resides in Baltimore City with her husband.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Sarah Revi Sterling is responsible for Microsoft Research's Gender Equity Outreach Program. She works to attract and retain women in computing research and technical majors. She has been at Microsoft for ten years, in product development and university relations positions. She serves on working boards for the Anita Borg Institute and the National Center for Women and Information Technology, and is a frequent speaker on the topic of gendered attrition and advancement in high tech.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Fred Tipson joined Microsoft in 2004 as Director for International Development and Senior Policy Counsel in Washington, DC. Prior to that time he was an Executive Director at the Markle Foundation in New York, working on an ICT for development project with the United Nations Development Programme. Fred spent fourteen years in the international services business of AT&T and two years as Director of Regulatory Affairs in Cable & Wireless -Hongkong Telecom. From 1979 to 1984, he was counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He received a J.D. and a Ph.D. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, a Master's in International Relations from Yale and a B.A. from Stanford. Fred and his wife, Laura, have three children.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Sophie Vandebroek is Xerox's Corporate Chief Engineer and Vice President of the Xerox Engineering Center. Her organization is responsible for Xerox's platform planning and delivery effectiveness, strengthening the engineering capabilities, and optimizing the $1B annual RD&E investments.

Before re-joining Xerox early in 2002, Dr. Vandebroek was Chief Technology Officer at Carrier Corporation. The prior decade, she had a succession of technology functions at Xerox: Laboratory Manager in Research & Technology, Platform Manager in the Ink-Jet Supplies Business Unit, Enterprise Coherence Program Manager, Technical Advisor to Xerox's Chief Operating Officer, and Director of the Xerox Research Center of Canada.

Dr. Vandebroek is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers and served as an elected member on the IEEE Administrative Committee. She also served on the organizing committees of the International Electron Devices Conference, the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers in Engineering Symposium, and the Device Research Conference. She recently served as a judge for MIT's Technology Review 100 Young Innovators Awards and the Wall Street Journal Innovation Awards.

Dr. Vandebroek is a Fulbright Fellow and a Fellow of the Belgian-American Educational Foundation. She has received awards from Xerox, IBM, HP, Monsanto, the Belgium National Science Foundation, Semiconductor Research Corporation, and Cornell University.

Dr. Vandebroek was born in Belgium. She earned a Master's Degree in Electro-Mechanical Engineering in Belgium, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. Prior to joining Xerox, she did research at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, the Interuniversity Microelectronics Center, and HP Labs, Palo Alto, CA.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Colette Vesikula is Business Development Manager for Clariti (South Pacific) Limited in Suva, Fiji. Prior to that, in 2003, she earned her Masters in Information Systems from Central Quensland University, also in Suva, Fiji.

From 1985 to 1991, Ms. Vesikula worked for the Fiji Trade and Investment Board in various positions. She worked for the Australian Trade Commission in 1991 and the Credit Corporation, Fiji, Limited 1992-1998.

Ms. Vesikula initiated a Women in Technology interest group in August of 2004 and is currently in the process of formalizing the group.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Annette Williams is the Director of the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET in UK and led the team that won the contract for the Centre with the Department of Trade and Industry.

Dr. Williams has been actively involved in gender and SET issues for over 20 years: setting up training courses for women in SET and hands on events for girls; developing continuous professional development training programs for lecturers and career professionals; conceptualising a tiered mentoring model for women in SET and a model for cultural change in the SET industries.

Annette joined Bradford College as a Lecturer in Auto Engineering in 1989, where she was the first woman to be employed in the Department of Engineering and Construction. In 1997 she developed a wider role for herself, bidding for and developing projects to support the recruitment, retention and progression of women in SET. These projects include Let's TWIST and JIVE Partners, successful large-scale projects noted for their cutting edge work in the field. The combined success of all of Annette's projects led to the awarding of contracts to establish the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET on behalf of the UK Government.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Behjat Al Yousuf is the Information Technology Supervisor at Dubai Women's College - Higher Colleges of Technology. She obtained this post in 2001, after completing her Ph.D. in Software Engineering. She is responsible for all Higher Diploma and Bachelor specializations under IT, overlooking strategies in delivering high quality education to UAE nationals, applying quality assurance in IT education, contributing to HCT in driving changes that meet the changes in the IT industry, and strategically increasing employment of UAE IT women in the workforce.

Dr. Al Yousuf was involved in a series of events with the World Bank related to the Empowerment of Women. On that issue, she chaired two video conferences and an online discussion for four weeks that involved participation from different countries.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Linda Zecher is Vice President of the U.S. Public Sector for Microsoft Corp. She is responsible for all of Microsoft's business in federal, state and local government, and education markets, including K-12 and higher education. Ms. Zecher was appointed to the position in October of 2003. She supports the efforts of 475 personnel across the U.S. in sales, marketing, pre-sales engineering, contracting and consulting services.

For more than 25 years, Linda Zecher has had a distinguished career providing management expertise and leadership to some of the market leaders in technology. Following seven years as a geophysicist with Texas Instruments, Linda joined Bank of America in 1984 as Vice President of Product Management and Technical Services. In 1989, she joined PeopleSoft as the ninth employee in the role of Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and was responsible for building a worldwide sales and marketing presence for the company.

Following a two-year sabbatical, Ms. Zecher became Senior Vice President at Oracle Corp., and was responsible for sales of Oracle's Application Suite in the Public Sector, Higher Education, Healthcare, Telecommunications, Financial Services and Utilities markets. Upon leaving Oracle, she was named CEO of Evolve Corp., holding that position for more than a year until the company was acquired.

Linda is a graduate of Ohio State University and holds a Bachelor of Science degree. She lives in Keswick, Va., with her husband, Richard.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Rosalie A. Zobel was born in England. She received a Bachelor's degree in Physics from Nottingham University, UK, in 1964, and a Ph.D. in Radiation Physics from London University in 1967.

Dr. Zobel started her career in the Information Technology industry in ICL in 1967, and later held positions as a Systems Engineer in CERN (Centre Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire), Geneva, Switzerland, the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, UK, and Operations Manager of the first CRAY Supercomputer Centre in continental Europe.

In 1981 she moved to the USA and took up a position in the AT&T Headquarters, Basking Ridge, USA. She held positions as Senior Marketing Manager for Open Systems Software both for the USA and international markets, and was responsible from 1983-1986 for the international UNIX business. In 1986 she became Senior Marketing Manager for Information Technology Products in AT&T Japan.

She returned to Europe in 1988 as Deputy Head of the Unit for the European Community's ESPRIT Business Systems Unit. In 1991 she launched the initiative in Open Microprocessor Systems (OMI). From 1995 she was the Head of Unit "Business Systems, Multimedia and Microprocessor Applications", and EU-Coordinator of the G7 Pilot Project "Global Marketplace for SMEs". From 1999-2002 she was Director of "New Methods of Work and Electronic Commerce". Since 2003 she has been the Director of "Miniaturisation, Embedded Systems, Societal Applications" in the Information Society Directorate-General of the European Commission.   [Return to Symposium Program]

Since 2001, Margaret Zunguze has worked closely with UNIFEM as a national consultant on women's use and access to ICTs. She is currently carrying out research in workplace HIV/AIDS policies and programs for twenty organizations in Zimbabwe for SMARTWork AED. The goal of the research is to identify best practices in workplace HIV/AIDS policies and programs. The research results will be published before the World AIDS Conference to be held in Bangkok in July.

For seven years, she worked as an Information and Communications Specialist with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) through its regional programs in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Malawi. She became an active member of regional and international organizations that encouraged the participation of civil society organizations in the formulation of national ICT Policies to bridge the divide between the rich and the poor. From 2001 to 2003, she headed the Information Services Department of a Gender and Development feminist organization called the Zimbabwe Women's Resource Center and Network (ZWRCN).

From 1997 to 2001, she headed the Information and Communication Department of a Regional Farming System Program called FARMESA, executed by FAO. She was responsible for initiating and implementing strategies to gather, analyze and compile information for use by the program in farming systems research including gender.

From 1994 to 1996, she was the Information Officer for a Regional Fisheries Project, ALCOM. Prior to that, from 1987 to 1994, she was Assistant Editor Manager for a large educational publishing house, the College Press. From 1985-1987 she was a lecturer in Microbiology and Biochemistry to Bachelor of Technology students at Laboratory Technicians at the Harare Polytechnic. Ms. Zunguze completed the A Level in Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics and earned a Bachelor of Science degree with special honors in Biochemistry from Hull University, in the United Kingdom.   [Return to Symposium Program]