#tech-girls

[tech-girls]

Spotlight: May Casterline

Each month we spotlight a woman or girl in tech who inspires us. This month we are highlighting May Casterline. May is a working mother of 2 who has been active in science and technology field for 12 years. Her background is in remote sensing (satellite and airborne imaging systems) and the analytical systems built to exploit that type of data.  Because of the size of this data and the challenges it presents, she started working with AI and deep learning solutions to solve those problems. Today she is a senior solutions architect at NVIDIA.  

How do you work with technology today? I work for NVIDIA so technology and its application is at the core of our business.  Each day I am doing something different, but it is all unified by the mission of helping folks adopt AI and GPU-accelerated approaches to solve their problems. This can involve developing training materials, giving talks, doing technical deep dives, developing proofs of concepts, or helping design system architectures.

What drives your interest in technology? I am perpetually interested in technology because there is always something new to learn.

What do you remember about your first coding experience? I was first introduced to coding as a freshman in undergraduate. I was in an introduction to C++ class. I have a distinct memory of the logic and methodology that drove the development cycle making perfect sense to me and just clicking. I fell in love with it and started to find problems and projects where I could learn more about how to apply it to solutions.

What was your pathway to working in technology? I originally thought I was going to be a photographer and went to photography school. I ended up choosing a hybrid major called Photographic Technology that had the art school requirements, along with some technical classes that explored more of the science behind image formation and processing. The two technical classes I took freshman year were an Intro to C++ course and Materials and Processes of Photography (a class all about cameras, emulsions, silver halide formation, etc.). I was enthralled in these classes. Everything was fascinating and made sense. When I looked around, everyone else in my class seemed miserable. That is whn I realized that these were not my people and I needed to find something different.  Serendipitously, I was working on a homework assignment early on and was unable to find the answer in my course text book. Some other students on my dorm floor had a text book that ended up having the answer. When I asked them where that book came from they told me all about their major - Imaging Science. It was the perfect combination of imaging technology, computer science, and physic. I immediately switched majors and fell in love. I started doing research in the labs at RIT as and undergraduate and stayed on to complete my PhD. Throughout my undergraduate and graduate time I continued to grow my programming skills, mostly out of necessity. I needed tools to solve my own problems in my research and no one else was going to build them for me. That exposure to solving my own problems by building technology components eventually grew into a career of developing research and development software solutions to solve challenging problems.

Why is it important to get more girls and women interested in technology? Ultimately I ended up working in the DoD/intelligence community. As a technical contributor in this industry I am continuously the only woman, or on the rare occasion in a 2-3 person minority. Women are entirely under-represented in this industry and there are some very challenging and rewarding problems that need to be solved. I think we are short changing our society by not having more women in the technical decision making roles for these types of problems,

Who inspires you to pursue your passion? My daughter - she is part of the future and I want to show her that she can do anything she puts her mind to and make a difference. Corny, but quite true.

What most excites you about the future of technology? The most exciting thing for me is all the problems, that have long seemed impossible, actually being solved in our lifetimes. Whether its autonomous vehicles, mobility assistance, drug discovery - its all possible and incredibly close.

What advice would you give to your younger self? Stay focused and always say what you think, no matter what.

[tech-girls]

Spotlight: Brooke Blankenship and Avery Bruen

Each month we spotlight a woman or girl in tech who inspires us. This month we are highlighting two young women, Brooke Blankenship and Avery Bruen, who recently presented at Charlottesville Entrepreneurs and Espresso (CE2) about their work as interns with an early stage startup, C.A.R.E. Lab. They are rising seniors at Albemarle High School. In addition, Avery is the co-founder and Brooke is the vice president of EmpowerHer, an organization dedicated to creating menstrual equality for public schools in Central Virginia. At CE2, they shared about a pilot workshop that C.A.R.E. Lab is launching for high school students this summer to nurture future leaders as they explore the conscious, accountable, regenerative, and equitable principles.

How do you work with technology today? At the C.A.R.E. Lab, we work with Humanized Generative AI technologies to tackle various complex challenges. Our role involves collaborating on projects that aim to develop smart and sustainable solutions for real-world problems. We utilize AI for data analysis, predictive modeling, and to enhance efficiency and productivity. By integrating AI with the principles of C.A.R.E., we strive to create impactful and equitable outcomes that can benefit our community and beyond.

What drives your interest in technology? Our interest in technology is driven by its transformative potential. We are fascinated by how technology, especially AI, can be used to solve complex problems and improve lives. The ability to innovate and create sustainable solutions that address global challenges inspires us. Additionally, the dynamic nature of the tech field, with its continuous advancements and opportunities for learning, keeps us motivated and eager to contribute to its growth. Through our work at the CARE Lab, we have seen firsthand how technology can make a difference, and this fuels our passion to explore and innovate further.

What do you remember about your first coding experience? Brooke: I vividly remember my first coding experience during a summer tech camp where we were introduced to Scratch. Creating an interactive story with animations and sound effects was incredibly fun and rewarding. It was fascinating to see my ideas come to life through coding, and this experience ignited my curiosity about how technology works and what more I could create with it.

Avery: My journey into technology began in middle school with an introduction to Scratch, MIT’s visual programming language. The user-friendly interface made it easy to create interactive projects, sparking an interest in coding. Later, I explored QuickBase, a low-code application development platform, which provided more advanced, practical experience. These early encounters with Scratch and QuickBase laid the groundwork for my growing interest and skills in technology.

What was your pathway to working in/studying technology? Our path to technology is shaped by a combination of academic pursuits, leadership roles, and a strong passion for student empowerment. Technology must integrate 360 degree thinking in both design and implementation. Values and ethics cannot be an add on but must guide the design process.

Why is it important to see more girls and women studying and working in technology? Having visible female role models in technology inspires and motivates young girls to pursue careers in this field. It helps break down stereotypes and shows that success in technology is achievable for everyone, regardless of gender.

Who inspires you to pursue your passion? Both of us are inspired by the mentors and teachers who have guided us on our tech journey. Their support, encouragement, and belief in our potential have been invaluable. They demonstrate the importance of mentorship and the powerful role it plays in shaping future leaders in technology.

What most excites you about the future of technology? We are most excited about the potential of technology to drive sustainable and equitable progress across the globe. The rapid advancements in AI, renewable energy, and biotechnology promise to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time, from climate change to healthcare accessibility.

What advice would you give to your younger self? In a world that often pushes conformity, remember to stay authentic. Your unique perspective and talents are valuable - it’s diversity that drives innovation. Trust in your abilities and be confident in the path you choose, even if it's unconventional. Be responsible for the impact of technology on others and the planet!

[tech-girls]

Spotlight: Courtney Christensen

Each month we spotlight a woman or girl in tech who inspires us. This month we are highlighting Courtney Christensen. Courtney is a Senior Engineering Manager at Linden Lab in charge of the teams that build most of the web pieces for Second Life. She is also a long-time mentor with C4K and Tech-Girls. Courtney has this to say about her mentoring experiences - "How can you give back to your community, make the world a better place, and experience your own and another person's joy all at the same time? For me, by mentoring. My mentees are my ripples in the pond, they will help me make an even bigger difference than I ever could alone. Plus they are clever, awesome, funny people and it's fun to spend time with them."

What drives your interest in technology? I can't remember a time when I didn't want to know how things work. I didn't take apart the hairdryer or the alarm clock, but I constantly took apart pens. I drew things and tried to get closer to real life. I used tools and I read books and how-to guides. I also always played video games. Once I put together that I could program games, I was hooked. Now that I'm in tech, I still love solving puzzles, but I realize that technology permeates all aspects of our lives. I want to be helping build the things that power our modern world.

What do you remember about your first coding experience? My older brother sent us a family computer when I was in middle school. I thought I was such a hacker poking around at the DOS prompt loading shareware games and adding HTML to make my profile on a Jeopardy site sparkle. I bought an old BASIC programming book from the library book sale and taught myself from that leading up to my QBASIC class in high school. I loved telling a computer what to do and having it dance to my commands. It's still so much fun to get into a code puzzle.

What was your pathway to working in/studying technology? I have a fairly stereotypical path to technology. I wanted to play video games and take things apart. Then I learned to do some programming. That chose my college major, Computer Science. And I got a job in the field right out of college.

Why is it important to get more girls and women interested in technology? I've got a few different answers to this. My heart answer is that I love to be there to fan the flame of someone else's endorphin rush at discovery. Learning is so much fun and helping someone else to learn is amazing. The corporate answer is that women are half or more of the target audience, getting women and girls into designing the products you're trying to sell them makes better products. Women on teams makes better teams, but women designing a product for women means you won't have the pitfalls like VR controllers being too big for typically smaller hands or cellphones that can't fit my face!

Who inspires you to pursue your passion? I really like some of the stories of dangerous women from history. Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace have been great inspirations for me. But today, I've got female CTOs at big companies to look up to. And closer to me, I've got female friends in technology leadership like Ann Lewis. It might be coming to mind because it's Mother's Day as I answer this question, but my mom has always encouraged what she calls my "science brain".

What most excites you about the future of technology? We're making science fiction into science fact daily. I'm most excited about tech that makes the world a better place.

What advice would you give to your younger self? I would tell my early career self to change technology sectors and be intentional with your job choices so you don't get typecast. This might be on me and in my own brain, but after 2 jobs in web development, I got labeled "web developer" instead of just "software developer". I would also pursue dreams before you get used to your salary! And make sure to keep learning, don't let yourself get comfortable at being an expert at one thing because times change, technologies move on, and learning new things is a skill that can dull with lack of use.

[tech-girls]

Spotlight: Anooshka Pendyal

Each month we spotlight a woman or girl in tech who inspires us. This month we are highlighting Anooshka Pendyal. Anooshka is a junior at Deep Run High School's Center for Information Technology in Henrico County, VA. She is passionate about exploring computer science and helping others explore it as well! She is also on the Tech-Girls committee and a frequent session leader at Girls' Geek Day.

How do you work with technology today? I work with technology as both a learner and a teacher. At Virginia Commonwealth University, I am researching applications of quantum computing and mathematical formulations that can be used to help solve problems. At school, I am a student at the Center for Information Technology at Deep Run High School, where I get to learn the fundamentals of computer science through courses like AP Computer Science A and Honors Application Development and through hands-on projects with local companies. One of my passions is helping other people discover and explore technology. Through DebuggingOut, a computer science and math education organization I founded, my team and I hold workshops and tutoring sessions to expose people to computer science in the Richmond area, as computer science is the future. We aim to bring technology education to underserved communities and do so by holding computer literacy workshops, intro to programming workshops, and math tutoring sessions, for example.

What drives your interest in technology? My interest in technology is driven by curiosity and a need to solve problems. As computer science has become and will continue to be bigger parts of our lives, I've always been intrigued by how we can reach better solutions to problems through the power of technology. I also enjoy the challenges and logical reasoning of programming and solving problems.

What do you remember about your first coding experience? My first coding experience was in elementary school when I attended STEAM workshops. Although I already knew how important technology was, it was at the workshops where I discovered that technology could be fun as well. I remember making LED flowers, programming robots to run through mazes, and creating games in Scratch. This fun and interactive introduction to coding inspired me to help other people have the same experience with learning technology.

What was your pathway to studying technology? When I was in elementary school, I was exposed to computer science through workshops and programming courses. Then, while continuing to build my fundamentals, I participated in science fairs in middle school with computer science projects. I also began volunteering to help tutor kids in math and computer science. In high school, I joined a speciality center focused on technology, where I gained experience working in projects with real clients, and I continued my passion for research and volunteering, by joining computer science labs and conducting workshops through DebuggingOut. I plan to continue my education by pursuing a computer science degree in college.

Why is it important to get more girls and women interested in technology? More diversity in technology means more efficient solutions to problems and different approaches and perspectives. Also, technology is a very lucrative field, and having more women in technology could help to close the gender pay gap.

Who inspires you to pursue your passion? Why? My older sister inspires me to pursue my passion in research and technology. I've always looked up to her as a role model and thought how cool her research and career in technology is. Another role model of mine is Ada Lovelace, who is regarded as the first computer programmer and a talented mathematician. I have always enjoyed math and computer science for their problem solving logic, and I admire Ada Lovelace's perseverance in exploring math and technology in spite of the limitations placed on women at the time.

What most excites you about the future of technology? Quantum computing and artificial intelligence have always fascinated me. I'm extremely excited to see how quantum computing will revolutionize computing by using the principles of quantum mechanics and how AI will help us even more in our everyday lives.

What advice would you give to your younger self? I would tell my younger self to have more confidence in myself. Although it's important to be conscious of your weaknesses, it's more important to believe in yourself and your strengths. Confidence and hard work helps you conquer fears and be open to new opportunities.

[tech-girls]

Spotlight: Aditi Prakash

Aditi Prakash is a senior at Albemarle High School. Her passion is inspiring kids to pursue education and STEM. Recently, she created a free STEM kit program called Key to Learning, with her co-founder Rimi Kaur. So far they have partnered with the Boys and Girls Club, the Northside Library, and a few local elementary schools who are using their kits in their 3rd/4th grade curriculum. They have created 400 kits so far, and each kit contains the materials for five science experiments that are paired with five science lessons.

Aditi has also been very involved with Tech-Girls, mostly recently as an intern during the 2020 Bio-Med Tech-Girls summer program. In April she received the Emily Couric Leadership Award!

How do you work with technology today? I work with technology through teaching robotics and creating STEM instructional videos! Rimi and I use video editing and are working on animations for our videos.

What drives your interest in technology? What drives my interest in technology are the endless opportunities and curiosity that it brings. I love exploring technology, but I also love the careers and options it can give. I hope to inspire kids to pursue tech and not get discouraged.

What do you remember about your first coding experience? My first coding experience was in my lovely robotics team in 5th grade. We started out pretty simple, we used RobotC to program a robot we built together to dance to the cupid shuffle with us! It was incredibly exciting, and I hope to pass that excitement and joy down to future students.

What was your pathway to working in/studying technology? My pathway into working with tech was through my robotics team - I always loved math and science, but my first true tech/coding experiences were with my team.

Why is it important to get more girls and women interested in technology? It is important to get girls and women interested in technology because the field is missing crucial talent! Every girl who is told she is terrible at science has incredible potential. The more diverse and accepting STEM becomes, the more innovation is possible. In addition, girls deserve access to the careers and opportunities available in technology, and we need to make sure that those opportunities are within reach.

Who inspires you to pursue your passion? My mentors and students inspire me to pursue my passions. Every mentor who happily teaches new skills is opening up a new world to their students, and this inspires me to give back to my community in the same way.

What most excites you about the future of technology? What most excites me about the future of technology is the potential it has to change lives! The quality of life we experience today is entirely thanks to technology and innovation, and there is no telling how much we will improve the world we live in through technology.

What advice would you give to your younger self? The advice I would give my younger self would be to never give up on a project or a new skill before you have given a good number of attempts. So many students are conditioned to believe that their inherent ability is what matters in whether they will be successful in a certain field or not, but this could not be farther from the truth. Persistence and grit is what yields success. This is especially important for discouraged and underrepresented groups in STEM. If we teach students that their effort and persistence is what matters and not 'talent', the world will be a better place.

[tech-girls]

Spotlight: Ayoade Balogun

Each month we spotlight a woman or girl in tech who inspires us. This month we are highlighting Ayoade Balogun, founder of the MESA Bridge Camp and a junior at Albemarle High School. Being passionate about STEM, she is part of Albemarle's Math, Engineering, and Science Academy and an internship program in engineering at the Charlottesville branch of Northrop Grumman. She also loves music, and plays piano, cello, and saxophone. Ayoade aspires to study engineering in college and to pursue engineering as a career.

What drives your interest in technology? There's a belief among many, whether it’s conscious or not, that working with technology is only for people who think a certain way or are a certain age or a certain gender. But really, technology and the various fields within it are areas of great collaboration, and successes in these areas require the work of many different types of people with different interests. This is what I love about technology and the larger body of STEM fields. I also love the way that technology inspires us to create. It's easy to get used to consuming without considering what you can put back into your community or your world, but technology gives everyone a medium through which they can take what they have learned and consumed and make something out of it. What do you remember about your first coding experience? My first coding experience was in my AP Computer Science class at the beginning of this school year. My thoughts, besides that I was having tons of fun, was that I could think about coding in Java in the same way that I think about any other language - as a way of communicating. Similarly, a musician could look at coding as putting different instruments together to form an orchestra, or someone who is interested in biology could see a computer as something ‘living’ that responds to an algorithm just as an organism is pieced together by its DNA. There really is something in coding for everyone. 

Why is it important to get more girls and women interested in technology? Getting more girls and women interested in technology means that more minds can work together for success and progress in technology. That alone has a global impact, as the collaborative nature of STEM benefits from having different people’s perspectives and strength all working towards the same thing. 

Who inspires you to pursue your passion? I am inspired to pursue engineering by the mentor figures that I have in my life - I am lucky enough to have great, passionate teachers who inspire me through the passion that they bring to their teaching, and the support they offer to their students in endeavors in an out of the classroom.

[tech-girls]

Spotlight: Jennifer Whitenack, K-5 Gifted Resource Teacher

Each month we spotlight a woman or girl in tech who inspires us. This month, Jennifer shares her experience of starting a Tech-Girls chapter at her elementary school as well as her own journey from tech consumer to tech creator.

Last year I started an after-school Scratch club for kids in grades 3-5. I noticed pretty quickly that the girls approached coding very differently than the boys did, and when they were just starting out they seemed to be put off by the boys' intense focus on game creation and the atmosphere it created. The girls gradually began to drop out. I decided to see if girls working in a girls-only environment would be more engaged, so I started a girls-only Scratch Lab and a boys-only Scratch Lab that met twice a week during the school day. Both groups had a lot of fun learning from each other, but the change in the girls was remarkable. They began to see computer technology not as a "boy thing," but as a "kid thing." Their confidence grew quickly in the less competitive, all-girl environment, and soon they returned to the after-school club.

At the start of the second semester this year, I decided that I wanted to build on what I learned about things that cause girls to turn off to technology and STEM by starting an elementary chapter of Tech-Girls for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade girls at my school. I was concerned at first that I wouldn't get enough girls to sign up, but I got 58 applications for the 15 spots! We meet every Wednesday after school and have so far enjoyed learning to code with Scratch, working with MaKeyMaKey's to create strange and wonderful input devices to run our programs. Coming soon: Squishy Circuits, wearable electronics, and Hummingbird robots!

How do you work with technology today? Like most people, I have long been a consumer of technology--I use a laptop all the time to do basic tasks for my job and personal life; I have a smartphone that helps me stay connected to my family, friends, and the wider world. I also teach students the skills that they need to be adept consumers of technology. I would rather be a creator than a consumer, so I have begun taking small steps to move in that direction.

What drives your interest in technology? As a history buff, I have seen how a new technology (the stirrup, the cotton gin, the internal-combustion engine) can completely change the world by making possible something that is difficult or impossible, and how the ripple effect of that can often not be entirely predicted. With computer technology, the ripples can happen so fast that they create a "social tsunami." I enjoy watching and puzzling about our society's relationship with technology. I'm also a puzzle lover, and interacting with technology often presents the best kind of puzzles. When something doesn't work, I want to figure out how to fix it. When I have something I'd like to create, I want to learn how to make it happen. I have two long-term goals--I want to learn enough electronics so that I can build things, and I want to learn do code so that I can make them work.

What do you remember about your first coding experience? The first time I did any coding was almost 20 years ago when I was tasked to create our school's first web site. I was fascinated by the idea of creating an internet presence for our school, but I had no experience at all. When I asked the tech folks how to go about this, I was told "just use HTML." I managed to teach myself enough rudimentary HTML to get a basic site up, but I was frustrated because I couldn't make my mental image of the site a reality. Once applications like Dreamweaver came into being, I could easily create but the feeling of working in raw code was gone. At first this seemed like a good thing (nice-looking pages, minimal frustration), but it didn't take me long to forget the hard-learned HTML and lose the satisfaction of having created something completely by myself.

Why is it important to get more girls and women interested in technology? I am very worried about the statistics showing that girls, especially those in middle and high-school, seem to think that technology (and STEM fields in general) are not areas in which they can or should compete with boys. Given the increasingly pervasive nature of technology in everyday life and the needs we as a society will have to develop technology that can help solve increasingly complex problems, we simply cannot afford to have half of our population opting out of those fields. Women and men often approach technology challenges with different types of problem-solving skills, and we need to take advantage of this.

Who inspires you to pursue your passion? Why? I am inspired by anyone who refuses to take "No" for an answer when it comes to pursuing their dreams. When I was in high school in 1970, inspired by the accomplishments of the Apollo missions, I wanted to be an astronaut. I was told in no uncertain terms by teachers and guidance counselors that this was impossible, that only the Soviets let women go into space and there was no way for me to move to the USSR. My second choice was to be a vet, but again I was told that vet schools didn't admit women (which I found was true at the time). At last I settled on a field that women could enter and that I thought encompassed the best aspects of my first two choices. It offered the opportunity to engage with new technology, it involved solving tough problems that matter, and it offered the chance to change the world for the better. That third choice was medicine. At least until the first chemistry class of my freshman year at a university admitting women for the first time, when the professor asked to see a show of hands of everyone in the class who was pre-med, and then stated bluntly that 90 percent of those with their hands up would fail the class, including 100 percent of the women, "And that's a promise." He was a man of his word, and after many other fruitless battles, I gave up. So I am inspired by people, especially women, who always ask "Why not?"

What most excites you about the future of technology? It's the ripple effect, again. It seems like every "little" advance in hardware or software (is there such a thing as a little advance in technology?) seems to enable us to reach deeper and farther than we expected, in half the time. An example that comes to mind is the Human Genome Project, which when it started was expected to take 15 years. The needs of the project drove technological advances at an unexpectedly rapid pace, and the sequencing was completed several years earlier than anticipated. Now that genomic sequencing can be done, research in new areas is possible and applications in medicine and other fields can be explored.