Student Spotlight: 10 to attend Women Who Code’s CONNECT 2016

Northeastern University–Seattle is proud to support CONNECT 2016, a two-day tech conference designed to inspire women to excel in tech careers. The conference brings together speakers from around the world to share their stories and expertise about tech trends and career advancement.

We are sending 10 students from our ALIGN, Computer Science, and Bioinformatics graduate programs to participate in the conference and share their insights and learnings from the in-depth panels, trainings, keynotes, and actionable advice on propelling more women into technology careers.

UPDATE:

Check out the Connect 2016 conference recaps!
Day 1-Kaleigh | Day 1-Danni | Day 1-Hannah | Day 2-All

From an undergraduate English major now learning to code for the first time, to a Software Engineer Intern at Amazon nearing graduation, to an alumna working in her field, these students represent different stages of breaking into the tech industry and bring a wide variety of backgrounds and experience into their programs. We look forward to sharing their experience at Connect 2016 as they live tweet (#WWCONNECT2016) and submit blog recaps from the conference. You can also find them during the lunch break at the Northeastern University-Seattle booth in the career fair!

Meet our Women Who Code Ambassadors

Live Tweeters – Follow the list

Julia Brault – @JuliaBrault
MS, Bioinformatics
Julia is simultaneously pursuing her MS in Bioinformatics and a Graduate Certificate in Data Science as she looks to transition her data analysis background into a Bioinformatics career. She is actively pursuing a Co-op position for this summer.

“I have had this event bookmarked on my calendar for months! I am getting pretty involved with the women in technology community in Seattle, as I am currently taking a class through Girl Develop It and I routinely make their study group meet-ups on Sundays. I’m very excited to attend the Algorithms discussion and the discussion about bridging the gap between design and engineering both are relatable to the Bioinformatics world.”

Melody Love – @MelodyLovePug
MS, Computer Science 
With a background in Math and Accounting, Melody is in her first semester of the Computer Science program and has been looking forward to the Women Who Code conference for a while.

“WWC is an amazing and fantastic worldwide organization that has a local chapter at each major city all over the world, helping women in the industry improve their skill sets and success in their career!!!!!! Most interesting session for me is Challenging & Democratizing Algorithm Development…and all the tech workshops + career development sessions.”

Isabel Su – @eyesballie
MS, Computer Science
Isabel is currently on Co-op at Amazon as a software engineer intern. She is passionate about problem-solving and continuous learning, earning her Master’s in Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University before transitioning to Computer Science.

“I am most interested in the various tech talks and especially the career development talks. The names of the career development talks are really interesting and attractive, for example, Body Language for Coders, and Use Informal Mentorship to Catapult Your Career.”

Kelly (Xinwei) Wang – @KellyWXW
MS, Computer Science
Seeking a Co-op opportunity for next term, Kelly is looking to make connections and absorb career advancement advice from the Women Who Code sessions, like “Passing the Technical Interview.” She began her career in chemical engineering before entering the CS ALIGN program in 2014.

“I’ve always been passionate about women in technology. Even when I was an undergrad, I was part of the Society of Women Engineering (SWE) and served as an officer throughout my undergrad. I want to attend Women Who Code to meet other women in the tech field and hear their experience, and learn from their experience. I am interested in the tech talk Craft and Code: JavaScript Loops and Understanding Knitting Patterns. I love knitting, crafting and coding so I am excited to see how the speaker would connect craft to code, and how the things I like relate to each other.“

Preety Mishra – @pre284mish
MS, Computer Science
Nearing the end of her program, Preety is busy working with Institute for Systems Biology’s Project Feed building a mobile application as part of her advanced software application development course. She is also actively seeking a role as a software engineer

“I believe that this conference provides a platform to promote women in the field of science and technology. I would love to be a part of it as I am in the final semester of my MS in Computer Science and will be heading to the IT world pretty soon. I am most excited for the career development sessions, which will help me prepare for my next step i.e, entering the professional world.”

Bloggers

Danni Li
Computer Science ALIGN

In her second semester of the ALIGN program, Danni has discovered a recent love for programming and looks forward to learning more from the workshops at Connect 2016.

“I majored in English for my undergrad and never thought that I would be coding some day. But now I am! I would love to explore what is out there in the tech field, and this conference will be a great opportunity for me to do so.”

Kaleigh O’Hara
MS, Computer Science
A background in business, Kaleigh is half-way through her program and ready to translate the skills learned in the classroom to real-world work experience as she seeks a Co-op position next term.

“I am excited to attend Women Who Code 2016 because the tech talks and workshops would be a great way to explore new areas of interest within the field and the career advancement sessions would be incredibly helpful as I begin applying to Co-ops and planning my career. Until now, all of my exposure to the tech industry has been through my classmates and professors, so I would love to hear about different experiences and perspectives from women who have been successful in CS.”

Hannah Smithers
Alumna, MS, Bioinformatics
Hannah finished the MS in Bioinformatics program in December. She currently works as a Laboratory Research Manager at Seattle Children’s, where she manages a variety of datasets, from flow cytometer data to clinical data containing patient demographics

“I am very excited about the opportunity to attend this conference to share my experience with unconventional coding applications with other students and conference attendees. In addition to the career advancement seminars, I am highly interested in attending the Tech Talk on APIs. I use different APIs in my workplace now, yet I have limited knowledge of the inner workings of the application.”

Caroline Harbitz
Computer Science ALIGN
Caroline works full-time as a data scientist at Nordstrom while also pursuing her MS in Computer Science. A background in Oceanography and Physics, she appreciates the ALIGN program for providing a strong base of fundamentals and filling gaps from her previously ad hoc programming learning.

“The primary reason I want to attend Women Who Code 2016 is because their approach to increasing the number of women in tech is proactive: instead of just talking about how to address this problem, they put on workshops, tutorials, and conferences for people to share their knowledge with other. I’ve attended a few local talks that they have sponsored, and am always amazed at how welcoming the environment is–it doesn’t matter if you have 1 week or 10 years of work experience.”

Photographer

Vy Nguyen
Computer Science ALIGN
A ‘Double Husky’, Vy earned her BS in Biology from Northeastern. She had no coding experience before entering the CS ALIGN program in the fall.

“I love the idea of promoting women in the science and technology fields, since I am one! It would be incredibly interesting to network with women similar to myself and hear their experiences. I am most interested in the career advancement talks, specifically “‘Yes I have ovaries’ and other great moments towards building an inclusive work environment” by Tara Hernandez. “