2021 Speakers

Alicia Boyd is a Computer Science Doctoral Candidate at DePaul University in Chicago, IL, set to defend in May 2021. She has been named a 2021 NCWIT Collegiate Award finalist for her work on Intersectional Quantitative Analysis of the #MeToo Movement. Alicia has a passion for mentoring Black and Brown women and girls navigating academia, encouraging health and wellness, and promoting wholeness in their voices. She has earned both her Masters in Mathematics and Higher Education from the University Missouri-Saint […]

Dr. Michele A. Williams has 15+ years of academic and industrial experience in user experience (UX), accessibility, and technology. Her well-rounded experience includes training, design consultation, field research with people with disabilities, and code remediation for building WCAG-compliant technology. She is passionate about ensuring people with disabilities are not excluded from technology and seeks to bring that message to every industry.

Dr. Johnson is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University (2017), after getting her B.A. in Computer Science from the College of Charleston (2011). Her research focuses on improving developer productivity and satisfaction through evaluating and improving the tools and processes they use to develop software. Her current focus is on software fairness and ethical software engineering practices. […]

Robin Brewer is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. She also holds a courtesy appointment in Computer Science and Engineering. Robin’s research in human-computer interaction asks how experiences with technology can be more accessible to digitally constrained communities. Much of her work focuses on older adults and people with vision impairments. Robin holds a Ph.D. in Technology and Social Behavior from Northwestern University, M.S. in Human-Centered Computing from University of Maryland – Baltimore […]

Dr. Jasmine Jones is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Berea College. Her field is Human-Computer Interaction, where she specializes in the social study and design of embedded interactive systems in social, multi-user contexts. Her recent work has focused on technologies for sharing family memories and for supporting health and wellness goals. Before joining the faculty at Berea, Dr. Jones worked as a Postdoctoral Associate in the GroupLens Research Group at the University of Minnesota, where she […]

Rati Thanawala spent 39 years in the high-tech industry, the last 17 as Vice President at Bell Labs. She has a PhD in Computer Science. She has held executive positions at AT&T and Nokia, in software development, consulting, product management, and business management. Throughout her career, Rati has been an active mentor and sponsor to many women and minorities. She is now a Fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. Rati is the Founder […]

Shana White is the Senior Associate of CS Equity & Justice Initiatives at the Kapor Center. She is a veteran educator who is in her sixteenth year in education, serving in both public and private schools as a teacher and instructional technology coach in metro Atlanta. Shana has received many accolades for her teaching and work, most recently being named a member of the Kapor Center Equitable Computer Science Advisory Board, 2019 Georgia Tech Diversity and Inclusion Fellow, 2019 CSTA […]

Andrea Hence Evans is owner of The Law Firm of Andrea Hence Evans, LLC, an intellectual property law firm. She is a graduate of The George Washington Law School in Washington, DC. She is a graduate of Spelman College and Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA, where she obtained a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and a Bachelors of Civil Engineering, respectively. Prior to launching the Firm, she worked at the USPTO as both a Patent Examiner and a […]