IEEE-iSES 2021 Women in Engineering

Students Panel

Moderators / Chairs :

  • Jaya Dofe, California State University, Fullerton, USA, jdofe@fullerton.edu
  • Lafifa Jamal, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, lafifa@du.ac.bd
  • Lintu Rajan, National Institute of Technology Calicut, India, lintu@nitc.ac.in
  • Namita Sharma, Intel India, India, namitasharma6@gmail.com

Panelists :

  • Indira Dutta, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA, indira0252@gmail.com
  • Laavanya Rachakonda, University of North Texas, USA, rachakondal@uncw.edu
  • Nahar Sultana, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, sultananahar895@gmail.com
  • Rozhin Yasaei, University of California, Irvine, USA, ryasaei@uci.edu

Abstract :

In this panel, graduate students from different parts of the world will discuss their personal journeys to inspire female students. The panel will start with the introduction of each speaker and a brief discussion of their research. Then, each of the panelists will share real-life experiences regarding what it is like to be a woman in engineering, challenges they face and strategies that helped them overcome, what advice they have for future graduate students and much more.

Biography of Panelists

Indira Dutta

Indira Dutta received her Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 2013 from American International University – Bangladesh. She joined the VLSI lab in University of Louisiana at Lafayette as a graduate student in 2013 and received her Master of Science in Computer Engineering in 2015. Her research work focuses on Hardware Security, Cryptography, and Internet of Things (IoT). She received her Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Engineering from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA in Summer, 2021. In her PhD thesis, she pioneered an implementation of a novel architecture of high performance lightweight polymorphic encryption system for constrained IoT devices. Indira joined Arkansas Tech University as an Assistant Professor in Computer and Information Science department in Fall 2021.

Laavanya Rachakonda

Laavanya Rachakonda is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science in College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, NC. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Computer Science and Engineering from University of North Texas. During her graduate studies, she was a part of the research group Smart Electronics Systems Laboratory (SESL) at Computer Science and Engineering at the University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA. Her research interests include smart healthcare applications using artificial intelligence, deep learning approaches and application-specific architectures for consumer electronic systems based on the IoT. She has 3 peer-reviewed journals published, 13 peer reviewed conference publications, 1 filed a patent and 1 patent disclosure. She has delivered 15 talks (online and offline) at various IEEE hosted conferences. She has won 20 honors and awards and has monitored 6 undergraduate and TAMS students.

Nahar Sultana

Nahar Sultana completed her Master of Science from the Department of Computer Engineering, Kyung Hee University, South Korea in 2008. After returning to Bangladesh, she joined American International University-Bangladesh as a lecturer in 2009. Since 2013, she is serving as Assistant Professor of the same university. She published a good number of papers in reputed journals and conferences in the field of sensor network and mobile ad hoc network. Currently, she is pursuing her PhD program in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Dhaka. She achieved Korean Government IT Scholarship, Kyung Hee University President Scholarship, Research Fellowship of ICT Division, Govt. of Bangladesh. She dreams of being a successful academician and researcher in her field.

Rozhin Yasaei

This is Rozhin Yasaei. She got her bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the top school in her country, Shariff University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. Currently, she is a Ph.D. student in computer engineering at the University of California Irvine (UCI), USA. She works in the AICPS Research Group under the supervision of Professor Al Faruque. Generally, her research interest lies in applied machine learning for hardware, embedded systems, and cyber-physical systems security. She is interested in hardware Trojan detection in the post-silicon stage, leveraging machine learning techniques for side-channel analysis. She has recently been working on using graph neural network for hardware security and Trojan detection in the pre-silicon stage.

Industry Panel

Moderators / Chairs:

  • Jaya Dofe, California State University, Fullerton, USA, jdofe@fullerton.edu
  • Lafifa Jamal, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, lafifa@du.ac.bd
  • Lintu Rajan, National Institute of Technology Calicut, India, lintu@nitc.ac.in
  • Namita Sharma, Intel India, India, namitasharma6@gmail.com

Panelists:

  • Sonia Bashir Kabir, SBK Tech Ventures and Foundation, Bangladesh
  • Suparna Bhattacharya, HP Labs, Bangalore, India, suparna.bhattacharya@hpe.com
  • Dhanya R. Mathew, Fujitsu, India, DhanyaRos.Mathew@fujitsu.com

Abstract:

This panel will have women from Engineering disciplines in industries across the world. Panelists will bring in their experiences of how they got there, the life in industry, how they overcome the challenges and find a growth path, and what more can be done to encourage more women to be successful in life. The panel will also discuss different opportunities in Industry and career growth prospects there.

Biography of Panelists

Sonia Bashir Kabir
SBK Tech Ventures and Foundation, Bangladesh

Educated & Trained in Silicon Valley, Sonia lived for 20 years in the Valley and worked for Fortune 500 companies: Sun Microsystems & Oracle. She has served as Director for Microsoft Southeast Asia New Markets, Country Director for Dell Bangladesh and Managing Director of Microsoft for Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan & Laos. Currently Sonia is the Founder of SBK Tech Ventures, a licensed Venture Capital Fund, and the Founder of SBK Foundation, a non- profit organization which empowers rural communities with technology.

Sonia is also currently serving as:

  • Vice Chair & Governing Council Member of United Nations Technology Bank
  • Board Member of UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Education and Peace
  • Dell CXO Advisory Board member for Asia Pacific & Japan
  • BRAC University
  • Banglalink, Telco owned by VEON
  • IPDC, a Non-Banking Financial Institution (NBFI) and
  • Shakti Foundation, a Micro Finance Institution (MFI).

Suparna Bhattacharya
Distinguished Technologist, HP Labs, Bengaluru, India

Suparna Bhattacharya is a Distinguished Technologist in the AI research lab at Hewlett Packard Labs where she currently focuses on data centric trustworthy AI. She has 28 years of experience in systems software development and research (7 years at HPE preceded by 21 years at IBM) including several enjoyable years of open-source contributions to the Linux kernel. Over the last decade Suparna has developed a passion for blending insights from diverse technical domains in innovations that span technology boundaries e.g. rethinking systems software stacks in the era of AI and IoT.

Suparna is a Fellow of the India National Academy of Engineering, an ACM India eminent speaker and has served on program committees for ASPLOS, OOPSLA, MASCOTS, ECOOP, HotStorage and USENIX FAST. She co-authored a book on Resource Proportional Software Design for Emerging Systems, (with Doug Voigt and Prof K. Gopinath) published by CRC Press (2020). Suparna holds a B.Tech from IIT Kharagpur (1993) and a (late-in-life) PhD with a best thesis award from the Indian Institute of Science (2013).

  • 36 patents filed (23 granted), 25 peer reviewed publications, 50 talks/panels
  • Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) (elected 2020)
  • Published a book on “Resource Proportional Software Design for Emerging Systems”, CRC press, 2020
  • Open source contributor to the Linux kernel from 2000-2007. Invited to the international Linux Kernel Summit* for 6 consecutive years.
  • 20 internal and external awards, incl. IEEE India Council Woman Technologist of the year 2020, Zinnov Next Generation Women Leaders Award 2019, HPE Women’s Excellence Award 2017, IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award
  • First technologist from IBM India to receive a corporate level promotion in the technical career path (2006). Elected to IBM Academy of Technology. Founding chairperson of IBM India Technical Experts council.
  • ACM India eminent speaker. Served on technical program committees for ASPLOS, OOPSLA, MASCOTS, ECOOP, USENIX FAST and HotStorage.
  • Deep expertise in operating systems, storage systems incl. filesystems, persistent memory technologies, hyper-converged, containers, cross-layer co-design for emerging apps, e.g. ML/AI, IoT

Dhanya Ros Mathew
Head of Service Delivery for the Oceania Region, Fujitsu Consulting India

Dhanya Ros Mathew is the Head of Delivery for the Oceania region (Australia + New Zealand) at Fujitsu Consulting India. She leads service delivery for clients ensuring business growth, continual improvement, strong stake holder management and operational efficiency focusing on technologies including Infrastructure Services, Business Application Services, Multi Cloud Services, Service Integration and Digital Transformation. With a career spanning over 20 years in the IT sector. She commenced her career in Verilog programming in the embedded space. Move on to the Telecom Industry where she was a core C++ developer and worked in 2G, 3G, 4G & 5G domain. Majority of her experience has been in telecom networking. She has worked on multiple strategic accounts and majorly contributed to laying down the foundation for strong business collaborations to amplify growth. Before Fujitsu she was with Infosys for 18 years and was serving the role of Head of the SDN (Software Defined Networking) & Wireless Service line. Currently she is the Delivery Unit head for accounts across multiple technologies across the Oceania landscape in Fujitsu. Dhanya is highly passionate about women enablement and has mentored professionals through several initiatives. Some of these initiatives include mentoring women leaders and guiding new mothers to adapt and create a supporting ecosystem at work, among others. She is also an ambassador for Diversity & Inclusion.

Dhanya completed her B.Tech in Electronics & Communication from the Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management, Andhra Pradesh. Dhanya has her roots in the beautiful state to Kerala. She is a mother of two daughters. In her spare time, Dhanya loves to unwind through canvas painting. She also loves to bake, cook, and spend time with her family.

Leadership Panel

Moderators / Chairs:

  • Jaya Dofe, California State University, Fullerton, USA, jdofe@fullerton.edu
  • Lafifa Jamal, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, lafifa@du.ac.bd
  • Lintu Rajan, National Institute of Technology Calicut, India, lintu@nitc.ac.in
  • Namita Sharma, Intel India, India, namitasharma6@gmail.com

Panelists:

  • Dr. Deidra R. Hodges, Florida International University, USA, dhodges@fiu.edu
  • Letizia Jachheri, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway, letizia.jaccheri@ntnu.no
  • Qiaoyan Yu, University of New Hampshire, USA, Qiaoyan.Yu@unh.edu

Abstract:

This panel will bring together women academicians from Engineering disciplines from different countries of the world. They have experience in leadership roles, and they will discuss their experiences of being a woman in engineering, challenges they have faced and how they have overcome these and what more can be done to encourage more women to get in to Engineering discipline. The panel will also discuss different research opportunities in Engineering field.

Biography of Panelists:

Deidra R. Hodges

Dr. Deidra R. Hodges is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Florida International University. Dr. Hodges is an exceptional leader in photovoltaics (PV) and solar energy research with extensive experience in PV and X- and gamma-ray radiation detectors for National Security. Dr. Hodges is highly focused in advancing Renewable Energy, Sustainability, Nuclear Materials and Extreme Photon Sensing. Her contributions include the support and development of the pixilated cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) gamma detector at BNL, and highly efficient thin-film mixed perovskite halides photovoltaics. She has achieved perovskite solar cell power conversion efficiencies greater than 21%, approaching the world record efficiency of 25.2%. She has published over 40 refereed manuscripts in journals and conference proceedings. Her network spans Department of Energy government laboratories including Brookhaven National Laboratory, Kansas City National Security Center Honeywell FM&T, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, collaborating with Scientists and as a user of facilities. Her students have presented at the IEEE PVSC, NREL, IXS2019 and MRS conferences, and BNL, LSAMP and COURI symposiums.

Letizia Jachheri

Letizia Jaccheri (Ph.D. from Politecnico di Torino, Italy) is Professor at the Department of Computer Science of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Jaccheri’s research is on: software engineering; software and children; entertainment computing; computational creativity; ICT-enabled social innovation. Jaccheri is the Norwegian representative and Vice President of IFIP TC14 on Entertainment Computing. She has published more than 200 papers in International conferences and journals. She has been teaching courses in software engineering at various levels since 1994. She has supervised PhD students, Post-doctoral students and acted as opponent for national and international defenses.

She has been general chair of IFIP ICEC 2015, co-chair of ACM IDC 2018, Program Chair of the European Computer Science Summit 2018, Co-chair of EASE2020. She has participated to several Horizon 2020 projects and she leads COST Action EUGAIN European Network for Gender Balance in Informatics. She is ACM Distinguished speaker. Letizia Jaccheri is passionate about dissemination of computer science and research to the general public and to contribute to recruit female students to computer science and research.

Qiaoyan Yu

Dr. Yu is a professor at the University of New Hampshire. She received a B.S. degree in Communication Engineering from Xidian University, China (2002). She obtained a M.S. degree in Communication and Information Engineering from Zhejiang University, China (2005). She received an M.S. and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Rochester in 2007 and 2011, respectively. She is a member of the IEEE, the IEEE Circuit and System Society, and ACM. Dr. Yu serves on the technical program committees of DFT, ASP-DAC, GLSVLSI, and ISCAS. She is a member of the editorial boards of Integration, the VLSI Journal, Microelectronics Journal, and Journal of Circuits, Systems, and Computers. Dr. Yu is a recipient of the NSF Career Award, the Air Force Research Lab Faculty Fellowship, a Semiconductor Research Corporation grant etc.

Her research interests include hardware security and trust, cyber-physical system, error control for networks-on-chip, fault-tolerance for many-core systems, and emerging nanoelectronics.