SHEILA CASTAÑEDA is Chair and Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa, where she has taught for the past 23 years. Her main areas of interest and teaching responsibility are in database systems and programming languages. She received her M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 1979.
Sheila enjoys maintaining contacts with the corporate world and provides training and instruction for companies like Honeywell, John Deere and HBOC. Sheila has three children, one granddaughter, and loves to spend her free time with family and friends and in gardening and traveling.
DIANE CURTIS is an Academic Developer Relations Manager at Microsoft. Diane graduated from Ohio State with a B.S. in Mathematics and a B.S. in Computer Science. She started at Microsoft as an intern on the .NET Framework. She worked as a Software Design Engineer in Test on .NET Client and later became a Program Manager on Windows Mobile and Safety Technologies. Diane recently joined the Academic Developer Relations team, and focuses her efforts on fostering student developer communities.
SAMANTHA FOLEY is a second year Ph.D. student in computer science at Indiana University where she is studying scientific computing. She earned her B.S. in computer science from SUNY Fredonia in 2004. Samantha is involved in the various outreach activities that the Women in Computing (WIC@IU) group at Indiana University has created. She is the 2006-2007 chair of the K-12 outreach program, Just Be.
JENNIFER FRANKO is a Ph.D. student in mathematics at Indiana University were she is studying quantum computing and knot theory. She recieved her B.S. from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and her M.A. from Indiana University. She is a member of the Women in Computing group ( WIC@IU) and a frequent presenter for Just Be, the K-12 outreach program developed at Indiana University.
DEBBIE PEROULI is a first year Ph.D. student in the Computer Science department of Purdue University. In July 2006 she received her B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, where she completed a thesis in database management for life sciences. Her research interests include databases, computer architecture and bioinformatics.
HILARY PIKE recently joined Microsoft as an Academic Developer Relations Manager where she helps students connect to technology. She spent the past 2 years as a Software Engineer at IBM working on high availability design, development, and administration for Financial Market Data Platforms. She has completed her M.S. and B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from Ohio State University where she studied security in the context of fault-tolerant distributed systems. Hilary's awards include a Women in Engineering Leadership award from Ohio State and a Bravo! award for outstanding teaming at IBM. In her spare time, she enjoys inventing, outreach, and yoga.
KHADIJA STEWART is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Her main areas of interest are wireless networks, security, and networks on chips. She received her Ph.D. degree from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois in 2006.
MIRA STOILOVA joined Google as a Software Engineer in January 2006, as part of the Internal Applications team. She has worked primarily on Web applications to streamline business processes and support the information needs of a wide range of business users throughout the company. Mira received her B.S. at Harvey Mudd College in 2003 and M.S. at Indiana University, Bloomington in 2005. ( abstract)
NITHYA VIJAYAKUMAR is a final year Ph.D. student at Indiana University. Her research interests are distributed computing, data management and distributed event processing. Nithya received her M.S. in Computer Science from Indiana University in 2003. She is currently a research assistant in the Distributed Data Everywhere Lab at IU led by Dr. Beth Plale. Nithya has been an active member of the Women In Computing group at IU ( WIC@IU) for the past four years.