Lecia Barker, Ph.D.

Lecia Barker is an NCWIT Senior Research Scientist and is an Associate Professor of Information Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In this role, she helps to build and apply a broad and strong knowledge base to NCWIT capacity building and advocacy efforts; ensures NCWIT products are research-based, actionable, and appropriate for their intended audiences; and supports NCWIT members and others in choosing, setting, and realizing their goals for increasing women’s participation.

Research Area: Communication, Education, IT Workforce Research & Evaluation

Tim Faiella

Tim Faiella is NCWIT’s Social Science Program Manager. He works with staff social scientists and the design team to ensure that electronic and print resources adhere to NCWIT’s rigorous research and quality standards. He also works with the Social Science Advisory Board to facilitate consultation services.

Prior to joining NCWIT, Tim's background spanned both research and publishing. He holds a BS in psychology from Bridgewater State College, an MA in sociology from Humboldt State University, and an MFA in creative writing from Portland State University. 

Brad McLain, Ph.D.

Brad McLain is a social scientist who serves as a researcher with NCWIT. He also co-directs the Experiential Science Education Research Collaborative (XSci) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Brad's research focuses on identity development, diversity and inclusion in relation to STEM learning and career pathways, including the nature and impacts of extraordinary experiences and how such experiences may change our sense of self and life trajectories at different ages.

Sherri L. Sanders, Ph.D.

Sherri Sanders serves as the Director of Extension Services and a Research Scientist with the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on issues within higher education related to gender equity and inclusion; strategic recruitment and retention of underrepresented communities in computing; and sustainable and systemic organizational culture change.

Stephanie Weber

Stephanie Weber is the NCWIT Director for Regional Initiatives where she brings together programs powered by NCWIT and NCWIT Alliance members focused on increasing the influence and meaningful participation of girls and women from every community. Through this approach, change-leading representatives from NCWIT and local partner organizations are united across the tech ecosystem, forming regional, action-oriented coalitions.

Moritz Hardt

Moritz Hardt is a senior research scientist at Google Research. After obtaining a PhD in computer science from Princeton University in 2011, he worked at IBM Research Almaden on algorithmic principles of machine learning. Then he moved to Google to join the Foundations of Applied Machine Learning group where his mission is to build guiding theory and scalable algorithms that make the practice of machine learning more reliable, transparent, and effective.

Madeline Di Nonno

Madeline Di Nonno is the CEO of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, the only research based non-profit working with the entertainment and media community to improve gender diversity in children's entertainment through research based programs. Madeline leads the Institute's strategic direction and brings over 30 years experience in media, marketing, and business development in the entertainment, non-profit, digital media and consumer packaged goods industries.

Alicia A. Lebrija Hirschfeld

Alicia A. Lebrija Hirschfeld is Executive President of Fundación Televisa A.C.1 and member of the Board of Directors of Televisa Foundation. Her professional career began in the academic sector as a Professor of Economics and later as Dean of the School of International Relations at ITAM, one of Mexico’s leading private universities.

Susan M. Armstrong

Susan M. Armstrong started at Qualcomm working on Globalstar and then early CDMA base station projects. She was a pioneer in bringing internet protocols to the cellular industry, resulting in the first web surfing on a cellular phone in 1997 and Qualcomm’s commercialization of packet data in 1998. Since then, she has held various leadership positions, first as the Head of Software Engineering in Qualcomm’s mobile chipset division, and then as the Head of Worldwide Customer Engineering, the group who integrates and commercializes the company’s products in phones and other wireless devices.

Cheryl Calhoun, Ph.D.

Cheryl Calhoun currently serves as Dean of Educational Centers and Director of the Blount Center for Santa Fe College. Her experience includes 20 years as a professor of Information Technology education and Coordinator of the Networking Services Technology program at Santa Fe College. She has worked as a systems analyst and network administrator and holds numerous industry certifications in networking technologies and cybersecurity.

Carol Fishman Cohen

Carol Fishman Cohen, CEO of iRelaunch, consults to some of the world's largest corporations on career reentry strategy and programming. Her seminal Harvard Business Review article, "The 40 Year Old Intern," and TED talk, 'How to get back to work after a career break," focus on the use of the internship as a vehicle for employers to engage with experienced professionals returning from career break.

Jill Denner, Ph.D.

Jill Denner, PhD, is a senior research scientist at Education, Training, Research, a non-profit organization in California. She does applied research and evaluation with a focus on increasing the number of women, girls, and Latino/a students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Dr. Denner has also led the development of several after-school programs designed to increase diversity in computing fields.

Dave Filoni

A diehard Star Wars fan, Dave Filoni realized a lifelong dream when he was selected by George Lucas to helm Lucasfilm Animation’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars as Supervising Director. Exploring the many wartime tales and stories that take place between Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, the series surpassed the rare industry milestone of 100 episodes and has won four Emmy® Awards — including winning the category of Outstanding Special Class Animated Program for two years in a row (2013/2014).

Cathy Hawley

Cathy Hawley is a Sr. Director of People Development at Return Path, Inc., and has 20 years of global human resources and coaching experience. Currently, Cathy is working on building effective teams across the organization and is responsible for management coaching and development, culture, employee coaching, and development. She also runs Return Path’s partnership with NCWIT. Cathy loves spending time with her kids, snowboarding, cycling, and traveling.

Maggie Johnson

Maggie Johnson is Director of Education and University Relations for Google. She manages all technical education, content development, and information management programs for Google engineers and operations staff, as well as Google’s K12 educational programs in STEM and computer science (CS). Maggie has worked to provide engaging, high-quality CS content to K12 students through CS First; accessible professional development to teachers through CS4HS; and she works closely with key partners in the community to make CS available to all K12 students.

Jeffrey Forbes

Jeff Forbes is a Program Director for the Education and Workforce program in the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (NSF CISE), managing programs that address the critical and complex issues of education and broadening participation in computing. Jeff is currently on leave from Duke University, where he is an Associate Professor of the Practice of Computer Science. He received his BS and PhD in computer science from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively.

Dr. Celine Latulipe

Dr. Celine Latulipe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Software and Information Systems in the College of Computing and Informatics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her recent research has focused on CS Education innovation, particularly focusing on social and active learning, and scaling up adoption of flipped classroom methodologies.

Sylvia Martinez

Sylvia Martinez is a maker, mom, engineer, and co-author of the book, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, which is considered to be “the bible of the classroom maker movement". Sylvia speaks, writes, and works with schools around the world evangelizing authentic, inclusive use of technology across the curriculum. She is President of Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, creating books and professional development advocating the use of modern technology for learning.

Mo Fong

Mo has been at Google for over 10 years and is the Director of Google's CS Education Initiatives with the mission of increasing the number girls and underrepresented minorities pursuing studies and careers in computer science and other STEM fields. Prior to this role, she was a finance director and Chief Compliance Officer for Google Wallet and worked at PayPal.

Matthew R. Rantanen

As the Director of Technology for the Southern California Tribal Chairmen's Association (SCTCA), Matthew Rantanen assists tribes with technology development ranging from radio station applications to tribal administration technologies to technology policy development. Matthew serves on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Native Nations Broadband Task Force, and is Co-chair of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), Technology and Telecommunications Subcommittee, and the Technology Task Force at NCAI.

Daron Green

Dr. Daron Green is responsible for strategic oversight and operational delivery across all of Facebook’s external research engagements and collaborations. He works with all of the Facebook research leads to ensure that their strategic goals can be realized and that Facebook actively partners with the academic research community in open, collaborative and mutually beneficial research engagements.

Emmanuel Schanzer

Emmanuel Schanzer is a CS-expat, having spent several years as a program manager and developer before becoming a high school teacher and middle school academic coach. He is the Founder and creator of Bootstrap, which he first designed as a curriculum for his own students in Boston. He has long been involved in connecting educators and technology, connecting parties at the Computer Science Teachers Association, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and at universities across the country.

Gregory M. Walton

Greg Walton is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Much of his research investigates psychological processes that contribute to major social problems and how “wise” interventions that target these processes can help address such problems. These psychological interventions can be minor in scope and duration, but generate long-lasting effects.

Dr. Chris Wood

Dr. Chris Wood is an Associate Professor in the Educational & Clinical Studies Department at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. In addition to being a counselor educator, Dr. Wood has experience as a high school counselor, a counseling department chair, a counselor/group leader at a residential youth facility for adjudicated youth/troubled teens, and a career counselor/career assessment coordinator at an alternative school serving grades 7-12.

Avis Yates Rivers

Avis Yates Rivers is the President and CEO of Technology Concepts Group International, LLC. (TCGi), a global asset, expense and procurement management firm.  She possesses more than 35 years of general management experience in the information technology industry and has been a successful tech entrepreneur for over 30 years.

Janice Zdankus

Janice Zdankus is Vice President of Quality in Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Customer Experience and Quality team.  In this role, Janice and her team are transforming the experiences customers have with HPE’s product, solutions, and support information to foster positive customer business outcomes.