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.

Leisa Thompson, Ph.D.

Melissa Harris-Perry

Melissa Harris-Perry is the Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University.

Benjamin F. Jones

Benjamin F. Jones is a Professor of Strategy and the Gund Family Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School of Management, where he also directs the Kellogg Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative. An economist by training, his research focuses largely on innovation and creativity, with recent work investigating the role of teamwork and the relationship between age and invention. Ben also studies global economic development, including the roles of education, climate, and national leadership in explaining the wealth and poverty of nations.

Patricia Russo

Pat Russo is a technology-industry veteran who has spent her career helping to lead numerous telecommunications and technology stalwarts, including Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, IBM and AT&T, among others. She is Chairman of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a $52 billion global industry leader in providing information management solutions to businesses around the world. She has been recognized multiple times for her business achievements as one of Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women” and as one of TIME's “100 Most Influential People".

Cynthia Solomon

Cynthia Solomon’s focus has been on creating fun-filled, thoughtful, personally expressive, and aesthetically pleasing learning environments for children. Her work has spanned over several important collaborations, and has taken place in academic and corporate research environments and in elementary and secondary schools.  In addition, she has contributed to research in human-computer interaction and children as designers.

Karen Ashcraft

Karen Lee Ashcraft is a Professor of Organizational Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder, as well as the Director of its Communication & Society Residential Program, a living-learning community for early college students broadly interested in communication, media, journalism, and related themes. Her research examines organizational and occupational formations, such as identity, culture, and mode of governance, and is guided by an interest in relations of power and difference, particularly gender, race, sexuality, and class.

Lesley Chilcott

Lesley Chilcott is an award winning filmmaker, documentarian, and producer. In addition to award winning documentary features and shorts, she is Chair of the West Coast Producers Guild of America (PGA) Non-Fiction documentary committee while also hosting a popular screening series for them, The Doc Club.

Jane Condon

Jane Condon, both a mom and comedian, lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, but she’s still a nice person. She has two boys. Otherwise, everything’s fine. The Associated Press has dubbed her “an uppercrust Roseanne” and the New York Times says, “Condon had the audience cackling, guffawing, and in hysterics as she sliced through marriage, husband, kids, politics, and other topics.” She loves to tell stories about her adventures (mostly survival tales) with her husband and kids.

Ruha Devanesan

Ruha Devanesan specializes in creating access for the disenfranchised through law, technology, and diversity initiatives. As a part of Symantec’s diversity & inclusion team, she develops and implements strategies, policies, and programs that support Symantec’s goal of being a great place to work for employees from a rich variety of backgrounds.

Luz M. Gonzalez

Luz M. Gonzalez is Senior Vice President of Solutions Delivery for AT&T Technology Development Entertainment Group (Tech Dev EG).  In this role she is responsible for all program management of technical solutions supporting U-Verse and DIRECTV products; the business analysis, design, development and support of legacy DIRECTV platforms and applications; and the planning, development and support of merger conversions and IT Legacy Transformation programs.

Mizuko Ito

Mizuko Ito is a Cultural Anthropologist of Technology Use, examining children and youth’s changing relationships to media and communications. She is a Professor in Residence and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning at the University of California Irvine, with appointments in the University of California Humanities Research Institute, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of Informatics, and the School of Education.

Zeba Khan

Zeba Khan is a writer, commentator, and senior facilitator with The Op-Ed Project, a social venture that identifies, trains, and mentors women and other historically underrepresented communities on how to own their expertise and have a public voice. Through her role, Zeba has directly trained thousands of women and men across the country and internationally from a diverse range of backgrounds. Currently, she leads The Op-Ed Project's Public Voices Fellowship at Yale University, training and mentoring Yale faculty in developing their public voice.

Richard Ladner

Richard E. Ladner is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. His current research is in the area of accessible computing, which is an important subarea of human-computer interaction (HCI). His MobileAccessibility project is exploring mobile applications to improve the lives of blind, low-vision, and deaf-blind people. He has mentored 26 PhD students and is currently mentoring five more.

Daniela Marghitu

Dr. Daniela Marghitu is a professor in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department at Auburn University, where she has worked since 1996. She has published six Information Technology textbooks, over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers, and she gave numerous presentations at national and international professional events.

Alvaro Monge

Dr. Alvaro Monge has earned BS (UC Riverside, 1991), MS, and PhD (UC San Diego, 1993 and 1997) degrees in computer science. In 1997, he joined the Computer Science Department at the University of Dayton Ohio. In 1999, he joined the Computer Engineering and Computer Science Department at the California State University Long Beach (CSULB) where he is now a tenured full professor.

Sarah Provencal

Sarah Provencal is a director, teacher, and actor. She earned her MFA in theatre pedagogy (directing emphasis) at Virginia Commonwealth University, where some of her favorite projects includef directing Karen Hartman’s Troy Women and playing Rona Lisa Peretti in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. After earning her MFA, she worked and trained abroad in London, England.

Rayne Roberts

Rayne Roberts is a Development Executive at Lucasfilm and a member of the Lucasfilm Story Group. She was a development executive on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and the upcoming films Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and Star Wars: Episode VIII. Her film background includes several years as a development executive at Gold Circle Films, a role as an Associate Producer on the award-winning documentary The Fair Trade, and time spent as a contributing story analyst for the Kennedy/Marshall Company, as well as Alcon Entertainment.

Alberto I. Roca, PhD

Dr. Alberto I. Roca is Founder and Executive Director of DiverseScholar, a non-profit that seeks to diversify the workforce in the STEM disciplines, the science communication profession, and the tech industry. Dr. Roca is a first-generation Peruvian-American from Houston, Texas, who received his PhD in molecular biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His training is in biochemistry, and his current research is in visual bioinformatics to analyze protein families. While conducting postdoctoral research, Dr.

Matt Wallaert

Matt Wallaert is a Behavioral Scientist working at the intersection of technology and human behavior. After several years in academia and two successful startup exits, he joined Microsoft, where he works across a variety of products and projects to design technology that helps people live happier, healthier lives. He is also the East Coast lead for Microsoft Ventures, managing the company's relationships with prominent VCs and startups. Matt maintains an active research lab and is a frequent speaker on the science of behavior change.

Jill Wetzler

Jill is Director of Engineering at Lyft, leading their Core Services and Infrastructure orgs. Jill’s teams are responsible for many of the foundational backend services of Lyft, as well as the infrastructure necessary to keep engineers productive and ensure that their technology scales and evolves. Prior to Lyft, Jill was a senior engineering manager at Twitter. Her teams consisted of software engineers and data scientists in Twitter’s Data Products organization, providing streaming and REST APIs to external partners who use Twitter data to make insights into their business.

Yunfei Xu

Yunfei Xu is the Global Head of Engineering for Portfolio Risk Analytics and Index products at Bloomberg LP, where she oversees 150 software engineers across multiple continents and leads the research and development effort of Bloomberg PORT, one of the most advanced and cutting edge financial portfolio and risk analytics platforms in the world. Yunfei has worked at Bloomberg for the past 18 years with increasing responsibilities in the software engineering business area.

Kortney Ziegler

Kortney Ziegler, PhD, is the Founder of Trans*H4CK, an organization focused on creating tech for transgender sustainability and visibility.