Team WHAM! Bios
Geeta Pyne gpyne@yahoo.com A native of India, Geeta is a Senior Enterprise Architect with Arrow Electronics. She has a BS in Computer Sc and Technology and has years of experience working in various IT industries - ranging from space research, parallel and distributed computing to eCommerce and enterprise integration. She is extremely passionate about solving business problems with innovative technology solutions and making a difference in whatever she does. She has represented her company in Women in Computing and has been featured in Diversity Careers, Jan 2010. Kathy Richardson, Ph.D. Computing kjrkjr@gmail.com Kathy’s primary background is in systems architecture, performance evaluation, monitoring, and system management of Internet infrastructure. After research work at Stanford and Digital’s Research laboratories she joined a startup, CoroSoft, as director of Engineering, built a team that delivered an enterprise infrastructure management product. Kathy has a long-standing relationship with Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, currently on their advisory board. She launched the Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award, Chaired conference tracks at many Grace Hopper Conferences, mentored for the open source summer work on Systers- the women in computing mailing list and general on-going supporter. Currently, she spends much of her time as a mosaic artist and developing iOS applications for use in TBI and PTSD rehabilitation. Stacia Carr stacia.carr@gmail.com (Twitter: @noisegirl) Currently serving as Vice President Technology and Operations at Kink.com, Stacia Carr has more than 15 years experience working in technology and entertainment. After graduating from the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Stacia worked with legendary hip-hop and pop hit-maker Jive Records and produced concerts at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Later she worked as a web developer and product manager for early stage startups (Listen.com, Musicbank, Lexy) as well as established corporations (Sony, CMJ). Her technical product development experience includes large scale digital media (audio and video) production work flow and distribution, ecommerce, interactive voice recognition systems and SMS based mobile services. Stacia’s passion is leading groups of people to make their ideas happen. Sara Yap sarakyap@gmail.com (Twitter: sarakyap) Sara works with Mozilla for Firefox Mobile on its open source initiatives in product design, user experience and furthering its non-profit mission of the open web. Her interests include connecting communities with networks, sharing open source tools and masterminding new methods for idea generation. Sara has worked with Acumen Fund in Pakistan as a business development associate as well as Ashoka and Nike in Egypt for their social impact initiatives. After college, she served for two years in the Peace Corps in Morocco as an advisor for a women’s development association and small business owners in the Sahara. She moved further east to study Arabic and social entrepreneurship in Syria through a Fulbright Fellowship and then worked at Google on the Global Team. She received a bachelors degree in International Relations and Fine Arts from Brown University and a masters from Columbia University in Economics and International Development. The random bits: she’s Native Hawaiian, enjoys running and occasionally strums an ill-tuned ukulele. Malavika Lakireddy malavika.lakireddy@gmail.com Malavika works as an Associate Director with 24/7 Customer, specializing in business development, sales and marketing. With a background in technology and an MBA from the University of Michigan, Malavika is passionate about using technology to impact those at the base of the pyramid. Malavika grew up in India and has been actively involved with both Indian and American non-profits in international development. Judy Lee judylee418@yahoo.com (Twitter: @judylee418) Judy currently works as a Marketing Manager at NetApp, a leading global data storage company. While Judy’s expertise is in B2B Marketing and Business Development in the tech sector, she has a personal interest in bringing technology to the developing world, and connecting and empowering women in technology. During her tenures at IBM, Cisco, and Intel, she championed awareness of online learning/education for the developing world and initiated multi-vendor collaboration programs. Judy has a Chemical Engineering degree from UC Berkeley, and went to University of Pennsylvania for her MBA. Outside of work, Judy’s passion is travelling and admiring beautiful art and culture around the world. Francesca Barrientos, PhD fbarr@acm.org Francesca is a consultant in human-centered design and is passionate about using the design process to improve people’s lives. She currently works with the Planetary Skin Institute on collaborative tools to bring scientists and policy-makers together around global problems such as climate change. Time Magazine named their tool one of the 50 Best Inventions of 2009. Before venturing into the non-profit world she was a research scientist at NASA studying space mission design teams and the process of complex systems design. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University. Karen Baker baker.karene@gmail.com Karen is a freelance consultant in the user research component of human-centered design and is looking to enter the innovation consulting field. Recent projects include ethnographic research in China for Coca Cola and a media campaign highlighting civil rights abuses for the Asian Law Caucus. Karen’s passion is bringing people together to foster new initiatives for social innovation. To that end she has facilitated workshops on mixed race issues, classes on human-centered design and community discussions on social entrepreneurship. Her interests include mental health and women’s rights within the API community, and she continues to volunteer as a mentor in an Asian-American youth program at Helms Middle School in Richmond. Karen graduated from U.C. Berkeley last May with a B.A. and high honors in Rhetoric and a minor in Chinese language. Jennifer Kearns jmc9921@yahoo.com Jennifer is co-founder and Vice President of marketing at the Bluemont Group, a start-up in the clean energy industry. She also works as an associate at the Kauffman Foundation in the Kauffman Labs, a branch that focuses on researching and supporting start-ups. Michelle Cadieux, MBA communitysafetyprograms2@gmail.com Michelle is Executive Director of Community Safety Programs, an emergency response organization that trains critical response teams, and sits on the board of Minnesota’s Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD). She also advises engineering projects at NanEngineering with a focus on structural assessment building inspection, energy auditing, hazardous materials management, and nanotechnology. Michelle has published six books with Creative Communications on topics ranging from database management to smart phone programming. She holds a BA in International Relations and Intercultural Communications.
