Lecturer of Information Systems Taryn Malher had the opportunity to travel to Orlando, FL, this week to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration as a 2019 Grace Hopper Faculty Scholar. The Grace Hopper Celebration is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists and is held by the AnitaB.org nonprofit organization each year. The Faculty Scholars program recognizes faculty who teach in a technical program, mentor female students, actively support technology-based organizations, and have the opportunity to carry back lessons learned to her community and school. Taryn’s award was sponsored by NetApp, a data services for the hybrid cloud organization. She joined over 25,000 women and allies of women in technology during the celebration.

 

“Being in a room with more than just a handful of women working in technology, let alone twenty-five thousand of them, was an inspiring and empowering experience. I was able to meet women who are changing the world with their innovative uses of technology in areas ranging from natural disaster relief to fashion design to advancing the quality of women’s healthcare and so much more. I attended talks by ground breaking women like Dr. Fei Fei Li of Stanford, who’s ImageNet revolutionized the world of computer vision in AI, and Aicha Evans, CEO of Zoox, an autonomous mobility company building the future of travel. I’m returning to Bloomington in awe of the world our students will be entering and excited to share the accomplishments of women technologists with all of our students in and out of the classroom.

In addition to witnessing groundbreaking technology, I was able to participate in discussions on imposter syndrome, mentoring, being your authentic self, and life as a working mom. I’m looking forward to sharing the tools and advice that was offered by my peers during these discussions with our Women in Business Technology student organization.

I am proud of our program and the work we have done to encourage women to explore Information Systems as a major and Technology Management as a co-major. There is still more work to be done to reach AnitaB.org’s goal of reaching 50/50 technology equity by 2025, but I believe that the Operations and Decision Technologies department can play a part in reaching that goal through the support of our incredible alumni and by helping all of our students understand their role in that process.”

Congratulations, Taryn and thank you for sharing your incredible experiences with us!