PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - Aug 7, 2012) - The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) announced today the winners of the 2012 Anita Borg Social Impact and Technical Leadership Awards and the Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award. The winners will be honored for their accomplishments and contributions to women in technology at an awards ceremony on October 4, 2012 during the 12th Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Anita Borg Social Impact Award honors an individual or team that has caused technology to have a positive impact on the lives of women and society or has caused women to have a significant impact on the design and use of technology. The 2012 award winner is Cathi Rodgveller, Founder of IGNITE and Nontraditional Career Counselor at Seattle Public Schools. Through these roles, she has positively impacted the lives of K-16 girls in Seattle, exposing them to STEM fields and role models. IGNITE offers an affordable, community based, multifaceted approach to STEM education and outreach by providing toolkits and curriculum which allow educators across the globe to replicate the successful model that thrives in Seattle Public Schools. Over 18,000 girls have been positively impacted by the program, and the number of young women in technology courses in Seattle schools has more than doubled following the implementation of the IGNITE program in high schools. United States Senator Maria Cantwell has partnered with Cathi Rodgveller to initiate national legislation named after IGNITE that will provide $50 million in funding for girls' technology education. IGNITE is also working directly with and impacting educators in Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Libya, England and Egypt. The Anita Borg Social Impact Award is underwritten by Microsoft.
The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award is given to a woman who has inspired the women's technology community through outstanding technological and social contributions. This year's winner Dr. Irene Greif is IBM Fellow and Chief Scientist for Social Business at IBM Research. She is the founder of the interdisciplinary field of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). For a quarter of a century, CSCW has been an effective approach to creating social and technological environments for group work, whether people are working face-to-face or at a distance. Greif serves as a role model and mentor to technical women and young girls. She has made a point of mentoring thousands of women of all ages throughout her career. She has been involved with the Society of Women Engineers at MIT, Women Engineers in Science and Technology, the IBM EXITE camps for middle school girls, GirlGeeks "Women Who Inspire Us," and IBM's Watson Women Network. The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award is underwritten by Salesforce.com.
The Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award is given each year to a junior non-tenured faculty member under the age of 40 at an academic or research institution pursuing high-quality research in any field of engineering or physical sciences while contributing significantly to promoting diversity in his/her environment. The 2012 Denice Denton Award winner is Susan Daniel, Assistant Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University. Her area of research is fluid dynamics and bioseparations. Her work has been published in Science Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and Langmuir. She founded the Graduate Women's Group with an internal focus on professional development for women graduate students and post-docs and grew it rapidly to embrace outreach to local poor rural families to encourage girls to choose STEM fields for college. She also serves on the Graduate Field Committee that recruits women students, and her efforts have contributed to the rise from 25% to 50% in women graduate student recruitment, as well as increased retention. The Denice Denton Award is underwritten by Microsoft.
About the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
The world's largest gathering of women in computing in industry, academia, and government, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is a four day technical conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. The conference is co-presented by the Anita Borg Institute and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
More than 3,600 women and men from over 35 countries in industry, academia, and government are expected to turn out for this year's event. GHC provides technical women with visibility, a sense of community, critical social networks and mentoring relationships that improve female representation in the field. Conference registration is now open. For more information, go to www.gracehopper.org.
About the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI)
The Anita Borg Institute provides resources and programs to help industry, academia, and government recruit, retain, and develop women leaders in high-tech fields, resulting in higher levels of technological innovation. Our programs serve high-tech women by creating a community and providing tools to help them develop their careers. The Anita Borg Institute is a not-for-profit 501(c) 3 charitable organization. Partners include: Google, HP, Microsoft, Amazon, CA Technologies, Cisco, Dell, Facebook, First Republic Bank, IBM, Intel, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Lockheed Martin, Marvell, National Science Foundation, National Security Agency, NetApp, SAP, Salesforce.com, Symantec, Thomson Reuters, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Broadcom, Neustar, Raytheon, and Yahoo! For more information, visit www.anitaborg.org
Contact Information:
Media Contact:
Jerri Barrett
Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
650-857-6095