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Our

Mission

Women in Computer Architecture (WICARCH) is designed to create a community for women studying and working in the field of computer architecture. Our goal is to promote women in computer architecture and increase visibility for their research and development contributions. We welcome participation from all women including students, post docs, industry researchers and developers and faculty members. To be listed in our directory, please click here.

Profiles of WICArch

The mission of this section is to profile women in computer architecture across many walks of our field, from [junior, senior] x [industry, academia].

If you would like to be profiled, would like to nominate someone to be profiled, or would like to write a profile, please let us know by wicarch-chair@acm.org

Mengjia Yan

by Lisa Hsu on February 5, 2020

Dr. Mengjia Yan is undoubtedly one of the most delightful people you will ever meet – smart, positive, exceedingly wise beyond her years, and the kind of person who can turn a frown upside down.  She was paired with me as a mentee at ISCA 2018, but I genuinely think that it is I who have benefited from the relationship.  These days, she is a new assistant professor at MIT, having recently completed her PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2019.

Read more...

WICArch Directory

We actively maintain a list of women working in the field of computer architecture.  The goal of this list is many-fold.  First, the list services as a resource for program chairs and conference organizers to identify women to serve in key technical roles such as keynote, panels and program committees.  Second, the list is designed to foster community and help women connect with other women in computer architecture.  This list can be used by current and potential graduate students to find advisors and mentors. Four profiles, selected randomly, are shown below.  We encourage you to browse the full directory.

Picture of Sophia Shao

Sophia Shao

Assistant Professor
UC Berkeley
Personal URL

Research Statement

I am an Assistant Professor and an SK Hynix Faculty Fellow at the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department of University of California, Berkeley. My research interests are in the area of computer architecture, with a special focus on specialized accelerator, heterogeneous architecture, and agile VLSI design methodology. Previously, I was a Senior Research Scientist at NVIDIA Research and received my Ph.D. degree in 2016 from Harvard University.

My work has been awarded a Distinguished Artifact Award at ISCA 2023, the Best Paper Award at DAC 2021, the Best Paper Award at JSSC 2020, a Best Paper Award at MICRO 2019, Top Picks in Computer Architecture (2014), and Honorable Mentions (2019*2). My Ph.D. dissertation was nominated by Harvard for ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award. I am an SK Hynix Faculty Fellow and a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, the 2022 IEEE TCCA Young Computer Architect Award, a Google Faculty Rising Stars Award in Systems Research, a Google Research Scholar Award, a Facebook Research Award, an Okawa Foundation Research Grant, and the inaugural Dr. Sudhakar Yalamanchili Award.

Interests

Accelerator-Based, Application-Specific and Reconfigurable Architecture, Evaluation and Measurement Of Real Systems
Placeholder. No Picture provided by Janie Irwin

Janie Irwin

Emerita Evan Pugh University Professor
Penn State University
Personal URL

Research Statement

Mary Jane (Janie) Irwin is an Emerita Evan Pugh University Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. She retired in July 2017. Her research and teaching interests include computer architecture, energy-aware and reliability-aware design, emerging technologies, and VLSI systems design and design automation. She is a Fellow of IEEE and ACM and a member of NAE and AAAS. Awards she has received include the 2003 IEEE/CAS VLSI Transactions Best Paper of the Year Award, the 2010 ACM Athena Lecturer Award, the 2012 Ten-Year Retrospective Most Influential ASP-DAC Paper Award, the 2015 FLP Conference 25 Year Paper Recognition, the 2017 ACM/SIGDA Pioneering Achievement Award, and the 2018 EDAA Lifetime Achievement Award. Irwin received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and an Honorary Doctorate from Chalmers University, Sweden.htt

Interests

Accelerator-Based, Application-Specific and Reconfigurable Architecture, Effects Of Circuits Or Technology On Architecture, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Picture of Aninda Manocha

Aninda Manocha

Member of Technical Staff
Rivos Inc.
Personal URL

Research Statement

Aninda Manocha received her Ph.D student in Computer Science at Princeton University. She was advised by Professor Margaret Martonosi in the broad area of Computer Architecture. More specifically, she worked on the design of reconfigurable hardware to accelerate a variety of software applications with a focus on the application and compiler interface. She also worked on memory hierarchy designs and operating system techniques tailored to irregular, memory-intensive graph applications. She received her B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering as well as Computer Science from Duke University in 2018. She now works at Rivos.

Interests

Accelerator-Based, Application-Specific and Reconfigurable Architecture, Architectural Support For Programming Languages Or Software Development, Architecture For Emerging Technologies and Applications, Architecture Modeling and Simulation Methodologies, Multiprocessor Systems, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Picture of Diman

Diman

Postdoc Researcher
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Labs
Personal URL

Research Statement

I'm Diman Zad-Tootaghaj, I am a postdoc/researcher at Hewlett Packard Labs in Palo Alto, California. I work on Software-Defined Network solutions in Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN).

I earned my PhD in Computer Science and Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. Prior to Penn State, I got my B.Sc degree in Electrical Engineering at Sharif University of Technology, Iran. During my PhD, I was working in the Institute for Networking and Security Research (INSR) and Network Sciences Research Group (NSRG) under supervision of Prof. Thomas La Porta (advisor), Dr. Ting He (co-advisor), and Dr. Novella Bartolini.

My research area is computer networks, stochastic analysis, operating system, and parallel computing. I graduated from Sharif University of technology, with MSc. in Electrical Engineering.

I'm on the N2Women board as a Website Co-chair.

Interests

Architecture Modeling and Simulation Methodologies, Datacenter-Scale Computing, Dependable Architecture, Interconnection Network, Router and Network Interface Architecture

Full Directory // List Yourself // Update Profile

We regularly organize a social gathering of women at the start of major architecture conferences (ISCA, HPCA, ASPLOS and MICRO).  These meet ups help newcomers to our conferences become better integrated in the community and reduce some of the pressure and intimidation they might feel at their first conference.  They provide great networking opportunities.  We hope to see you at the next one!
Would you like to attend a SIGARCH-sponsored event, but cannot because the cost of child-care is prohibitive? SIGARCH provides funds for a limited number of grants that support child care for members that would like to participate in a SIGARCH-sponsored event but are unable to do so without this support. SIGARCH provides financial assistance to subsidize a variety of child-care options. View details here.
Annually, we provide a brochure of upcoming female graduates in computer architecture. The goal of this brochure is to bring greater visibility to women on the job market and to celebrate their success as PhD students.

2018-2019 Candidates
2019 Candidates

Check out our WICARCH YouTube channel which features recorded technical talks by members of the WICARCH community.

Initiatives

We organize various initiatives to better connect women in computer architecture.

Join Our Mailing List

Our mailing list is maintained through ACM.  You can join in 3 easy steps:

1. Join SIGARCH/SIGMICRO (you don’t need to be a full ACM member — you can join a SIG only which is pretty cheap!)

SIGARCH   |   SIGMICRO

2. Update your gender in your myACM account (create/activate account as needed)

Student members: if you log into myACM, you should see a “My Student Profile” on the left menu.  This is where you can specify gender.
Professional members: if you log into myACM, you should see a “My Professional and Technical Interest Profile” on the left menu you.  This is where you can specify gender.
3. Accept to receive emails from ACM:
In myACM, under “My Contact Information”, “Email Policy”, “Current preference” should have the box “Please send me ACM Announcements via email” checked.

Join Our Slack Channel

We offer an informal mentoring program through our slack channel (wicarch.slack.com).  Women at all career stages are encouraged to join.  The mentoring program provides an easy way to connect with other women and receive advice on a wide range of career and personal issues.

If you need assistance in joining our mailing list or slack channel, please send email to wicarch-chair@acm.org.

This website serves women in the field of computer architecture.
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