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

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 NEHA AGARWAL

NEHA AGARWAL

Software Engineer
Google LLC
Personal URL

Research Statement

Server memory management is an evolving and challenging area. With growing memory capacity installed per machine and increasing memory DIMM costs, data center planners are facing with huge increase in memory TCO. A plausible direction is to categorize memory accesses by required service level objective (SLO) with the end goal to map lower SLO request to cheaper but low quality memory resource, while using expensive, highest quality memory resource for most critical application request. I work in Linux server memory management to categorize memory access transparent to the user space.

Interests

Architectural Support For Programming Languages Or Software Development, Datacenter-Scale Computing, Evaluation and Measurement Of Real Systems, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Picture of Ghazal Tashakor

Ghazal Tashakor

Scientist
Jülich Supercomputing Centre
Personal URL

Research Statement

Dr. Ghazal Tashakor is a scientific staff member affiliated with multiple institutes and universities in Germany and Spain. She obtained her Ph.D. in High-Performance Computing (HPC) and advanced simulation from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2019. Her ongoing research endeavors primarily focus on conducting large-scale computer simulations. Additionally, she serves as a core developer in distributed and parallel architecture patterns, ranging from grid computing to data visualization/monitoring, with a specific emphasis on Big Data and advanced hierarchical models. She collaborates with various research centers in Germany, including Fraunhofer and Jülich Supercomputer Centre.

Interests

Architectural Support For Programming Languages Or Software Development, Architecture For Emerging Technologies and Applications, Architecture Modeling and Simulation Methodologies, Datacenter-Scale Computing, Instruction, Thread and Data-Level Parallelism, Iot, Mobile and Embedded Architecture, Multiprocessor Systems, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Picture of Lishan Yang

Lishan Yang

Assistant Professor
George Mason University, Department of Computer Science
Personal URL

Research Statement

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at George Mason University. My research interest mainly falls in system reliability and GPU architecture, including the reliable operation of GPUs, non-conventional sensors, autonomous driving systems, and neural networks.

Interests

Dependable Architecture
Picture of Dana Vantrease

Dana Vantrease

Engineer
MatX
Personal URL

Research Statement

Dana Vantrease specializes in hw and sw solutions for custom AI silicon. She has worked on such systems at Amazon Web Services (Inferentia, Trainium), Qualcomm (NPU), and MatX.

Interests

Accelerator-Based, Application-Specific and Reconfigurable Architecture, Architectural Support For Programming Languages Or Software Development, Architecture For Emerging Technologies and Applications
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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