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.

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 Mahek Desai

Mahek Desai

Graduate Student
California State University Northridge
Personal URL

Research Statement

I am a passionate Computer Science graduate student at CSU Northridge. My research interests revolve around optimizing Phase Change Memory (PCM) for commercial use, with a focus on enhancing speed, endurance, and scalability. Concurrently, I am engaged in exploring the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques to address challenges within PCM. Additionally, my curiosity extends to the broader landscape of computer architecture, aiming to contribute innovative insights that advance modern computation and communication architectures.

Interests

Architectural Support For Security Or Virtualization, Architecture For Emerging Technologies and Applications, Datacenter-Scale Computing, Iot, Mobile and Embedded Architecture, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Placeholder. No Picture provided by Karin Strauss

Karin Strauss

Senior Principal Researcher Manager
Microsoft Research
Personal URL

Research Statement

Karin Strauss is a senior principal research manager at Microsoft (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research) and an affiliate full professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (http://www.cs.washington.edu/) at University of Washington (http://www.washington.edu/). Her research lies at the intersection of computer architecture, systems, and biology. Her work includes hardware accelerators for machine learning, emerging memory technologies, and the use of biotechnology to the benefit of the IT industry. Lately, her focus has been on creating an end-to-end system that stores digital data in synthetic DNA, for which she was named one of the 2016 “100 Most Creative People in Business” by Fast Company. Along with Luis Ceze, she has recently received the ACM SIGARCH Maurice Wilkes Award for their work on DNA data storage. The DNA data storage project has also been chosen as “Best of What’s New” by Popular Science in 2016, one of the "Top 10 Emerging Technologies" by the World Economic Forum in 2019, and highlighted by influential publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, MIT Technology Review, and Scientific American. Karin received her PhD in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007.

Interests

Architectural Support For Programming Languages Or Software Development, Architecture For Emerging Technologies and Applications, Datacenter-Scale Computing, Effects Of Circuits Or Technology On Architecture, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Picture of Rasha Karakchi

Rasha Karakchi

Postdoctoral Researcher
University of South Carolina
(No URL)

Research Statement

Rasha is a postdoctoral researcher at University of South Carolina. Beside, her research work, Rasha is the main instructor of embedded systems and computer architecture courses at Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Her primary research area is reconfigurable computing, embedded systems and application-specific architecture, specifically FPGA.

Interests

Accelerator-Based, Application-Specific and Reconfigurable Architecture
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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