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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 Akanksha Jain

Akanksha Jain

Research Engineer
Arm Research
Personal URL

Research Statement

Akanksha Jain received her PhD in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin in December 2016 and is currently a Researcher at Arm Research. Her research interests are in computer architecture, with a particular focus on the memory system and on using machine learning techniques to improve the design of memory system optimizations. Her work has been recognized with a Best Paper Nomination at MICRO 2013, a Top Picks Honorable Mention at ISCA 2016, and the first place award at the Cache Replacement Championship in 2017.

Interests

Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Picture of Sabrina Neuman

Sabrina Neuman

Assistant Professor
Boston University
Personal URL

Research Statement

Sabrina M. Neuman is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Boston University. Her research interests are in computer architecture design informed by explicit application-level and domain-specific insights. She is particularly focused on robotics applications because of their heavy computational demands and potential to improve the well-being of individuals in society. She received her S.B., M.Eng., and Ph.D. from MIT, and she was a postdoctoral NSF Computing Innovation Fellow at Harvard University. She is a 2021 EECS Rising Star, and her work on robotics acceleration has received Honorable Mention in IEEE Micro Top Picks 2022 and IEEE Micro Top Picks 2023. She holds the 2023-2026 Boston University Innovation Career Development Professorship.

Interests

Accelerator-Based, Application-Specific and Reconfigurable Architecture, Instruction, Thread and Data-Level Parallelism, Iot, Mobile and Embedded Architecture, Multiprocessor Systems
Picture of Narges Shahidi

Narges Shahidi

Software Engineer
Google
Personal URL

Research Statement

I recently graduated from Penn State University. My research at Penn State was focused on memory and storage architecture. I worked on NAND flash solid state drives on cloud and enterprise environments. I also did an internship at Memory Solution Lab in Samsung Semiconductor where I worked on open channel solutions for SSD storage architectures. I am now a Software Engineer at Google platform team working on system drivers for cloud storages.

Interests

Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Placeholder. No Picture provided by Gelara Jafari Pouyani

Gelara Jafari Pouyani

Graduate student
Shahid Beheshti University
Personal URL

Research Statement

I'm Gelara, a forward-thinking computer architecture master's student from Iran. My focus lies in Approximate Computing, Bio-inspired Computing, and Brain Interface Computing.

Interests

Accelerator-Based, Application-Specific and Reconfigurable 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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