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 Poona Bahrebar

Poona Bahrebar

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of California, Irvine
Personal URL

Research Statement

I am currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at University of California, Irvine with the prestigious Fellowship Award received from the Belgian-American Educational Foundation (BAEF).

I received my PhD degree in Computer Science Engineering at Ghent University, Belgium in 2017 with a thesis on "Adaptive Routing Algorithms in Networks-on-Chip", and stayed as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Electronics and Information Systems until Dec. 2019.

I am the recipient of the Best Paper Award at the 11th International Workshop on Network-on-Chip Architectures (NoCArc) in Oct. 2018. Moreover, I serve as the TPC member and reviewer of several international conferences and journals.

Interests

Interconnection Network, Router and Network Interface Architecture
Picture of Vijayalakshmi Saravanan

Vijayalakshmi Saravanan

Adjunct Faculty
Rochester Institute of Technology
Personal URL

Research Statement

Vijayalakshmi Saravanan received her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from VIT University, India under Erasmus Mundus Fellowship (EURECA) as research exchange student at Mälardalen University, Sweden and visiting researcher at Ryerson University, Canada. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Practice at University of Texas, San Antonio (UTSA) in the department of Computer Science. Prior to this, she was a Postdoctoral Associate at UB (University at Buffalo), The State University of New York, USA and University of Waterloo, Canada under the prestigious “Schlumberger Faculty for the Future” Fellowship award (2015-2017). She is having 10 years of teaching experience in two premier Universities VIT and Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India. Dr. Saravanan has published many technical articles in scholarly international journal and conferences. She is serving as technical reviewer and program committee member for reputed conference & journals such as GHC, SIGCSE and Springer. Her research interests include Power-Aware Processor Design, Big Data, IoT and Computer Architecture. She is a Senior Member of IEEE & ACM, CSI, Ex-Chair for IEEE-WIE VIT affinity group, India (2009-2015), NPA (National Postdoctoral Association) Annual Meetings committee, Workshop/IIA Co-Chair (2017-2018) Poster committee Co-chair (2018-2019) and a Board member of N2WOMEN (Networking Networking Women).

Interests

Accelerator-Based, Application-Specific and Reconfigurable Architecture, Architecture For Emerging Technologies and Applications, Architecture Modeling and Simulation Methodologies, Iot, Mobile and Embedded Architecture, Multiprocessor Systems, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Picture of Shaizeen Aga

Shaizeen Aga

Researcher
AMD Research
Personal URL

Research Statement

Shaizeen is a Researcher at AMD Research. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2013 and 2017, respectively. Her research interests include design of novel near-data computing solutions and techniques to reduce data movement in heterogeneous systems. She has received several awards and honors for her research including winning the best demo award at the 2016 Center for Future Architectures Research (CFAR) Annual Research Review which showcased nearly 50 projects in computer architecture related topics from several leading institutions. Her work during her undergraduate days won 1st place in Parallel Computing at Imagine Cup 2009, a worldwide student technical competition organized by Microsoft.

Interests

Architecture For Emerging Technologies and Applications, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
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Charu

PhD Candidate
Northeastern University
Personal URL

Research Statement

Charu Kalra is a PhD student in the Computer Engineering Department at Northeastern University. She is part of the Northeastern University Computer Architecture Research (NUCAR) group under the direction of Prof. David Kaeli. Her research interests include GPU compilers, software reliability, machine learning, workload characterization, and performance evaluation of GPU systems. Her PhD thesis focuses on design and evaluation of compiler-based techniques to predict and improve reliability of GPU applications. In 2014, Charu was featured on NVIDIA's 'Women Who CUDA' list. She has also pursued internships at AMD and AMD Research in the past.

Interests

Accelerator-Based, Application-Specific and Reconfigurable Architecture, Dependable Architecture, Instruction, Thread and Data-Level Parallelism
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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