The
Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship: Canada
The
Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship: Canada
Michelle is a second year PhD student in the Advanced Man Machine Interface lab at the University of Alberta, in beautiful Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Michelle has always enjoyed finding interesting ways that low-cost technology can be used to enrich the lives of everyday people, so she has chosen to focus her research in the area of technology-assisted rehabilitation. Michelle currently collaborates with a local rehabilitation hospital on a number of projects using multi-touch tabletops, e-textiles, Wii peripherals, and virtual reality systems. When not doing research, Michelle can be found on an airplane waiting to land at her next destination, curling up with her Kindle, or eating cupcakes!
Being an Anita Borg finalist (and then a recipient) has been a life-changing experience. After completing the scholarship application, interview process, and meeting the other scholars and Googlers at the Googleplex, I realized a number of things: I do belong in Computing Science, knowing how to program is an immensely valuable skill, my research and ideas ARE valuable and worthwhile, other Computer Scientists love purses and shoes just like me, and volunteering and giving back is super important. Having met all of the successful, driven people that I have, I have stopped dreaming small and have started to dream really, really BIG. I now have the confidence to tackle those tricky research problems I thought I could never solve, get my hands dirty with hardware (eeep!), and go after my crazy dream of becoming an Imagineer!
Ioana is pursuing research that spans computer architecture, dynamic optimizations and hardware-software interaction. During her graduate studies, she spent several months working in the research labs of Intel and IBM. Ioana hopes to spend all her life playing with ideas as a researcher in an academic or industrial lab.
The people and their stories! Peers, organizers, presenters - they were all inspirational. I still remember the energy of the event. And, of course, visiting the Googleplex was an added bonus!
One important moment for me was watching a video-collage about and with Anita Borg herself. It was only then that it hit me: I received a scholarship that honors the memory of this incredible woman! It was humbling and encouraging at the same time...
Angelica is hoping to pursue a Masters in robotics next year and would like to be a computer science robotics professor who eventually spins off her own company. She is passionate about bringing more women into computer science and has devoted much of her time over the past six years to this endeavor.
Angelica was born in Hermosa Beach, California and moved to Vancouver when she was eight. She’s fluent in French and spent a year and a half living in Nice, France. She would love to visit Japan to taste real sushi, see their robotics, experience the bullet train, sit in an onsen, and improve her grasp on the language.
April Khademi is a PhD Candidate in Electrical Engineering at the University of Toronto and her research concerns medical image processing of cerebral (brain) MRI. She is researching new methods to quantify white matter lesions in the brain and since they are precursors of future stroke, such schemes can further the understanding of the pathogenesis of stroke. In April's spare time, she loves to travel and learn about other cultures. Her favourite destinations include anywhere with +30deg Celsius temperature and white sand beaches (she lives in Canada, remember?). Pilates, yoga, and playing the flute are her other pastimes.
Winning this scholarship is a huge feather in my cap. Not only am I being supported by the largest women in technology society, but also by Google, a leading organization for the advancement of technology.
Jenna is currently a fourth year student at the University of Western Ontario studying bioinformatics. In the future she plans on focusing her research around cancer modeling and disease research. Aside from doing research, she loves spending time with friends and playing soccer.
I was thrilled about the idea of visiting Google! I applied because I wanted the opportunity to meet Googlers and other women in computer science with similar ideas. I thought it would amazing to get to meet people as excited about computer science as me and to meet people who have already done such amazing things because of that excitement.
This scholarship has made me feel so lucky to be in this field. It has let me meet other people who are striving for the same goals and interested in the same things, and these people are so incredible it has made me feel very lucky. It has also made me want to pursue a career even more directly involved in computer science. Also, I now want to apply for even more scholarships and opportunities because I realize what incredible opportunities they can be if you just put yourself out there and try!