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| UC San Diego master's student Mansi Malik received a grant from the Center for Networked Systems to attend the premier conference for women in computing. |
Thanks to the Center for Networked
Systems (CNS) at the University of California San Diego, Mansi Malik was able to
attend what has become the premier conference for women in computer science
(and for many men too). The second-year graduate student in Computer Science at
UC San Diego was among the 35 UC San Diego students (including nine grad
students) and 15,000 people overall attending the 2016 Grace Hopper Celebration
of Women in Computing October 19-21 in Houston, TX.
“It was really cool and exciting to see and meet so many women in computer
science from all over,” says Malik, who expects to complete her M.S. degree in
2017. “A lot of great energy and excitement was going around, and there were inspiring
talks by awesome speakers.” Malik says she was particularly inspired by the
keynote speakers, including Latanya Sweeney, founder of Harvard’s Data Privacy
Lab, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, and Megan Smith, who was appointed Chief Technology
Officer of the United States in 2014 by President Obama, from her previous
position as a vice president of Google[x], Google’s advanced products unit. Malik
was also impressed with the keynote by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
Since 2011,
CNS has sent one, two or three graduate students each year to the conference in
the form of travel grants. “CNS took care of everything from travel to meals,
ensuring that I had a smooth trip,” observes Malik. “It was an honor to
represent both CNS and Graduate Women in Computing [GradWIC], and I hope to
continue the relationship between GradWIC and CNS going forward.”
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Members and officers of
Graduate Women in Computing (GradWIC) chapter at UC San Diego were among 15,000
people attending the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2016.
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Overall, she says, the conference was a
valuable experience. “There were great networking opportunities through the
career fair and company-sponsored events and lunches,” explains Malik, who is
the Undergrad WIC Coordinator and publicity manager for GradWIC this year. “I
also talked to a lot of recruiters and engineers from tech companies about GradWIC
and built some industry connections for us so that we can host more events.”
She also appreciated a session on negotiating salaries, in which she learned
that for every four men who dare to negotiate for a better starting salary,
only one woman will attempt to negotiate – and the problem spills over into
other areas because many women are unaware that they can negotiate for more
than just salary.
“My specialization is in Computer
Systems, and I got a chance to meet a lot of systems pioneers through the
conference, including inspiring leaders from Qualcomm, Microsoft, Google, and
other companies,” notes Malik, who was inspired to pursue computer systems
after taking courses by professors Alex Snoeren, Sorin Lerner and George
Polyzos. “Talks on networking and the Internet of Things were particularly
interesting from a CNS perspective.”
In an after-conference report to CNS,
Malik also noted that because of its rapid growth, “a lot of the
interesting-sounding sessions were in small rooms and filled up well before
they started, leaving hundreds of people looking for somewhere else to go.”
The sessions were also heavily focused
on industry. “Most talks were presented by industry leaders, and even the talks
about academia or research were geared toward faculty,” says Malik. “There
could have been more research-related sessions oriented toward graduate
students.”
“Thanks to everyone at CNS,” says
Malik, “for giving me the opportunity to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration
this year.”
Many of the previous recipients of
CNS travel grants to Grace Hopper Celebrations, like Mansi, were also officers
in GradWIC, including former VP Neha Chachra (who attended the event in 2011), Publicity
Manager Karyn Benson (2013), and GradWIC Secretary Malveeka Tewari (2014). Mansi
recently attended her first GradWIC general business meeting as an officer on
Oct. 25, and says the group will host a faculty lunch event the week of Nov. 14
(see
Facebook page for details).
The previous winner, Vicky Papavasileiou,
in 2015 was the first ECE graduate student to win the CNS award, and she was
only the second M.S. student to receive the travel grant (the first was Shikha
Jain in 2012). For a full list of past recipients, visit the travel grant page on the CNS website.
Malik enrolled in CSE’s M.S.
program in 2015 and also became a teaching assistant. This past summer, she did
a software development internship at Mitchell International in San Diego, where
she worked on a system for commenting into Visual Studio (eliminating the need
to switch between Visual Studio and Microsoft Outlook during daily code
reviews). Prior to arriving in San Diego, Malik completed her undergraduate
degree in computer science with honors at Kurukshetra University in the North
Indian state of Haryana.
The Grace Hopper Celebration of
Women in Computing is presented by the Anita Borg Institute for Women in
Technology and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Related Links
GradWIC Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/ucsdgradwic/
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