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 Li-Shiuan Peh

Li-Shiuan Peh

Professor
National University of Singapore
Personal URL

Research Statement

Peh Li Shiuan joins NUS as Provost’s Chair Professor in the Department of Computer Science, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in September 2016. Previously, she was Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and was on the faculty of MIT since 2009. She was also the Associate Director for Outreach of the Singapore-MIT Alliance of Research & Technology (SMART). Prior to MIT, she was on the faculty of Princeton University from 2002. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2001, and a B.S. in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore in 1995. Her research focuses on networked computing, in many-core chips as well as mobile wireless systems. She was awarded the IEEE Fellow in 2017, NRF Returning Singaporean Scientist Award in 2016, ACM Distinguished Scientist Award in 2011, MICRO Hall of Fame in 2011, CRA Anita Borg Early Career Award in 2007, Sloan Research Fellowship in 2006, and the NSF CAREER award in 2003.

Interests

Architecture For Emerging Technologies and Applications, Effects Of Circuits Or Technology On Architecture, Interconnection Network, Router and Network Interface Architecture, Iot, Mobile and Embedded Architecture, Multiprocessor Systems
Picture of Lizy Kurian John

Lizy Kurian John

Professor
UT Austin
Personal URL

Research Statement

Lizy Kurian John is B. N. Gafford Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering at UT Austin. She received her Ph. D in Computer Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests include workload characterization, performance evaluation, architectures with emerging memory technologies such as die-stacked DRAM, and high performance processor architectures for emerging workloads. She is recipient of NSF CAREER award, UT Austin Engineering Foundation Faculty Award, Halliburton, Brown and Root Engineering Foundation Young Faculty Award 2001, University of Texas Alumni Association (Texas Exes) Teaching Award 2004, The Pennsylvania State University Outstanding Engineering Alumnus 2011, etc. She has coauthored a book on Digital Systems Design using VHDL (Cengage Publishers, 2007, 2017), a book on Digital Systems Design using Verilog (Cengage Publishers, 2014) and has edited 4 books including a book on Computer Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking. She is in ISCA and HPCA Hall of Fame, holds 10 US patents and is a Fellow of IEEE.

Interests

Accelerator-Based, Application-Specific and Reconfigurable Architecture, Architecture For Emerging Technologies and Applications, Architecture Modeling and Simulation Methodologies, Datacenter-Scale Computing, Effects Of Circuits Or Technology On Architecture, Evaluation and Measurement Of Real Systems, Instruction, Thread and Data-Level Parallelism, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Picture of Margaret Martonosi

Margaret Martonosi

Professor
Princeton University
Personal URL

Research Statement

For decades, Moore’s Law and its partner Dennard Scaling have driven technology trends that have enabled exponential performance improvements in computer systems at manageable power dissipation. With the slowing of Moore/Dennard improvements, designers have turned to a range of approaches for extending scaling of computer systems performance and power efficiency. Unfortunately, these scaling gains come at the expense of degraded hardware-software abstraction layers, increased complexity at the hardware-software interface, and increased challenges for software reliability, interoperability, and performance portability. My work explores the way forward for computer systems designers in this “Post-ISA” era of shifting abstractions. My group looks hardware and software design issues for specialization/heterogeneity and methods for formal verification. We are also increasingly focused on the hardware/software systems issues of Quantum Computing.

Interests

Accelerator-Based, Application-Specific and Reconfigurable Architecture, Effects Of Circuits Or Technology On Architecture, Multiprocessor Systems, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
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
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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