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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 Carole-Jean Wu

Carole-Jean Wu

Assistant Professor
Arizona State University
Personal URL

Research Statement

I am an Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU). I am also the Associate Director of the NSF I/UCRC Center for Embedded Systems (CES). Before joining ASU, I held a number of industrial internship positions with Intel, IBM, and Google. I am a senior member of both ACM and IEEE.

My research area lies in Computer and System Architectures. In particular, my research interests include high-performance and energy-efficient computer architectures through

  • hardware heterogeneity,
  • energy harvesting techniques for emerging computing devices,
  • temperature and energy management for portable electronics,
  • performance characterization, analysis and prediction, and
  • memory subsystem designs.

I am the recipient of the 2017 NSF CAREER Award, the 2017 IEEE Young Engineer of the Year Award, the 2014 IEEEE Best of Computer Architecture Letter Award, the 2013 Science Foundation of Arizona Bisgrove Early Career Award, and the 2011-12 Intel Ph.D. Fellowship Award. My research has been supported by both industry sources and the National Science Foundation to a level over $1.8 million.

I serve on the Executive Committee of the IEEE Technical Committee on Computer Architecture from 2017-19 and am the Program Chair for the IEEE International Symposium on Workload Characterization, 2018. I completed my M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 2008 and 2012, respectively, and received a B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University.

Interests

Evaluation and Measurement Of Real Systems, Instruction, Thread and Data-Level Parallelism, Iot, Mobile and Embedded Architecture, Multiprocessor Systems, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Picture of Mahek Desai

Mahek Desai

Graduate Student
California State University Northridge
Personal URL

Research Statement

I am a passionate Computer Science graduate student at CSU Northridge. My research interests revolve around optimizing Phase Change Memory (PCM) for commercial use, with a focus on enhancing speed, endurance, and scalability. Concurrently, I am engaged in exploring the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques to address challenges within PCM. Additionally, my curiosity extends to the broader landscape of computer architecture, aiming to contribute innovative insights that advance modern computation and communication architectures.

Interests

Architectural Support For Security Or Virtualization, Architecture For Emerging Technologies and Applications, Datacenter-Scale Computing, Iot, Mobile and Embedded Architecture, Processor, Memory, and Storage Systems Architecture
Placeholder. No Picture provided by Wenjie Xiong

Wenjie Xiong

PhD Candidate
Yale University
Personal URL

Research Statement

I am broadly interested in hardware security. I am working on designs of new Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs), leveraging physical properties of hardware for new cryptographic and security applications, and security verification of processor architectures.

Interests

Architectural Support For Security Or Virtualization
Placeholder. No Picture provided by Rui Zhang

Rui Zhang

Graduate Student
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(No URL)

Research Statement

I am a 4th year PhD student at UNC Chapel Hill, dabbling in hardware security research. I am fortunate to be advised by Prof. Cynthia Sturton.

I am broadly interested in all aspects of hardware security. The goals of my research are to help hardware designers efficiently build more secure processors that can withstand a wide range of attack programs in the field, as well as to provide interesting insights about hardware vulnerabilities to the community.

I completed my BS in Microelectronics from Peking University, and my MS in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University.

Interests

Architectural Support For Security Or Virtualization

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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