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Athena Speaker Directory
FIND TOP STEM SPEAKERS
Explore Athena's diverse talent roster to find the right STEM Speaker for your next event, conference, or board retreat. Securing a diverse conference speaker lineup requires lots of intentional work and this one-stop directory offers decades of experience among these female thought leaders in STEM. Directly contact any of these dynamic speakers to capture the unique perspectives from these leaders.
To become a Featured Speaker, email staff@athenaSTEMwomen.org.
Sarah Bacerra
Founder
Trailblazing in Color
EXPERTISE: People Innovator | Human Lover | Inclusion Pusher | Learning & Performance Leader | Certified High Performance Coach | Certified DISC Facilitator
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: Startup San Diego - Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Panel | The Center for Respectful Leadership - Changemaker Spotlight
Kimbra Brookstein
Staff Program Manager - Tech Women @ Intuit
Intuit
EXPERTISE: Women In Tech | Diversity In Tech | Building Inclusive Environments | ERGs | Allyship | Building Communities | Brand Building | Networking | Corporate Culture
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: Blueprint for Success - Athena Pinnacle Award Winners | Male Allyship: Supporting Women in Tech - Women of Rady | Women Tech Leaders - GA & Yelp Panel | Moderator - San Diego Tech Women's Summit - IWD Panel | Surviving COVID: How to pivot during crisis - SD Women’s Venture Summit | Moderator, SD Resources To Level up Your Career - SDTWS | Moderator, Girls In Tech - SD: The different type of dev roles you can have in tech | Women In Tech Panel - Startup San Diego Convergence/Girls In Tech SD | Creating Tech Opportunities For Community Change - Western Regional Diversity Conference | How I Started Working In Tech - GeekGirl TechCon | Women In Tech: The Resources You Need To Level Up In SD - SDSW
Shramika Chandak
Staff Engineer
Qualcomm
EXPERTISE: Building Career in Electronics | Best Practices to Support Women in Tech | Mindset at Work | Women In Tech | Diversity In Tech | Work-Life Harmony | Sharpen Your Skills | Life Outside Work Impacts Life At Work
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: Qualcomm Events Host
Alejandra Contreras
Customer Engagement Manager
Oracle
EXPERTISE: C&E, Technology, Changing Careers, Expat life, Building Communities, Speaking Up, Believing in yourself, Dreaming Big, Storytelling, Setting Boundaries, Latinamerican mindset & challenges, New Parent Life.
SPEAKING APPEARANCES:
Oracle Women Leadership
Noushin Dunkelman
Founder & CEO
MaxSynergy
EXPERTISE: Organizational Development in Biotech Spaces | Communication Strategy | Operation Structure | Culture Development | Team and Talent Development
SPEAKING APPEARANCES/AFFILIATED ORGANIZATIONS: SDEE | AWIS Conference Speaker | Lunchbio | SDBSA | EvoNexus | NCHR
Shannon Fitzpatrick
Sr Healthcare Manager, Partnerships & Global Disability ERG Lead
Microsoft
EXPERTISE: Disability and Accessibility | Health Tech | Behavioral Health Tech
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: Host and producer for Accessibility Toronto with 10+ years broadcasting experience from news anchoring to production. Regular speaker at Microsoft events around accessibility and health technology partnerships.
Mandeep Gill
Senior Group Technical Manager
HCLTech
EXPERTISE: Mentoring | Communication | Time Management | Emotional Intelligence | Growth Mindset | Feedback Essentials | Learning & Development | Servant Leadership | Workplace Culture | Unconscious Bias | Personal Branding & Networking | Other Topics on Request
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: 1) SWE India coffee circle – hosted 2 sessions in the SWE Global Ambassador role: a. Prioritizing the health and wellness of women in the workplace b. Future-proof your career 2) 5) Panel speaker at SWE RGIT -Society of Women Engineers (SWE) of MCT's Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology(RGIT) invited Mandeep to be the guest speaker for International Women's Day Celebration, seeing her passion for promoting girls to join STEM resonated with one of the foundation goals of their committee. 3) Panel speaker at WE23 Los Angeles – Finding the Courage to Speak Up 4) Speaker at WE23, representing GWE AG, addressing the topic “Servant Leadership.” 5) Served as a panel speaker at SWE ICC, discussing “Best Practices on Promoting Work-Family Balance During the Pandemic.” 6) Speaker at Chandigarh Tri-City Meet in 2019 - Topic: Mentoring - Benefits for organizations and employees 7) Speaker on the SWE Learning Competency Model Focus Group for WE Local India virtually in 2021. 8) Has hosted several book club and professional development sessions for the associates at BD through WIN ARG. 9) Speaker at local HBA session within BD - Topic: Building Executive Presence. 10) #IAR facilitator
Neha Giri
Software Architect
Intuit
EXPERTISE: Software Architecture | Open Source Software & How Women Can Get Involved | Building a Career in Software Architecture | Mentoring Framework and Best Practices to Support Women in Tech
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: Grace Hopper Conference 2021 & 2020 "How to Make Your First Open Source Contribution" | Intuit Panel "Diversity and Inclusion"
Kristin "KG" Gustafson
CEO and Founder
Skapa Bio
EXPERTISE: CHRO Leadership in Biotech | Talent Management | HR System Optimization | Culture, Learning and Organizational Development in Biotech Space | Communication Strategy | Team Development
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: Equilar Annual Conference | Women in Bio | Biocom | Radford Reward Annual Meeting | LeapHR | SHRM
Kerstin Kirchsteiger, Ph. D.
Founder, CEO, Executive Coach
Kerstin K Leadership Consulting
EXPERTISE: Making your organization irresistible - Talent attraction & retention made easy | Brain Science for High Performance | Driving innovation through DEI&B for parents and neurodiverse employees | Motherhood as a leadership position. How to translate new skills to propel your career forward | Other topics upon request
Stable Mama Podcast - Motherhood has prepared you to be a great leader | Love Your Life Show Podcast - Emotional Intelligence with Kerstin Kirchsteiger
Sheryl Kline
Founder & CEO
The Zone Lab, LLC
EXPERTISE: Defuse Emotionally Charged Conversations and Remain Highly Influential
Expertise: Mental Toughness and High Performance for Women in the Workplace via the 1:1 Fearless Female Leadership Coaching Proven Process | Speaking I Enterprise Digital Journey I Gain Olympic-Level Clarity on What's Next I Build Confidence to See it Through I Learn FBI-like Strategic Influence to Gain Buy-In From Leadership
Fearless Female Leadership Podcast Host
United Nations Global Leadership Summit I Women of Silicon Valley Conference (opened both days) I Women in Technology Network | CREW National Convention | Women of the Channel Conference NYC/Palm Springs | Oracle | VM Ware | Microsoft | Insight Enterprises I Bank of America I Autodesk I State Street Global Advisors I UC Berkeley Haas School of Business I CaptialOne I Hewlett Packard Enterprises I Pixar I SHRM
Cynthia Long, LSSMBB, PMP
Senior Manager and Change Leader BPR Continuous Improvement
Intuit
EXPERTISE: Revolutionary Leader for Continuous Improvement | Business Transformation Strategist | Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt | Public Speaker | Philanthropist | Mentor
SPEAKING APPEARANCES/AFFILIATED ORGANIZATIONS: Strategic Conversations - Mentoring and Beyond (Women in Technology Festival) | Data - Driving from the Customer Seat (Intuit) | Cost of Complexity (Intuit) | Surviving Domestic Violence (Compass Center For Women and Families)
Cynthia Lopez
Team Lead
San Diego Gas & Electric
EXPERTISE: Operations | Speaking Up | Mentoring Females In STEM | Leadership | Team Development and Independence
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) Alumni Speaker | San Diego State University Electrical Engineering Panel | SDG&E City Council Meeting | D&I Speaker | SDG&E Virtual Career Fair for Women In Construction
Susan Poser
Vice President, Culture and Engagement
Oracle
EXPERTISE: Managing Your Career as a JOB (Joy, Opportunity, Brand) | Attracting & Engaging Employees for Success | Being an Ally to Drive D&I
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: Ascend Inspiring Across Generations | San Diego State University Aztec Mentor Program Talks | Oracle Women Leaders | Oracle Professional Asian Leadership | Out & Equal Summit | San Diego Women's Week
Lauren Ross
Senior Associate
Fragomen
EXPERTISE: Options for Non-Citizen STEM Professionals to Work in the United States | Pathways to Permanent Residence for Non-Citizen STEM Professionals | Immigration as a Recruiting Tool for STEM Employers | Naturalization & Citizenship Law
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: 2022 AILA Border Issues Virtual Conference | Tech San Diego Presents | AILA California Chapters Conference | AILA Annual Conference on Immigration Law | AILA Agora | MBL Benefits | ILW Audio Seminar | New York Law Journal
Manna Semby
Founder & CEO
Aruna Personalized Medicine and Center for Cognitive Resilience
EXPERTISE: Navigating Midlife Health Changes with Naturopathic & Functional Medicine, Navigating Perimenopause & Menopause, Hormone Optimization, Preventing & Reversing Early Stages of Dementia
In-person Talks to specialized groups on
§ The Perimenopause “Broken Rung” Hypothesis: Bridging Health and Career Gaps for Women in Corporate America. I expand on my theory that under-optimized levels of hormones in women’s bodies may be an under-acknowledged factor in causing women to downshift their careers as they climb the rungs of promotion in corporations and business.
§ The Value of Being Proactive About Midlife Health: Perimenopause, menopause, brain health, osteoporosis, sexual health, body composition changes, mood changes, genitourinary changes… how addressing all these changes in a timely fashion could move women up the corporate ladder by a big margin.
o Workshops and Webinars: How to Prevent Dementia, The Importance of Heart Health for Women, Heart Health = Brain Health
o Expert Panel: How ReCODE 2.0 Can Help Prevent Dementia
o Podcasts: Numerous
Holly Smithson
CEO
Athena
EXPERTISE: Women’s Leadership Advocate & Keynote Speaker | Diversity & Inclusion for Corporate Culture | Data-driven Strategies on DE&I & Profits | Why Male Allyship is Key to DE&I
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: United Nations 74th General Assembly | The Atlantic Magazine - Innovators Lab | DeviceTalks West Conference | BD ’s International Women Day Conference | Illumina's Destination for Diversity - Advancing Women in a Global STEM Hub | 2023 VMUG UserCon
Hitomi Taguchi
Certified Life and Career Coach
EXPERTISE: Leadership and Coaching Skills for Scientists and Engineers | Confidence | Renaissance Soul | Creativity
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: American Chemical Society | Electrochemical Society | Pittcon | TEDx | US Department of Energy - Energy Frontier Research Centers | Universities
Dr. Alessandra Wall
Founder
Noteworthy
EXPERTISE: Psychologist | Leadership | Women in Tech | Executive Coaching | Career Planning | Building Social Capital | Speaking Up | Finding Allies
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: Athena Leadership Academy | Opting In: Becoming a Male Ally in the Workplace | Women's Week San Diego | European Women's Network | Marine Corps | Cisco | Northrup| HP | Bank of America
Anne Welsh, PhD, ACC
Clinical Psychologist & Executive Coach
Dr. Anne Welsh
EXPERTISE: Supporting working parents, Navigating parental leave for employees and managers, Emotional Intelligence, Workplace wellness, Mental health, Perinatal mental health, Women in STEM leadership, Mindfulness as a leadership tool, Fair Play (sharing the mental load) as a leadership tool
SPEAKING APPEARANCES/AFFILIATED ORGANIZATIONS: Technology Networks, San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, University of New Hampshire, Harvard University, Women In ETFs, Cambridge Preschool of the Arts, Podcast guest on over 15 podcasts including Wisecast: Women In STEM, Brave Women at Work, and Mission First, People Always.
Shirley Yager
Director, Product Management
Qualcomm
EXPERTISE: Business Strategy | New Business Opportunity Analysis | Market Research | Business and Product Development | Startup Consulting | Mentorship | Career Coaching
SPEAKING APPEARANCES: Athena Racing Podcast | Sales & Marketing Leadership Alliance | San Diego State University Aztec Mentorship Program | Various Qualcomm women's groups
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