Award-Winning ‘Women in IT Networking at SC’ Program Selects Five Participants for SC18

SC Insider
Tue, 26 Jun 2018 23:50:48 +0000
SC18, Amy Philipson, Brenna Meade, Carrie Gates, CENIC, Dave Jent, DOE, Eli Dart, Erika Kindlimann, Jessa Westclark, John Kolb, Kalina Dunn, Linda Winkler, Loren Adams, NSF, SCinet, UCAR, Wendy Huntoon, WINS, Women in IT Networking at SC

Five women IT professionals have been selected to participate in the “Women in IT Networking at SC” (WINS) inclusivity program at SC18.

They will join more than 180 peers from leading high performance networking organizations around the globe to help build and operate SCinet, the SC conference’s dedicated high-capacity network.

SCinet and WINS provide an ideal apprenticeship experience for engineers and technologists who are looking for direct access to cutting-edge technology and the opportunity to work alongside experts across multiple disciplines in the field.

“I believe WINS will be a fantastic platform to solidify my understanding of ground-up network design so that one day I can design my own network from start to finish,” said Loren Adams, a network engineer at Georgia State University in Atlanta who will join the SCinet wireless team at SC18. “I’m a hands-on learner, and WINS’s hands-on nature is ideal for expanding my knowledge effectively.”

In recognition for its work to provide professional development opportunities to highly qualified women in the networking field, the WINS program received the 2017 Innovations in Networking Award for Experimental Applications presented by CENIC.

“As we have seen during the past three years of WINS, the program provides a great opportunity to gain new technicals skills, develop a nationwide network of colleagues and open up paths for advancement within the participant’s home institution,” said WINS review committee chair Wendy Huntoon of KINBER. “Feedback from participants’ home institutions confirms both the technical and leadership skills they have developed through the program, which often lead to additional job responsibilities and growth.”

Jessa Westclark, network specialist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will join SCinet’s commodity network team. “This experience will broaden my expertise, enable me to share new ideas with my department, and greatly enhance my ability to perform similar tasks at UMass Amherst,” Westclark said. “I welcome the opportunity to network with other women, which will benefit me, our industry, and the cause of women’s equality.”.

The other SC18 WINS awardees are:

Kalina Dunn, network engineer at the Global Research Network Operations Center (GlobalNOC) at Indiana University, will join the SCinet routing team.

Erika Kindlimann, network security engineer at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, will join the SCinet network security team.

Brenna Meade, telecom analyst at the University of Denver in Colorado, will join the SCinet wide area network transport team.

WINS is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. It was initiated in 2015 as joint effort between ESnet, the Keystone Initiative for Network Based Education and Research (KINBER), the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), and SCinet. As of 2018, WINS has funded 24 women to participate in SCinet.

This year’s WINS review committee was led by Wendy Huntoon of KINBER and included Carrie Gates of Securelytix, Eli Dart of ESnet, Dave Jent of GlobalNOC and the Quilt, John Kolb of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Amy Philipson of Pacific Northwest Gigapop, and Linda Winkler of Argonne National Laboratory.