Introducing our January Cohort!
Group picture during our January Cohort Kickoff Call.
We are pleased to introduce the members of our January mentoring cohort.
The mission of WEST is to help women enter and stay in tech. In honor of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, we #choosetochallenge inequality through supporting women across the tech industry as they aspire to become the best versions of themselves. As we celebrate this month, we are pleased to introduce our thirteen mentees that make up our January mentoring cohort. Since our meetings have been virtual, it has opened our program to new possibilities, such as global cohort calls across six time zones!
We invite you to learn more about our awesome mentees below, and join us for our next six month cohort, launching at the end of March.
Alicia MacCara, Designer 2
Bio: I call myself a "full-stack designer" because I love the full design process, although my favorite part is consolidating research and planning the path forward. I've worked on a wide variety of projects from marketing templates, dashboards and console features to leading a full website consolidation and redesign. I'm very user-focused and am intent on keeping inclusivity at the forefront of my process.
What excites you about the WEST program? I have a super varied background and am interested in many things, sometimes I think it's too many! I was looking for a way to focus myself and my future planning when I joined WEST. I'm looking forward to having a more structured way to figure out what my future could potentially look like!
Favorite Quote: “You have to be bad at something before you can be good at it” - unknown
Althea Smith, Senior Software Engineer at MainStreet, Inc.
Bio: A Vermonter by origin, I have lived all over the East Coast and am currently living and working remotely in Philadelphia. I am a career changer into tech, with an academic background in Poli Sci & IR, and went through a bootcamp in New York City to learn Python in 2015. My titles have varied but my roles have all been dynamic roles in relatively early stage startups doing backend web development & data work with Python. I'm really excited to be in the world of Mission-driven tech!
What excites you about the WEST program? I was drawn to the WEST program due to the dearth of women in tech leadership (and even women in tech at all) in the companies I have worked for. I'm looking forward to being part of a network of women with shared work experiences and challenges, and building a clearer vision for my career and goals with my mentor.
Favorite Quote: "Having coffee is like putting your head in the pencil sharpener." - Brinna Sands
Belen Guerra, Data Scientist
Bio: I am a data scientist at Grammarly, where I spend my days drawing actionable insights from data to help my team build and distribute products that help millions of people around the world communicate better. Before becoming a data scientist, I got my Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. There, I spent my days understanding how learning changes our brain and our cognitive skills. I am lucky that I have been able to make a career out of being curious for the last decade.
What excites you about the WEST program? I came for my growth but stayed for the community. It's extraordinary to be part of a group of womxn who are working toward improving an aspect of their work-selves, whether that is increasing our influence, honing in leadership skills, or defining a career path. I look forward to seeing the growth in myself and fellow mentees in my cohort.
Favorite Quote: “Sometimes questions are more important than answers.” -Nancy Willard, American Poet.
Lena Kidanova, Software Engineer at Grammarly
Bio: I have been in Software Engineering for 14+ years and been working in different domains - from finance to automotive. I am excited to see how discussions and lines of code become a product, how product helps customers in resolving problems. At Grammarly, as a software engineer, I am a part of Grammarly Business Team where we build unique business features that help entire teams and companies to communicate efficiently, with clarity and consistency everywhere they write.
What excites you about the WEST program? My goal is soft skills improvement, especially I am going to pay attention to communication and leadership. I believe it helps me find my career path and spot opportunities for growth, including challenges that strengthen these skills. I am grateful to my mentor for our first session (cannot wait for the next one :) ) and valuable advice that already helped me at work.
Liya Tilahun, Incoming Software Engineer at Microsoft
Bio: I am an international student from Ethiopia. I am currently in my senior year of college studying Applied Computer Science. I am interested in all things tech. My projects have been more inclined to web development and improving user experience. But I've recently been drawn into Machine Learning and AI. On my free time, I like reading self-help books and memoirs.
What excites you about the WEST program? The opportunity to be able to meet women in the field of technology and learning from them about leadership and career development.
Favorite Quote: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1
Masha Lomidze, Software Engineer at Grammarly
Bio: I am a part of the Growth team, helping build and run the experiments to improve our product adoption, retention, and premium conversion.
What excites you about the WEST program? I tend to doubt myself, especially when working with more experienced engineers, and unfortunately, so far, I haven’t been able to overcome that. When my manager told me about the WEST Program, I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to improve and learn to be more confident and bring more value to the team.
Favorite Quote: "All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Moya Richards, Senior Full-Stack Developer
Bio: I am very creative. I love to make stationery such as invitations, birthdays, and greeting cards, and I also enjoy managing and mentoring others in my craft. Leadership starts with my hobby, but it does not end there. It permeates throughout everything that I do as I love to help others learn. I own and manage one of the largest JavaScript-focused groups on Facebook, an online community where I share my JavaScript knowledge with over 100k members. I also share my expertise and insight about web development by mentoring others professionally through my work as a Senior Full-Stack Developer.
What excited you about the WEST program? My goal is to serve as a role model to children that look like me, and I believe that having a mentor who is a living and breathing example will help me expand my career interests and encourage steps to achieve that goal. The WEST program picked a great mentor for me, so I look forward to learning many great things from her.
Favorite Quote: "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." -Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Neena Priyanka, Distinguished Engineer at Precisely
Bio: Dr. Neena Priyanka is a Distinguished Engineer, and Product Owner at Precisely where she leads efforts to create value from the wealth of data. She has been with Precisely for 10+ years and has 12+ years industry experience in data, analytics, technology and machine learning based product development. Her excellent technical and communication skills help build a strong liaison between Product Management and development team to develop products to meet customer satisfaction and drive business growth. Neena has led the data operations team in analytics of more than 10+ data products, resulting in new product/feature development to strengthen business needs, resolved more than 30+ data problems, worked with 15+ enterprise customers across business verticals to understand needs and develop data analytics solutions. She is an innovator, quick learner and passionate about delivering a great customer experience.
What excited you about the WEST program? Experiential Learning; Organic Professional Growth and great mentorship program; Looking forward to apply learnings to enhance in professional career and move to C Suite ladder someday. Also, to help others achieve the similar goals as being mentor for cohorts.
Favorite Quote: “Advocate for each other”
Olga Grynenko, Software Engineer at Grammarly
Bio: I've been at Grammarly for over four years. Currently, I am a part of the Experimentation Platform team redesigning our A/B testing framework from the ground up. Before this, I built awesome consumer features on the Growth team and set up data pipelines on the Data Platform team.
In my spare time, I am supporting my pet project Commute Marker - a popular add-on for Strava athletes that marks their commute activities. As of today, there are 10K active users, and almost 2 million commute activities have been detected since launch!
What excited you about the WEST program? It was not obvious to me that I need to work on my System Design skills first to get better at Strategic Thinking and Risk-taking. My mentor helped me uncover and understand this gap early on and now advises me on navigating design discussions in a highly competitive environment.
Robyn Perry, Analytical Linguist at Grammarly
Bio: I analyze and develop high quality language data for Grammarly's features. This involves designing tasks and guidelines for large-scale annotation work and managing annotators, as well as working within teams at Grammarly to lend expert judgment and produce training data for classification and machine learning purposes.
What excited you about the WEST program? I'm excited to work with a seasoned expert in the field to help guide me as I work towards developing a career vision and plan.
Favorite Quote: “We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world. We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don’t have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgment of the rest of the earth’s beings.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer
Shilpa Kulkarni, Engineering Manager at Atlassian
Bio: I have been in engineering management for 5+ years. I am passionate about combining my people, product, process, and technology skills to move my team and product forward, and doing it with a conscious continuous learning mindset. I have worked in startups as well as big companies, largely in consumer tech (Nokia, Texture - acquired by Apple, Groupon) while my current work with Atlassian is in hardcore enterprise space. Outside of work I am a twin mom, been a robotics coach, and love reading, music & listening to podcasts.
What excited you about the WEST program? I was very fortunate to have great mentors in my professional life. I am looking forward to gain new skills as a mentee, experience WEST as a purpose driven organization, and pay it forward!
Favorite Quote: It is our choices, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. - Albus Dumbledore
Suwen Zhu, Software Engineer at Grammarly
Bio: I work in the field of human-computer interaction and my work is mostly focused on improving the text input experience on smartphones and helping people communicate more effectively.
What excited you about the WEST program? I joined the WEST program because it can connect me with people outside my organization who are more senior and more experienced than I am. I'm looking forward to understanding more about self/career development in the tech industry, and be more prepared for my career.
Vinnie Tran, Salesforce/IT Project Coordinator
Bio: I come from a corporate communications background and worked in high finance firms for a large portion of my career. After my exposure to coding as a hobby, I felt inspired to pivot into the tech sector as it engenders creativity, innovation, and a collaborative spirit.
What excited you about the WEST program? I was thrilled to find a program that offered mentorship for women in technology, especially since I did a career pivot and have yet to build a strong network. I value and support the camaraderie that such a program brings together and the knowledge share and growth that such a brain trust inspires. I knew that starting a new job at the ground level of an IT Solutions company in the Federal Healthcare space would make it very easy for me to get lost in the mix. I sought out the mentorship program to seek an experienced SME guide and springboard for discussions on how to approach my second career. I also wanted to connect with like-minded women and help contribute and support a vibrant community.
Favorite Quote: “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” ~Cicero
