Read biographies of feature guests for the STEM Networking Forum "Building a Diversity Wave in STEM" being held Wednesday, May 30 at LinkedIn Chicago.
MODERATOR
Kristen Sonday, Co-founder, COO, Paladin
Kristen Sonday is the co-founder and COO of Paladin, which helps legal teams run more efficient pro bono programs while increasing access to justice. In her role, she works with Fortune 500s, law firms, law schools, and bar associations to staff, manage, and track pro bono work and visualize the organization's impact. Prior to Paladin, Kristen worked on international criminal matters in Mexico and Central America for the U.S. Department of Justice and served on the founding team of a New York City-based tech start-up. As a result of her work to close the justice gap, she has been named a 2017 ABA Woman in Legal Tech to Watch, ABA Journal Legal Rebel, and FastCase50 honoree. Paladin was also a part of the recent Techstars Chicago cohort and participated in the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce/1871 accelerator program.
In 2017, Kristen served as Google for Entrepreneurs' Code2040 Entrepreneur-in-Residence at 1871, representing and promoting Black and Latinx founders. Her work included events and programming to connect entrepreneurs of color across Chicago's tech ecosystem and culminated in a Latinx Startup Weekend to foster early entrepreneurship. In her free time, she volunteers as an advisor to young founders through the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council.
DISCUSSION PANELISTS
Denise Lintz, Director of Core Infrastructure, U.S. Cellular
Denise Lintz is the Director of Core Infrastructure at U.S. Cellular Corporation. She is responsible for a team of 80 people who enable project delivery and reliability for the IS Network & Data Centers, Systems (Platform, Virtualization, and Storage & Backup) and Applications (Database, Middleware, and Environment Delivery), Monitoring, and Infrastructure Operations. She graduated in 1991 from Northern Illinois University with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. She did internships at IBM and Allstate while in college and worked for major corporations including Ace Hardware Corporation, OfficeMax, and Nicor Gas before joining U.S. Cellular in 2012.
Carlos Castro Herrera, Software Engineer, Google
Carlos has a PhD in Computer Science and an MS in Software Engineering from DePaul university. He also has an MBA in Banking and Finance and a BS in Computer Science, both of which he obtained in Costa Rica. He is a former Fulbright scholar.
Academically Carlos has published more than a dozen peer reviewed articles. His main area of interest is the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence to software engineering problems.
Professionally, he is currently working as a senior software engineer at Google Chicago, where he works with the team responsible for Google Takeout - a tool that lets users export a copy of their data for most Google products. In the past he has worked as a Data Scientist at Intel, as an invited professor at the University of Costa Rica, as adjunct faculty at DePaul University and as a software engineer at the Central Bank of Costa Rica.
Teresa Swinton, Sales Director, Microsoft
Teresa is a performance driven, digital marketing veteran with experience delivering integrated branding and direct response solutions. She has worked agency-side (Performics), client-side (CDW) and now publisher side (Microsoft) across the retail, healthcare, tech, and auto verticals. Teresa is a dedicated sales leader that has a proven track record of guiding her teams with confidence to achieve business success. She eagerly approaches new challenges and is skilled at building relationships and developing teams.
Teresa also has a passion for diversity and inclusion and is committed to breaking stereotypes and supporting underrepresented minorities. She has taken the lead in both Microsoft’s Chicago office and the Central region in speaking to the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and our industry. She created momentum where there was none around race-related initiatives and conversations. By taking a direct look at unconscious bias with her team, she has opened the door for safe and open conversations about the differences between us all.
Teresa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and her MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. Teresa enjoys traveling, scuba diving and keeping up with her 17-month old son, Joshua.
Carmen Valverde Paniagua, Technology Consultant, Accenture
Carmen is a Technology Consultant in Accenture’s Technology Advisory group. As a part of the Technology Advisory group she works with her team in developing and executing technology strategies as well as determining the right combination of technologies for our clients—from tech that exists today to the emerging tech of tomorrow. In particular Carmen has experience and expertise in New IT solutions like Cloud, Multi-speed (Agile), and Internet of Things (IoT). Within the IoT space Carmen has worked on connected medical as well as connected vehicle solutions using distributed and scale agile models.
Additionally, Carmen is the Market Pillar Lead & Metrics and the Compliance Co-Lead for Accenture's Chicago Hispanic American ERG. She works with current client, potential clients, and local inclusion and diversity organizations in order to better service our clients and create ties within our Hispanic/Latino community. Carmen also serves on the National Hispanic American ERG team as co-lead for Midwest recruiting and works to promote Accenture programs, job opportunities, and identify Hispanic/Latino talent.
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