Dr TONI COLLIS
Women in HPC Director
EPCC, University of Edinburgh
In this video, Dr. Toni Collis from the Women in HPC network presents: The Importance of Grace and Why We Need More Women in HPC.
“The underrepresentation of women is a challenge that the entire supercomputing industry faces. Research shows that diverse teams increase productivity, and yet HPC still struggles to attract and retain female users. The UK HPC community has an opportunity to make a difference in this field as we expand our user base beyond the traditional sciences most closely associated with the field, but we need to act now. By naming the new HPC service at UCL after Grace Hopper, recognizing the achievements of women in the HPC industry. This talk will discuss the importance of diversity and the benefits to our community as well as the challenges we face in achieving equality.”
The Women in HPC network is hosting three events at ISC 2016:
- WHPC BoF: Addressing the Gender Gap in the Community takes place Tuesday, June 21 at 10.15am – 11.15am. The ISC 2016 Women in High Performance Computing BoF will again focus the HPC community on the growing importance of increased diversity in the workplace. Employers will discuss successful strategies for improving diversity and how unconscious or implicit bias can impact hiring and promotion. Panelists include Jacqueline Chen, distinguished member of technical staff, Sandia National Laboratories (USA), and Carolyn Devany, President, Data Vortex Technologies (USA). Toni Collis, Director of WHPC (UK), will provide an introduction on the challenges of unconscious bias in the workplace.
- Networking Lunch: A Celebration of Women in HPC, takes place Wednesday, June 22 from 12.30pm – 1.45pm. This luncheon is designed to celebrate the role of women in high performance computing careers. Attendees will include women leaders and young career women in corporate organizations, research institutions, academia, and business. The luncheon will focus on networking, mentoring, and sharing of knowledge, and will be keynoted by Intel. Registration is free and kindly supported by event sponsors Intel, DDN, Data Vortex, and IBM.
- WHPC Workshop: Fourth international Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC) workshop takes place Thursday, June 23 from 9.00am – 1.00pm. This workshop will bring together employers and employees from the international HPC community to discuss methods we can all use to improve diversity; from modifying the way we recruit women to small changes that improve retention of female staff in the HPC workforce. Key themes for the workshop include: Career development to give all women in HPC the feeling they belong in the community, and providing concrete steps that employers can take to improve diversity and retain female staff in the HPC workforce.
