Abi Olukeye is the CEO & Founder of SmartGirlsHQ. Abi is a STEM-inist with experience in EdTech Innovation and Business Development. She’s an innovative and strategic thinker; passionate about customer-focused solutions; building a platform to increase the number of positive experiences young girls have with STEM early in their learning journey.

Olivia Lu, a licensed attorney based in Rochester, New York, is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin School of Law and holds dual summa cum laude Bachelor’s degrees in Criminal Justice Studies and in International Studies and Spanish from Bradley University. With extensive experience in administrative law, consumer law, policy analysis, and legal research, Olivia has contributed her expertise in roles at the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Senate. Olivia is committed to continuous learning and is currently pursuing CIPP certification.

Callista Chen is the Vice President of Programs & Operations at Reboot Representation, a coalition of major tech companies supporting Black, Latina, and Native American women in computing. She joined Reboot from Techbridge Girls, where she served as the Pacific Northwest Executive Director and worked to expand programs to reach more girls, families, and educators. Prior to joining Techbridge Girls, Callista spent several years managing international development programs for the World Bank in Liberia and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland.) During her time overseas, she co-founded a small foundation that provided micro-grants to students and entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Callista also has worked as a management consultant and editor at McKinsey & Company, advising multinational nonprofits and Fortune 500 companies. Callista is based in Seattle and holds a BA from Stanford University in Human Biology, as well as an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Dr. Monica McGill is a leader in computing education research and the founder of the nonprofit Institute for Advancing Computing Education (IACE). Since launching IACE (pronounced eye-ACE), she has helped secure over several million in grants and services from organizations including the National Science Foundation, Google, and Amazon Future Engineer.

With a background spanning industry and academia, Monica brings over a decade of research experience to her work, focused on expanding access to computer science education. She has published dozens of articles and currently serves as a principal investigator on multiple NSF-funded projects.

Monica holds degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Curriculum & Instruction, and has served in leadership roles with ACM-W North America, CSTA, and the Sjögren’s Foundation. She is a senior member of ACM and active in several professional organizations including SIGCSE, IEEE, ASEE, NARST, and AERA.

Dr. Julie M. Smith holds degrees in Curriculum & Instruction and Software Development. She also completed a doctoral program in Learning Technologies at the University of North Texas. Her research focus is computer science education, particularly the intersection of learning analytics, learning theory, and disparities in CS education and excellence. She was a research assistant at MIT’s Teaching Systems Lab, working on a program aimed at improving disparities in high school computer science programs; she is also co-editor of the SIGCSE Bulletin.

Fatima Brunson, PhD. is post-doctoral researcher in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Brunson earned her doctorate degree in Policy Studies in Urban Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Her research is used to connect literature on workplace conditions, teachers collaborative practice and culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies. Currently, she works with schools and districts to better understand how school leaders and teachers work together to enact responsive pedagogies in racially isolated schools and culturally mixed middle schools, high schools, and higher educational institutions. Her work with teaching teams specifically focuses on disseminating strategies for enhancing student engagement in science and math classrooms, through supporting teachers’ adoption of culturally sustaining innovations. As well, she provides consultation services to various types of organizations to provide in-person and online training.

Dr. Joseph Tise is a Senior Education Researcher at the Institute for Advancing Computing Education (IACE). He earned his B.S. in Psychology from Virginia Tech, M.S., and Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Penn State, and completed a Postdoctoral appointment at Texas A&M University. He has expertise in self-regulated learning, theories of learning, student motivation, quantitative and mixed-methods research, and is experienced in conducting longitudinal research.

In his free time, Dr. Tise enjoys spending time with his family and friends, getting outdoors, and staying active.

Jessica Rago earned her Bachelors in Business Management and Organizational Leadership from St. Petersburg University. Her expertise is in event coordinating, digital marketing, operations and project management.

In her free time, Jessica enjoys spending time with family and friends, being out in nature, traveling, and volunteering in her community.

Adrienne Decker, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at the University at Buffalo. Her areas of scholarship are computing education with a primary focus on how we teach introductory programming and providing tools and support for student learning computing concepts.

Brian McSkimming, Ph.D, is a Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at the University at Buffalo. He studied the data on evaluation instruments to explore learning heuristics and biases. He also provided support for other parts of the project development.

Dr. Emily Thomforde is a professor at Reach University. She advocates for equity in K-12 Computer Science and supports teachers and districts in building rigorous pathways to deliver the California K-12 CS Standards. Emily is a BAFTA-winning video game developer, and has eight years of experience teaching computer programming, software development and engineering at libraries, prisons, museums, and public schools locally and abroad. Her curriculum development credits include Vidcode, Hopscotch, Code.org, STEM from Dance, Code Combat, and BrainPOP. Emily holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, UK.