Panel Discussion: Women in the World of High Tech: Voices from Silicon Valley

Panelists:  Candace Adelberg ’10, Kristie Howard ’15, Jacinth Sohi ’11, Mayumi Matsuno ‘01 Frederick Lynch, Associate Professor, Government

Candace Adelberg ‘10

Candace grew up in California and graduated CMC in 2010 with degrees in Economics and Math.  After college, Candace moved to D.C. to work at the Federal Reserve Board, where her research focused on macroeconomic forecast modeling and monetary policy.  A few years later, Candace moved back to California to work at Google, as part of the Counter-Abuse Technology team, where she currently spends her time fighting internet bad guys. Outside of work, Candace is an avid ultimate-frisbee player and rock-climber.

Kristie Howard ‘15

Kristie Howard is a software engineer with a passion for creating great end-to-end user experiences and empowering women in the technology industry. Kristie graduated in May 2015 with a B.S. in Computer Science, Summa Cum Laude, from Columbia University, and a B.A. in Management-Engineering, Summa Cum Laude, from Claremont McKenna College. During her time at CMC, Kristie was a varsity swimmer, a math tutor, a WOA! leader, and the Director of Tour Guides. While at Columbia, she was an active member of Women in Computer Science, led a Lean In Circle for Women in Tech and co-taught the inaugural class of Girls Who Code @ CU.  Upon graduation, Kristie spent the summer teaching 20 high school girls at the Intel site of Girls Who Code’s Summer Immersion Program, a 7-week intensive program for building computer science and programming knowledge, as well as increasing public speaking, networking, and technical presentation skills. In August, she started as a Software Engineer at Docker, Inc., a San Francisco startup that makes building and shipping applications faster and easier. She is currently working on the Docker Hub team as a Frontend Engineer writing JavaScript, React, HTML / CSS, and draws on her prior experience as a product management intern at Intuit and Atlassian.  If she’s not writing or teaching code, Kristie loves to hike, spin, dance, paint, and explore San Francisco restaurants.

Mayumi Matsuno ‘01

Mayumi Matsuno is Director of Product at Electric Imp, a cloud service and hardware solution that makes it simple to connect devices to the Internet. The Electric Imp platform features fully integrated hardware, software, OS, APIs, cloud services and security, providing your devices with intelligence, scalability and flexibility. She is an alumna of Mozilla, Google, and Deloitte. Mayumi earned her BA in EEP from Claremont McKenna College and she earned her MS in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University.

Jacinth Sohi ‘11: 

Jacinth Sohi is a Product Support Manager at Uber, specializing in scaling the infrastructure and launching support operations for new products like UberEATS and uberPOOL. Previously, she built the foundations for Uber’s global customer support organization and was a Senior Community Manager, where she started and grew the San Francisco Community Operations team as well as managed support strategies for the West Coast. She also spent time in city operations: launching uberX in the South Bay, developing marketing partnerships and user acquisition strategies for the Bay Area, and working on rider funnel conversion campaigns.

Before joining Uber in February 2013, she was a Content and User Education Specialist at Google where she owned content management strategies for Geo products including Google+ Local, Google Places, and Google Earth. She created in-product help tutorials, authored content for help centers, and edited the Google and Your Business Blog.

Originally from Madison, Wisconsin, Jacinth moved out to California to attend Claremont McKenna College where she majored in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) with a double major in Economics and a Leadership Sequence, graduating cum laude in 2011. At CMC, she was Student Manager of the Rose Institute and focused on legal analysis research with Professor Miller, President of CMC Mock Trial, and a Robert Day Scholar.

Frederick R. Lynch (Moderator)

Sociologist Frederick R. Lynch, CMC Associate Professor of Government, focuses much of his teaching and research upon policy issues pertaining to inequality, workforce and occupational trends, health care, and social and demographic change.  His most recent book is One Nation Under AARP: The Fight Over Medicare, Social Security and America’s Future (2011). His previous books include The Diversity Machine (1997; revised paperback, 2001) and Invisible Victims: White Males and the Crisis of Affirmative Action (1989; revised paperback, 1991). Professor Lynch is currently studying how Silicon Valley and the high tech industry are responding to demands for greater workforce diversity.

Open to everyone at the Claremont Colleges.

RSVP:  CMC Athenaeum