Every semester, the UT Dallas Computer Science department hosts a lecture series called the Grace Series, with the goal of to inspire and empower everyone in computer science and all forms of STEM. The Grace Series honors the contributions of women in science with the goal of inspiring and encouraging more women to pursue STEM careers.

The third speaker of the Fall ’23 Grace Series featured Dr. Ruili Geng, director of software engineering for Spectral MD, an innovative medical device company employing AI technologies for wound treatment. Dr. Geng is also a co-founder of Ebloomify LLC, a startup specializing in social media-based resale e-commerce software solutions and services. Dr. Geng’s talk — titled “Pursue Your Dreams and Empower Your Life!”— focused on her life experiences, including her PhD journey and her goal in life to motivate and uplift other aspiring female PhD students. In her presentation, she outlined her career path, starting out as a software engineer and culminating in her current role as Spectral MD’s director of software engineering. She told students: “Education and knowledge can change your destiny, and you should be the only person in control of your destiny.”

Dr. Geng also shared her beliefs and values, emphasizing the importance of seizing opportunities in life, maintaining a strong focus on education and career growth, and fostering meaningful work relationships through collaboration and recognition of contributions. Additionally, she addressed the value of continuous skill enhancement by advising students to proactively take on diverse tasks and embracing different challenges to begin preparing for future opportunities. She left the audience with one last piece of wisdom: “Nothing is impossible if you believe you will make it and insist on working hard toward it.”

Dr. Geng earned her PhD in computer science from Southern Methodist University’s Lyle School of Engineering, where her research was dedicated to enhancing software usability and human-computer interaction (HCI) through machine learning-driven analysis of usage data. Prior to her PhD, she obtained a master’s degree in computer science from Beijing Technology and Business University, with her research focused on network communication and security.