Posts Tagged ‘Grace Series’

UT Dallas celebrated graduation this spring with each of the University’s eight schools hosting its own ceremony. Twelve ceremonies in all were held, along with a doctoral hooding ceremony presided over by the school’s respective deans. More than 5,100 students participated in all the ceremonies. A total of 2,847 bachelor’s, 2,487 master’s and 98 doctoral degrees were awarded.  

Out of a total of 1,320 degrees awarded in spring 2024 in the Jonsson School, 566 bachelor’s degrees, 310 master’s degrees and eight doctoral degrees were awarded to computer science (CS) and software engineering (SE) majors. Ujwal Sandeep Shah, master’s (MS) in computer science and Lillie McMaster, bachelor’s (BS) in software engineering, were the keynote speakers for the Jonsson School graduation ceremonies.

Our first interview (in a new spotlight series on UT Dallas computer science faculty) is with Dr. Kevin Hamlen, a Louis A. Beecherl, Jr. Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Com­put­er Science at UT Dallas, and the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of UT Dallas’ Cy­ber Se­cu­ri­ty Re­search and Edu­ca­tion In­sti­tute (CSI). His research interests involve lan­guage-based se­cu­ri­ty, which le­ver­ag­es pro­gram­ming lang­uage the­o­ry and com­pil­er de­sign to en­force soft­ware se­cu­ri­ty. His tech­ni­cal interests in­clude bi­na­ry soft­ware hard­en­ing, cy­ber ­de­cep­tion, mal­ware de­fense, cloud/​web/​mo­bile se­cu­ri­ty, mod­el-check­ing, au­to­mat­ed the­o­rem prov­ing, cer­ti­fy­ing com­pil­ers, and type-safe in­ter­me­di­ate lan­guag­es.

Tell us about yourself! What is your story?

My name is Esha Bansal, and I am a senior majoring in computer science with a minor in psychology. I am the 2023-24 president of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and have been with the organization throughout my college experience. I was born and raised in Texas and have lived in the Dallas area my whole life! My favorite hobbies include reading, traveling, going to concerts, cafe-hunting and planning fun nights with friends!

This past semester, the UT Dallas Cyber Security Research and Education Institute (CSI), in conjunction with the UT Dallas Department of Computer Science, virtually conducted its 13th Annual Texas Security Awareness Week (TexSAW 2024) event.

TexSAW 2024 consisted of a free online capture-the-flag (CTF) competition over two days. Because the contest was virtual this year, participation was registered and advertised on ctftime.org and gained nationwide as well as worldwide attention.

The Spring 2024 Grace Series ended its run with Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham, UT Dallas Founders Chair Professor of Computer Science and the Founding Executive Director of the Cyber Security Research and Education Institute (CSI) at UT Dallas.

Coincidentally, Dr. Thuraisingham was also the first speaker for the Grace Series when it began in the fall of 2015. The Grace Series honors the contributions of real-life women and men in science with the goal of inspiring and encouraging more of them to pursue STEM careers.

Tell us about yourself! What is your story?

My name is Mansi Patel, and I am an undergraduate senior majoring in software engineering at UT Dallas, as well as a software engineering Fast Track student. After graduation, I plan to pursue a master’s degree in software engineering at the university. I am from the Dallas-Fort Worth area and have been a Texas resident my entire life! I enjoy painting, watching movies, and spending time with friends and family in my free time.

The third installment of the Spring 2024 Grace Series featured data scientist (and proud UT Dallas Computer Science alum) Dr. Maryam Imani, who spoke about “Navigating the Data Science Journey: Insights and Inspirations.”

Dr. Imani earned her PhD in Computer Science at UT Dallas in 2020. During her doctoral studies, Dr. Imani was primarily involved in the Big Data Analytics Lab, working with UT Dallas CS professors Latifur Khan and Bhavani Thuraisingham, focusing her research on areas such as natural language processing (NLP), applied machine learning, and big data.

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 Grace Series honors the contributions of real-life women in science with the goal of inspiring and encouraging more of them to pursue STEM careers. The Grace Series introduced its second speaker, Chief Technology Officer & SVP for Catalyst Corporate Credit Union, Diana Hennel. Ms. Hennel currently serves as Chief Technology Officer for Catalyst Corporate Credit Union.  She prides herself on building strong teams and delivering innovative, industry-changing software.  Over the course of her thirty-year career, her teams have modernized the check processing industry, streamlined financial operations for the National Bank of Singapore, and experimented with cryptocurrency for credit unions.  She was recently recognized as one of Dallas’ leading women in technology for her innovative work in bringing digital products to market.  Outside of work, she lives in Frisco with her husband of twenty years and her identical twin boys.  Diana is heavily involved in her community, including serving as a board member of High Tech High Heels, an organization dedicated to growing women in STEM.  

For over eight years, the Grace Series has provided a platform for sharing experiences, knowledge, and inspiration. The Grace Series recognizes accomplishments of a diverse group of people from the computing field through empowering talks that aim to foster a sense of community, with a special focus on women in technology. These talks are intended to offer fresh perspectives and different approaches for women to navigate the technology field, whether in academia or industry. Since its inception, 41 speakers have given talks.