[ACM-W] Press Release - OCWIC 09

[Bettina Bair]

OSU CSE Students, Alumni and Faculty will be featured at Ohio
Celebration of Women in Computing

The Computer Science and Engineering Department at the Ohio State
University is a proud Silver Sponsor of the Third Ohio Celebration of
Women in Computing (OCWIC 09) that will be held Friday, Feb. 27 and
Saturday, Feb. 28, at the Mohican Resort and Conference Center, in the
scenic river valley of southern Ashland County near Loudonville, Ohio.
Sponsorships provided scholarships so that all young women may attend
free of charge.

This year, the CS&E department is sending eleven women, including four
graduate and five undergraduate students.  Among them they will
present three technical papers and two research posters.   A former
student, Carol McKee, is also a part of the OCWIC09 program as a
panelist.   Bettina Bair, a senior lecturer in the CS&E department, is
a member of the planning committee for the event, and also was the
General Chair of the two previous conferences in 2005 and 2007.  Ms
Bair will be a panelist and moderator.

OCWIC is a regional conference, held biannually, and modeled after the
international Grace Hopper Celebration of women in computing. OCWIC is
an opportunity for young women to explore opportunities in IT, to
network with other young women and to meet possible mentors. OCWIC
hopes to encourage women to complete their studies in computing by
exploring careers and meeting women leaders from business, industry
and academia. The conference program includes parallel and plenary
sessions, technical papers and posters and panels designed to inspire,
educate and encourage technical women and to enable networking among
women participating in the IT field in Ohio. The keynote speaker of
the conference is the former  Executive Vice President and Chief
Information Officer of Motorola, Ms. Pat Morrison.

The conference has grown each time it has been held;  this year's
conference will host more than 110 attendees which include technical
people ranging from freshman to grad students, from faculty to women
working in IT in industry. Thirteen colleges and universities from
Ohio plus several industries will be represented in this conference.


Details of the OSU presentations, as listed in the OCWIC09 program, follow:

Carol McKee (OSU Alum, Information Control Corporation)    –
Transitioning from College to Career

Bettina Bair (Ohio State University) - Graduate School Panelist

Research Posters
· Jing Li (Ohio State University)    – Wireless Elevator Localization
in OSUPeople-Net
· Lauren Sapharas (Ohio State University)    – Games 4 Girls
Competition Experiences

Technical Papers
· Ilana Heintz (Ohio State University)  – Addressing Issues in
Morphology and Language Modeling for Arabic Automatic Speech
Recognition
· Vasudha Gupta (Ohio State University)  – Architecture for
Configuration of Intelligent Systems
· Farha Mukri (Ohio State University)  – Strategic Plan for Business
IT Alignment