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When
Mon 21, Jul, 2025
1:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Where
Greater Columbus Convention Center
400 North High Street
Columbus, OH, 43215
United States
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Workshop - Collaboration, Community, Careers

The 22nd International Women in HPC Workshop will take place at PEARC25 in Columbus, OH, USA, with the primary objective of nurturing a diverse and inclusive Research Computing and Data (RCD) and High-Performance Computing (HPC) community. Our overarching goal is to cultivate competencies geared towards appreciating the value of a diverse workforce and establishing an inclusive environment that welcomes all Humans. This workshop the first time that WHPC is formally engaging with PEARC and our agenda focuses on bringing the communities together through shared values of diversity and inclusion, encompassing both women and men from underrepresented groups.

The focal points of the WHPC@PEARC25 workshop include:

  • Enhancing diversity and inclusion across the entire RCD and HPC workforce.
  • Facilitating a deeper comprehension of the nuances of diversity, equity, and inclusion across various demographic groups.
  • Strategies for recruitment, retention, and success.
  • Promoting community building through interactive networking opportunities.
  • Emphasizing the importance of learning from and valuing diverse experiences and career trajectories.

The WHPC@PEARC25 half-day workshop has two main priorities. First, our focus is on building and strengthening our community. We will spotlight a distinguished speaker to discuss the importance of diversity and inclusion to the success of a workplace and enrichment of scientific study. Following this, we plan to have a networking session for the PEARC audience to interact directly with active WHPC members. We hope to encourage followup and engagement among the participants after the conference.

Our second focus is on building up our individual participants in their personal career goals, particularly those early in their career. We plan to have a series of short talks to showcase example career paths and provide tips on navigating career choices and conversations. Following this, we plan to have an open discussion with the attendees to identify possible next-steps for their own career questions.

Agenda

Check out this year’s speakers!
Time
Activity
People
13:30 Session 1: Community Collaboration
Session Chair

Gladys Andino
13:30–13:35 Welcome
Workshop Co-Chair

Gladys Andino
13:35–14:30
Invited Talk

Ask a Woman for Directions: Lessons from the Professional Road Less Traveled

 Kathryn Kelley, CASC
14:30–15:00 Speed Networking Weronika Filinger
15:00–15:30 Coffee Break
15:30 Session 2: Careers and Community
Session Chair

Janna Nugent
15:30–16:40
Short Talks
  1. From Invisible to Unstoppable: Claiming Your Space in Research
  2. Power of the Pivot: Finding Your Place in Unexpected Fields
  3. Navigating Career Transitions When It’s Time to Move On
  4. Voices and Roles in Cyberinfrastructure: A Tapestry of Talent
  5. Cultivating the Next Generation: Building a Mentorship Program and Lessons Learned
  6. Strategies for Enhancing Diversity and Inclusion
  7. Elevate. Empower. Excel. – Purdue WHPC

 
Speakers
  1. Revathi Dhotre
  2. Claire Stirm
  3. Christina Gancayco
  4. Laura Theademan
  5. John Bradley
  6. Sasmita Mohapatra
  7. Taylor Graham and Suzanna Gardner
16:40–16:55 Group Discussion
Session Chair

Janna Nugent
16:55–17:00 Workshop Closeup

Speakers

Kathryn Kelley

Kathryn Kelley is the Executive Director of the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC), a role she has held since July 2022. In this capacity, she works closely with the CASC Executive Committee and its members to advance the organization’s vision and mission. With over 25 years of expertise in program leadership and strategic communications, Kathryn has held several significant positions, including Executive Director of the Ohio Manufacturing Institute and Chief Advancement Officer at The Ohio State University College of Nursing. She also served as Senior Director of Public Relations, Outreach, Marketing, and Communications at the Ohio Technology Consortium, which includes the Ohio Supercomputer Center and OARnet.

Weronika Filinger

Weronika Filinger works as an HPC Project Manager at EPCC, the University of Edinburgh. She has an in-depth knowledge of software development and HPC practises gained through working on a variety of different technical projects (e.g. CRESTA, APES, ADEPT, MIST, DEEP-EST, HPC-Europa, and ARCHER and ARCHER2 eCSEs). She is also the Programme Director for the online MSc in HPC and HPC with Data Science, and teaches the Practical Introduction to HPC online postgraduate course. Weronika co-created and ran the Supercomputing MOOC hosted on FutureLearn, and is currently involved in a number of international education-related initiatives. She also regularly contributes to HPC conferences and community events.

Revathi Dhotre

Revathi Dhotre is a Computer Science Professional with a strong focus on high-performance computing and AI/ML applications in scientific research. Currently serving as a Research Aide Technical at Argonne National Laboratory, she specializes in incorporating AI/ML algorithms into supercomputing workflows and analyzing large-scale computational data. Her research experience includes working with premier HPC systems, including Aurora, Polaris, and Theta supercomputers, where she has developed machine learning models for predictive analytics using supercomputer job logs and engineered ML infrastructures in supercomputing environments.

Revathi bridges the gap between traditional HPC and emerging AI/ML technologies, developing scalable visual analytics solutions and optimizing system performance through parallel processing methods. Her work spans from data pipeline optimization at Synopsys to cutting-edge research in AI-driven scientific computing at one of the nation’s leading Argonne National Laboratory. She is passionate about advancing the role of AI/ML in supercomputing while advocating for greater representation of women in high-performance computing research.

Christina Gancayco

Whether it’s debugging code or demystifying high-performance computing (HPC), Christina loves to help researchers solve tough problems. She currently supports researchers as a Computational Consultant with Stanford Research Computing. Prior to joining the research computing workforce, Christina used HPC to study mild traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative disease. She holds a B.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Theater Studies from Duke University

Laura Theademan

Laura Theademan is a seasoned professional with 25 years at Purdue University, where she began her career in Business Administration. In 2014, Laura transitioned to the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing (RCAC) as a program manager supporting multiple initiatives. Currently serving as the Director of Center Operations and Visualization, Laura leads a dynamic team extending across diverse domains including communications, outreach, engagement, program management, research software engineering and visualization. Laura is actively involved with leadership to build a student workforce development program that provides students with real work life experiences and career opportunities. She also serves as Chair of the Purdue Women in HPC chapter, where she is deeply committed to supporting individuals in their pursuit of research and careers in high-performance computing and technology-related fields. In her spare time, Laura enjoys reading a good book and spending time with family.

John Bradley

John Bradley serves as a Storage Specialist at Mississippi State University’s Advanced Research Collaboratory (ARC). He has nurtured a deep passion for the integration of technology in education. In his role, John provides expert support to university, state, and federal research initiatives through storage administration and Linux system administration. Equally dedicated to education and outreach, he mentors students and runs the Student Program at MSU ARC, helping them fully leverage research computing. Most recently, John co-founded the Mississippi WHPC Affiliate, an initiative that is in the process of building momentum and expanding regional connections within the Research Computing and Data (RCD) and HPC community within the state of Mississippi.

Sasmita Mohapatra

Dr. Sasmita Mohapatra is an HPC Research Scientist and Facilitator working on HPC software tools and user support at the University of Texas at Dallas, High Performance Computing, Office of Research and Innovations,  Richardson, Texas, USA. She works in parallel job tuning, SLURM configuration, and resource usage analysis. Lately, her focus has been on improving job efficiency policies across our clusters. Sasmita enjoys debugging weird MPI behavior, helping users get the most out of their code, and diving into performance tuning with OpenMP and MPI.

Taylor Graham

Taylor Graham is an Associate Research Solutions Hardware Engineer at Purdue University’s Rosen Center for Advanced Computing. Her path to HPC was unconventional—after earning a degree in organizational leadership, she spent four years in healthcare, working in a Critical Care Unit during the pandemic and later supporting a mobile vaccine clinic. An unexpected conversation at a dinner with members of Purdue’s Advanced Computing group led to an unexpected opportunity in hardware engineering, despite having no formal background in technology or hardware.

Suzanna Gardner

Suzanna Gardner has a mission: her work in HPC allows her to bridge technology with people, education with opportunity, and institutions with the communities they serve. At Purdue, she developed the Anvil Outreach and Engagement Plan to foster awareness and participation in HPC, unlocking its transformative potential.

One of her proudest achievements is launching programs like CyberSafe Heroes and Code Explorers, which inspire K-12 students by merging cybersecurity and environmental science, sparking curiosity in STEM and showcasing HPC’s real-world impact. Through strategic partnerships with organizations like the Minority Serving – Cyberinfrastructure Consortium (MS-CC) and WHPC, she empowers underrepresented communities to access advanced computing.

Committee

The WHPC workshop at PEARC25 would not be possible without a dedicated team of volunteers.

Gladys Andino

Headshot of Gladys Andino

Gladys Andino, Ph.D., is the IT-Research Computing’s Strategic Services and Education Manager. She leads strategic planning and user training programs, coordinating workshops and tutorials to meet the dynamic needs of UVA’s computational research community. Gladys also manages a team of student workers, enhancing IT-Research Computing’s efficiency and providing early exposure to HPC and scientific computing.

As Founder and Chair of Purdue Women in HPC (2016-2019) and Virginia Women in HPC (since 2021), Gladys advocates for gender diversity, equity, and inclusion. She has significantly grown the Virginia Women in HPC program, collaborating with seven Virginia institutions to enhance diversity and inclusivity in technology. Gladys organizes virtual events with distinguished technical speakers, fostering a supportive community.

Amanda Black

Amanda Black is a cyberinfrastructure systems analyst. She has formal training in teaching, computational biology, and computer infrastructure. Amanda loves talking to researchers about their research and showing them how HPC can facilitate them in their work.

Elsa Gonsiorowski

Elsa Gonsiorowski is a HPC Support Specialist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where she focuses on HPC I/O issues. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2016 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Elsa has been an active member of WHPC since 2016 and is an advocate for both women and men of underrepresented groups.</p

Janna Nugent

Janna Nugent is the Manager of Research Computing Infrastructure at Northwestern University.  Janna’s engineering team provides 24×7 operational support of Quest, Northwestern’s 88,000 core HPC cluster. Janna’s focus is on architecting for the future to create the most useful, efficient and performant HPC systems possible at Northwestern, while fostering engineering staff new to HPC. Janna holds a Master’s degree in computer science from the University of Chicago.

Subhashini Sivagnanam

Subhashini Sivagnanam leads the Cyberinfrastructure Solutions and Services (CISS) group at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC). Her primary areas of research focus are in the fields of distributed computing, cyberinfrastructure development, scientific data management, and reproducible science. She is a co-founder of Women in HPC at SDSC affiliate at the University of California, San Diego.

Claire Strim

Claire Stirm has worked alongside research domain scientists using cyberinfrastructure and HPC for the last ten years. She is the Consulting Lead for the Science Gateways Center of Excellence (SGX3) and a community manager for the Wildfire Technology Commons at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Claire is a co-founder of Women in HPC at SDSC affiliate at the University of California, San Diego.

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