Connecting Women* in HPC
Birds of a Feather Session at SCA/HPCAsia 2026
We had felt like this for a while…
We attend one of the established WHPC workshops or sessions, and our heads keep buzzing from all the inputs of people finding great words for what they experience and feel (and sometimes those are the words that help us to describe what we have experienced for the first time).
We’re so full of energy! We want to keep prodding at these thoughts!
And then the session is over and it’s all back to the technical content, the energy slowly dissolving into ambient entropy.
This time, at SCA/HPCAsia 2026, we tried to carve out some space for that need with the Connecting Women* in HPC session.
This was intentionally one of the last sessions of the week, highly structured and moderated to maximize interaction and get everyone’s thoughts thoroughly worked through, in a setting where you can try them on without needing to decide whether they’re your final idea or opinion.
And it was a blast, if we dare say so ourselves! 😉 With around 30 people, not limited to women*, we discussed around three tables/questions simultaneously, making everyone’s voice heard, playing our arguments and ideas in a fruitful game of ping-pong.
It was such a delight to host this. Thanks to all who attended and who helped organize and moderate!
Session Leaders:
- “Joy” Chia-Lee Yang (NCHC, Taiwan)
- Chigusa Kobayashi (RIKEN R-CCS, Japan)
- Sara Moukir (RIKEN R-CCS, Japan)
- Lilia Zaourar (CEA, France)
- Aditi Subramanya (Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, Australia)
- Neda Ebrahimi Pour (DLR, Germany)
- Theresa Pollinger (RIKEN R-CCS, Japan)