Tech Savvy: The impact of Technology on the Safety and Security of Women’s Lives

Women and Technology Briefing Speaker Bio

Bonnie Bracey,
Outreach teacher for the George Lucas Educational Foundation
Bonnie Bracey is a teacher-agent of change, working on technology integration projects with classroom teachers and national organizations. She also works internationally with Global Information Infrastructure initiatives as a consultant. She does outreach teaching with the George Lucas Educational Foundation. Ms. Bracey is currently involved with two MIT projects: the Games Project and Media, Education and the Marketplace. Ms. Bracey is a frequent speaker at educational technology conferences and those focusing on bridging the Digital Divide. Bonnie has been an important contributor to the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE), Symposium on Digital Equity since its inception bringing her passion to bear on the core of educational renewal: teacher education. Bonnie works with CERN and the World Summit on Information Technology to raise awareness of technologies challenges and benefits for education locally and globally. Internationally, she produced the high technology and the indigenous project for the Third World Summit in Thessaloniki, Greece, and works with the Med Agora Project. She has worked in 17 countries around the world and this year was honored for this work. Sir John Daniel, Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO presented her award. She inspires teacher education to be more effective in the classroom and gives many resources to promote practical solutions with the understanding of real world contexts of teachers and children. She is a maven in the knowledge network helping others to see what is possible with the support of technology within and beyond the USA.

Shireen Mitchell,
Executive Officer, Digital Sisters
Ms. Mitchell is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Digital Sisters a local nonprofit organization focused on promoting and providing technology education and enrichment for young girls and women of color. She is a graduate of the University of the District of Columbia and continues to advance her education towards a doctorate specializing in Human Computer Interactions. Raised in the projects of New York City Shireen has always challenged the barriers she faced with gender, culture, academia and socioeconomic status. Shireen has over twenty years of technology and human services experience She continues to advocate and provide support to underrepresented communities. Ms. Mitchell is currently focused on issues of the digital divide and gender diversity in technology. She currently provides technology training and planning for schools, community technology centers, job skills development programs and ongoing community technology initiatives. She is a board member of the Community Technology Centers Network and has been recently honored as a Heroine in Technology and Outstanding Community Technology Leader.

Claudia Morrell,
Executive Director, CWIT
Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Claudia Morrell spent the first fifteen years of her career in education at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), eager to focus more of her energy on women and Information Technology she became the director of CWIT which she has helped to develop a course on “Women, Gender, and Information Technology” at UMBC and Computer Mania Day – an award-winning program for middle school students, their parents and teachers focusing on encouraging girls to develop and design technology, not just use it. Claudia Morrell received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Master of Arts degree from Loyola College of Maryland, and a Master of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She lives in Maryland with her husband and three daughters. Her eldest daughter is completing a computer science degree at Loyola College.

Linda Wilbanks
CIO, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Ms. Wilbanks has a degree in mathematics, a Masters of Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science. She is currently serving as the Acting Chief Information Office for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, detailed from a position as Chief Scientist for Software Quality Assurance. She has taught math and computer science for 20 years, first in high school, then throughout various Maryland colleges and finally teaching computer science at the graduate level.