MIT Women's unConference: Panel Proposals

Proposals for the MIT Women's unConference are listed below in alphabetical order by the last name of the alumna who submitted the proposal.

Note: voting for these proposals, between December 16-31, is being conducted via email on Dec. 16 and Dec. 30. If you do not receive an email ballot, please contact mitwu@mit.edu.

Proposal title	Description	Potential panelists
The Road Not Taken	Dheera Ananthakrishnan, Amy Smith, and Christine Ortiz have each forged their own paths in orthopedic surgery and global health, engineering in developing countries, and materials science and education. This panel will focus on keys to succeeding in in fields that have traditionally been very rigid and hierarchical, while at the same time following your passion.	Dheera Ananthakrishnan '90, Amy Smith '84, ENG '95, SM '95, Christine Ortiz
Productive Aggressiveness	To progress in one's career, and in one's life generally, one needs to master the art of speaking up and making one's case. This does not come naturally for many of us, sometimes feels uncomfortable, but absolutely can - and must - be learned. In this panel, hear from several alumna about what works, what doesn't work, and how you too can develop this imperative skill - and help empower other women to do the same.	Lindsay Androski Kelly '98, Anita Krishnan Madia '98, Sohah Iqbal '98
Encouraging girls and other underrepresented populations to study Math: Best Practices & Challenges in Secondary Schools & Colleges	The American Mathematical Society recently reported that many young American women with strong potential in mathematics never enter the field, often because they are not identified or encouraged. Research has shown that negative expectations can have a tremendous dissuading effect on a young woman's interest and ability in mathematics. Further studies indicate that young women with interest and accomplishments in technical fields do not receive enough public, high-profile recognition. There is also a huge disparity in low income students' mathematical achievement, especially when we look at who is achieving at a high level. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 3% of low-income eight graders (those eligible for federally-subsidized lunches) score at the Advanced level, while 14% of 8th graders overall score at this level. By 12th grade, the percentage of low-income students scoring at the Advanced level is not even given—it "rounds to zero". And ethnic minorities make up a disproportionately large segment of the economically poor population. And there is a profound shortage of teachers who really love math especially at the elementary school level when students' attitudes towards the subject are most formative. How can we train future teachers at the college level, many of whom come to college scarred from previous experiences in mathematics classes? We know that mathematics is a key gateway to STEM fields, and without it many doors remain closed. So we would like to look at programs that combat these disparities at different levels in innovative ways.	Ranu Boppana '87, Maria De Vuono-Homberg, Ruthi Hortsch PhD '16, Debra Borkovitz, PhD '92
Leadership for Women in the Sciences	Leadership opportunities in the sciences are various, from research group leader in academia to chief science officer of a biotech startup. Increasing diversity in leadership roles in scientific fields leads to richer programs and experiences for all involved, in addition to making a company, university, or nonprofit better able to address the needs and interests of its clients or students. Including diverse voices in the public policy arenas raises awareness of the societal impact of research while also advocating for diversity in science. While it may be difficult to find sufficient time to devote to leadership training or mentorship, both are helpful for producing effective leaders. We will discuss our experiences of the challenges, barriers, and needs around leadership that exist at various career stages. We will also discuss the types of leadership styles, training, mentorship, and advocacy that we have experience with and will encourage participants to contribute resources that others may use as well. Finally, we will challenge participants to discuss ways in which we can all be an advocate for ourselves and for other women who are seeking to develop and use their leadership capabilities.	Amanda Bosh '87, PhD '94, Reba Bandyopadhyay '93, Sandra Glucksmann, Connie Jeffery '87, Priya Natarajan '90, SM '11
Clean Energy Innovation = Catalyst for Climate Action	The consensus of climate scientists is that we are not going nearly fast enough toward a clean energy future. Ideas, jobs and financial resources are needed to push energy innovations faster toward a sustainable scenario. How might clean energy technology help spur action to avoid the most calamitous effects of global warming? Seeing clean energy innovations will increase optimism about our renewable future and help to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.	Cathy Buckley '71, Laur Fisher, Julianne Zimmerman '88
Investing in Women	The data is undeniable, women receive far less VC funding than men. According to Pitchbook, VCs gave over US$ 58 billion in funding to men, compared to US$ 1.4 billion in funding to women. Is it bias or the pipeline? How can we tell if a "gender-blind" or a "gender-lens" approach is more effective to achieve the ultimate goal - get more capital behind more women with good ideas. In this panel, we aim to explore some of the existing investing approaches towards women-owned/led companies when making investment decisions. We want to go beyond merely talking about what should happen and talk about what is happening and the real challenges and gaps that exist with each approach from institutional investing to crowd-funding. Our panelists will be investors who are approaching this challenge in different ways and will share what their experience, lessons learned, challenges and vision is for women to access funding in the near future.	Pilar Carvajo Lucena MBA '17, Julianne Zimmerman '88, '92, Jean Hammond SM '86, Maria Jobin Leeds, Cindy Whitehead
Blockchain: Trends and How This Technology Will Change the World	Leading women in blockchain discuss the latest developments in blockchain and cryptocurrencies, how this technology can be applied to various use cases from financial services to identity to supply chain to social impact, and how women can emerge as leaders in this high growth space.	Audrey Chaing '02, Cristina Dolan SM '94, Neha Narula SM '10, PhD '15, Anne Connelly
Effective Mentoring Relationships: Then and Now	This session will examine how mentoring relationships can support learning and career advancement in a variety of professional contexts. As a result of major changes in technology, workforce diversity, globalization, and the pace of change, mentoring is more complex and more essential than ever before. We will make the case for the importance of individuals building their personal board of advisors which will have multiple developers who provide mentoring, and we will emphasize what individuals can do to enlist the active support of potential mentors. Our agenda will be guided by the challenges that workshop participants face, including those related to gender dynamics in the workplace. Our workshop will solicit audience participation for panelists to compile with the aim of meeting people where they are in their career, mentoring exposure and experience. Panel members will provide their experience, advice and knowledge to "complete the equation' within the aims of this mentoring workshop/panel. Near the end of the session, a short "back-atcha" session will allow for 1-minute audience rebuttals, the sharing of a key learning or any other commentary. This short segment permits participants to complete their own personal equation with respect to mentoring relationships. Towards the end of the workshop we will invite brief reflections from participants related to unanswered questions as well as practical actions they will take away. Additional materials and resources will be available for participants' further use and information. A post panel session on 'hangout' will be up for further conversation and additional online participation.	Susan Colodny Silverton '65, Kathy E. Kram '72, SM '73, Mary Chevalier
Smart Women and Financial Stumbling Blocks	I. Women are still lagging in compensation..esp in finance and technology.. Hope to present supporting data...and discuss reasons why this is true and it's literally no range impact. II. Negotiation Skills (may be part of the problem). III. Personal Money Management Skills (we are not as a group strong money managers) and many highly educated women lack financial literacy skills (and/or struggle with cultural barriers).	Audrey Daum SM '88, Leslie Rahl '71, SM '72, Lotte Bailyn, Deborah Kolb PhD '81, Evelyn Murphy
Gender and Social Impact in Non- and For-Profit Contexts	When it comes to social impact, women have been some of the most effective agents of change, yet they are not often acknowledged as such. On this panel, MIT alumni of diverse experience will discuss their perspectives on social impact work in non- and for-profit settings. Questions include: What are the challenges, the imbalances of power, and the entrenched hegemonies? What are the opportunities for meaningful work and related useful tools to aid in this work? Did MIT play a role in this work? How can women push for institutional support and acknowledgement in affecting change?	Arlene Ducao SM '13, Colleen Kaman SM '10, Kate Mytty, Vernelle Noel SM '13
Gender Equity: At Home and at Work	Women's forums often discuss the need to bring men into the conversation. Josh Levs, author of "All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses--And How We Can Fix It Together" presents an articulate case for how the same culture and policies disadvantaging women at work hold men back from being equal caregivers at home. (http://joshlevs.com/) This panel will address the themes raised by Levs: - Why gender equity is an issue men need to care about too. - Work-life juggling: experiences with parental leave, flexible and part time schedules. Benefits and challenges for both genders. - How to work towards greater gender equity in your family, organization, or community.	Christina Epstein SM '14, Sandra Chen '12, Elizabeth Kowalski SM '10, PhD '15, Wendy Birdsong, Michael Carriere
Why don't women speak out?	A lot of women diffuse uncomfortable or toxic work situations. They choose to laugh it off, ignore it and rarely address inappropriate work situations. The goal of this session is to share stories and how to effectively manage work situations. We will target the reasons for why women stay quiet and how to empower them to speak up.	Daniela Field '09, Isabel Plana '16, Sapho Gilbert
Where are the women at?	One of the most common things that we see as women in the tech, science, energy, consulting and many fields is lack of women in powerful positions - such as C-level suite and board of directors. This panel will be focused on how to find mentors and what we can do to change the lack of diversity in top company roles.	Daniela Field '09, Angela Ratto '10, '11, Lita Das SM '13, Bilhuda Rasheed SM '13
Leadership: transforming perception	Male leadership attributes typically emphasize aggressive communication where the loudest mansplainer is viewed as the most competent and qualified. I would very much like to have a discussion regarding how women alumnae rising in their fields have managed to become leaders in different settings (surgery, programming, finance, and aerospace engineering).	Jacqueline Green '07, Sanjukta Pal '07, Anna Chen '07, Rebecca Arvanites '07
Women of MIT in Intellectual Property Law	Hear from a panel of MIT Alumnae on Women in the Intellectual Property Law Profession. Learn about hot topics in IP law, IP policy and innovation, MIT women in the law, and other topics of interest to MIT Alumnae.	Sharon Israel '86, Gita Srivastava '07, Christina McDonough '02
Resilience in Academia	Being appointed as a junior faculty member at an academic institution is a tremendous accomplishment. The transition to this position means navigating a new set of roles - the role of professor, researcher, mentor, grant writer, committee member, colleague, etc. - and the challenges these roles entail. Being successful requires resilience and the ability to overcome adversity. In this session, the panelists who are at different stages of their academic careers and in different types of institutions, will draw upon the audience to help solve the new equation that comes with this new role. We will discuss common themes of adversity and strategies for overcoming these challenges. The session will provide participants an opportunity to hear about and to share approaches that bridge the gap to becoming successful in our academic roles.	Kristen Johnson PhD '03, Soni Lacefield PhD '03, Briana Burton PhD '03
Creating an Engaged Women's Group	Nowadays, most organizations have at least one (if not several) women's groups. Women specific professional organizations are also commonplace. But establishing a women focused group Is only the starting point, what comes next is creating an engaging group that benefits and supports women of the organization. What can a women's group do for its members? How can we create a supportive community? Should we directly combat the leaky pipeline? How can we stop harassment, unintentional bias, and microaggressions? This panel will have several women who have organized and established women-focused groups hoping to solve these problems and better engage their organizations in a conversation of equality.	Elizabeth Kowalski SM '10, PhD '15, Leyla Isik PhD '15, Amy Prager, Bonita Burke , Sandra Chen '12
Every Woman Matters	MIT Alumnae are strong, capable women but we are not our jobs or our children. Just as the high powered career woman should be seen for the totality of her worth, Alumnae who chose non-conventional career (or non-career) paths should be respected. Explore diverse paths as we discuss how to better support fellow alumnae as women, not just as workers. How can we stop valuing each other by the size of the paycheck and instead recognize the value within? Is a woman less because she chooses to leave a hostile work environment, or chooses to quit Wall Street to homeschool her children, or sees sizable financial rewards early in her career and then steps out of the rat-race? Defining "enough" is empowering because it allows us to follow our dreams, passions and opportunities inside and outside the workforce. Can you support your lifestyle and needs without an uncomfortable trade of power wherein you are beholden to those who write your check? How far could you go with the power and freedom to know that you matter, and that you can survive and thrive off savings, investments, basic service jobs, or supporting a husband in his career if you aim for the moon and fall short? That is only a viable option if you already respect other Alumnae who are doing exactly that. Is she enough? Are you enough? (Hint: you are)	Erica Layon '01, Vandita Malviya Wilson '90, Misty Benham Chioffe '01, Patricia Nguyen '90, Emilia Gan '90
How to build a professional career working remotely	Building your entire professional career on working remotely is an important option for women, especially those with families. Remote work can encompass running your own company, consulting for another entity or as an employee to a company that supports remote opportunities. Remote opportunities expand the market for women, especially in technology and sciences. The three panelists will talk about how to find and prepare for remote opportunities, and more importantly how to succeed, where success can mean building a client base or getting promoted. You will hear their success stories, tools they use, and things to watch out for, like getting isolated from the team. About the panelists: Anna Lukasiak '96 is a Business Development Director and Partner for Morrison Technologies and runs a project management consulting firm, Data Gallery. Anna managed remote teams for 16 years in the fintech sector and is currently a freelancing project manager. Carrie Morton Jones '96 is a former Director of SurvCE Development at Carlson Software, where she worked her entire career remotely for a software development company. Holly Allen '98 is a Director of Engineering at 18F working for a civic tech startup in government remotely. Holly has managed distributed and remote teams for 10+ years. As Global Workplace Analytics indicates, remote opportunities are on the rise in the US and bring benefits for both employees and employers.	Anna Lukasiak '96, MNG '97, Carrie Morton Jones SM '07, Holly Allen '98
Making the Leap: Non-Traditional Career Trajectories	Professional careers that follow a linear path with one company over a 30+ year career are increasingly rare. This panel proposes that there is another way - a way to have an advancing career that leverages everything that an individual woman brings to the table, including professional and business skills, lifelong education, family, outside interests and a diversity of thought. Everything we do in life provides experience and that experience provides value to an employer. Women who take time off to raise children have argued this with prospective employers for years, but it goes much beyond raising a family. For example, junior engineers who write code for a startup not only increase their coding skills, they are in an environment where they can learn about raising money, working with VCs, cash burndown rates, stock and options. All of these elements can be leveraged to create the most interesting next opportunity. The panel will cover making the decision to leap, dealing with noise around change, the challenges of starting something new and examples where the panelists have applied divergent experiences to new opportunities. The panelists all have successfully created non-traditional careers: A chemical engineer who became a toxicologist who became a high-tech product development specialist; an economist and mechanical engineer who moved between cars, consumer goods and medical technology; and a material scientist who transitioned to colloid chemistry, to raising children, and then to developing construction products.	Carol Ann McDevitt SM '02, Lisa Cratty SM '03, Rachel Pytel PhD '07
Completing the Equation: Has the sum of the parts changed?	1) In an increasingly customized world, how do we maintain appeal to a broad base of customers? 2) With a constant flow of information, how do we evolve tactics while supporting a long term strategy?	Nicole Nollette MBA '05, Kathryn Frederick MBA '06, Steve Nolen MBA '05
How It's Made: Sustainable Investments	Leading practitioners break down sustainable investing and the creation of ESG (Environmental Social Governance) investment vehicles. Sustainable investing strategies include index investing, alpha investing, quantitative trading, and more. The appropriate strategy depends on one's goals, theory of change if impact is a main objective, and practical constraints such as the investing time horizon. Investors' needs are diverse not homogenous so there's more than one way to invest responsibly. ESG data and research are key inputs from the very beginning of the process. Computer power, machine learning, and cheap storage are making sustainable investing more sophistocated. What new data streams or tools are practitioners most excited about, and what new processes will they enable? How are AI and machine learning improving the quality of ESG data? What economics or financial research on sustainable investing have informed the creation of new products or helped create the market for them? Are there particular topics that practitioners wish academics would focus more on? How are values and financial performance aligned and measured in ESG funds? Finally, panelists will share their experiences as women in finance at various stages of their careers. At the end of the day, finance is a service industry, so projecting credibility, authority, and trustworthiness are necessary skills. What are some strategies that have helped panelists navigate internal or external pressures? Or has it been smooth sailing so far? How involved are panelists in shaping the culture of their organizations and the industry at large?	Yang Ruan '07, Jessica Huang '07, Maryls Appleton SM '78, Karina Funk SM '97
Fairness as a Design Requirement	Machine learning and AI have the potential to create solutions less biased than human beings, but it is not a guarantee. It depends on the nature of the training data and the particular techniques used to tune the results. It also depends on the use case of the final product. For example, a number of sentences that are gender neutral in Turkish get translated to conventionally sexist sentences in English by Google translate. This is most likely due to the data being trained on "parallel corpora," which are books and other text that human beings have already translated from or to Turkish. What that means is that using this to translate anything written that's a similar style or written in that time period would actually lead to a more accurate and natural translation. It's not necessarily an accurate representation of Turkish, the language. If our society becomes less sexist or perhaps sexist in the opposite way, then these translations will be wrong. If we want the results to better reflect what we wish society was like rather than what it is, some of these techniques may not be very effective. But in any case, the only hope there is of effectiveness is to make it a design requirement. That means spec'ing out up front what is equity, and what are our values. Only then can it be engineered. We cannot offload this work to AI.	Yang Ruan '07, Cathy Wu '11, Kate Crawford, Kathy O'Neil
Journeys of Women in Venture Capital	Venture Capital and entrepreneurship are not gender-neutral concepts. Only 7% of partners from the top 100 VC firms are women and less than 10% of venture capital is invested in female-led startups. Angel investing has somewhat better performance. Recent research and discussions around gender diversity suggest that the need to address the gender gap is "not just about diversity for the sake of diversity, but about the importance of diversity of thought" in investment committees. A lack of diversity discourages interactions from minority groups that negatively impacts the wider startup ecosystem and tech industry. This panel session will bring together women that support, promote, and fund women entrepreneurs. Participants will share their journeys and resources available to women interested in entrepreneurship or participating or investing in venture & angel capital.	Esha Sahai SM '15, Jean Hammond SM '86, Rashmi Gopinath, Parul Singh MBA '12
Women in Defense: Do we need more diversity to foster rapid innovation?	The traditional US technological superiority with expensive cutting-edge innovation is now at risk due to low-cost off-the-shelf commercial solutions and asymmetric competition from critical adversaries. A new way of achieving rapid innovation and collaborating across institutions (industry, academia and startup community) will be necessary for the USA to maintain stability, security, and its technological advances. Team work, diversity of thought, collaborative innovation and creativity will be necessary to change the status quo. Women can play a crucial role in this landscape.	Francesca Scire-Scappuzzo SM '97, Bernadette Johnson, Sarah Rumbley '12, MNG '15
Sisterhood: Creating psychological safety at work for women to speak up, innovate, disagree, and be heard	A major challenge facing professional women today is how to be effective in the workplace while remaining true to themselves. When women started entering the workplace en masse, they were expected to act like men and leave their authentic self at the door. The archetypical professional woman of the 70s & 80s emerged as a narrow caricature of Martha Stewart meets Your Mom. Even though the modern workplace is nearly half female, these biases still persist and shackle women with false choices most having to choose between two cartoon personas - Bulldog or Bambi. The modern workplace culture must be re-engineered from within to create an environment where women are free to express and conduct themselves authentically without fear of judgment, name-calling, and most importantly, self-doubt. While women's groups and similar networking programs provide essential support and confidential sharing spaces for women as they cope with the cultural biases and demands, our panel will explore what mainstream daily practices can displace, re-design, and re-create the workplace norms so they are more supportive and nurturing to women of all abilities and backgrounds. This new culture will emerge from and empower women's validation and celebration of each other's workplace excellence. This culture shift must take seed along the continuum of women's (and men's) careers, from grade school through senior leadership. Our panelists speak from different vantage points along this arc and will offer the unique insights, moves, and strategies needed to flip the script along the way.	Sagree Sharma, Sharon Gadonniex '88, Stacy Heen Lennon MCP '96, Teresa Weirui Zhang '07
Leading Change in STEM and Other Professions	What are the best ways for more alumnae to thrive in our professions and move into more influential, and higher level roles? Alumnae will share their experience in finding success and recognition and how they are changing the cultural bias against women and women in science. Society of Women Engineers research says 28% of the 2.5 m women with STEM degrees have left the fields, and 1/4 of the engineers who left, left to spend time with family. How do we find better ways to use our value in business and the flexible jobs that will support us?	Sarah Simon '72, Kathy Takayama '84, Patricia Callahan '69
The First 1,000 - Wisdom from Pioneering Alumnae	Ever since Ellen H. (Swallow) Richards received her S.B from MIT in 1873, MIT women have left a remarkable legacy .Blazing pathways through most of the traditionally, male, technical fields, more than 200 of our first graduates are alive today. Among the stars are women who have directed the MIT licensing office, been first to get PhDs and lead engineering departments, and presided over government departments and other non-profit organizations. Our working professionals have helped open many STEM and analytical careers to women, in fields ranging from the law, to aviation, to spiritual leadership. And they crafted workable solutions to the balance of their professional and personal lives.	Sarah Simon '72, Lita Nelsen '64, SM '66, SM '79, Janet Mertz '71, Susan Kannenberg '61
Filling the STEM Pipeline	Alumnae create satisfying careers and volunteer roles encouraging kids to enter STEM ( and STEAM, with art) fields. The panelists will tell their stories of leading or staffing non-profits or volunteering for community outreach, such as FIRST Robotics, Girl Scout coding badges or BridgeBuilding competitions. There are many interesting ways to invite young people to our STEM ranks.	Sarah Simon '72, Cecily Selby '50, Pam Gannon '84, Natalie Lorenz-Anderson '84, Sze-Wen Kuo '73
The evolving role of the CMO in the digital age	Gartner called it in 2012 that by 2017, CMOs would outspend CIOs on technology. As digital transformation changes every facet of our lives, customers are shaping business strategy, demanding consistent and high-value in-person and digital experiences tailored to their needs and where they are in their buying journey. It is now imperative, more than before, that CMOs leverage their acumen of technology and analytics to represent "voice of the customer" and take ownership of the customer journey, in addition to the conventional skills of branding and messaging. In this panel, we will dive into the broadened requirements and expectations for a successful CMO in the face of rapidly changing landscape, and how one can leverage technical and analytical skills to manage complexity, build differentiated advantages and achieve success in marketing and entrepreneurship.	Eva Tsai '96, MNG '96, Cynthia Gumbert '91, Erin Hintz, Linlin Li
Staying Connected	In September 1985, 21% of the entering class identified as female. The four of us became attached at the hip, laughing and pretending to study in Room 408, McCormick Hall. Our classmates joked about how we always walked around campus together. We arrived wanting to become scientists. We chose majors in mechanical and electrical engineering. Three decades later, in November 2017, we celebrated our 50th birthdays together over cake in Rosina's place in Manhattan. In between, our professional and personal journeys have taken us to some very odd places indeed! Today, we are in pediatric medicine, academic libraries, geolocation software and neuroscience. We have gathered graduate degrees in medicine, business, public policy, education and biomechanical engineering. We have traveled the world, but find ourselves drawn back to MIT, including for admissions tours for some of our children. Two of us interview for the Educational Council. MIT memories may sometimes be raw but they are always powerful. Staying connected with each other has been a source of strength and perspective. We are often surprised by how similar and how different our career experiences have been - government, university, management consulting, tech companies, startups and private medical practice. The same can be said for our personal lives. Friendships created at MIT can help alumna in powerful ways. Staying connected matters. We would like to share our experiences as a group, discuss our career decisions and reflect on how MIT has impacted us over several decades.	Anu Vedantham '89, SM '90, Anjali Arora Saini '89, Susmitha Bellam '89
Women Supporting National Security	Science is a powerful tool in the National Security toolbox, through cooperative projects and technical measures supporting the implementation of treaties, through advice to national leaders, and through international scientific cooperative efforts promoting peace and understanding. Science transcends national borders and international scientific cooperation can be a powerful tool especially during difficult political times. As a group we have all served our government as advisors, on topics ranging from water scarcity, to biosecurity and public health, nuclear security and cooperative threat reduction. We will discuss the unique solutions we, as women, have developed and provided in serving our country.	Eileen Vergino '77, Robin Newmark '78, Gigi Gronvall, Bonnie Jenkins
Female Health - Centering on Women’s Experiences and Expertise	We propose a discussion on health and health care from an interpersonal perspective. In 2016, the National Institute of Health declared sex must be included as a biological variable in all clinical research studies. Why has it taken so long to include female bodies in research and how will this affect health care going forward? Our panel will focus on the intersection of gender with personal and public health outcomes. Does being a woman influence other social-economic determinants of health such as race, class, and sexuality? Research shows interpersonal relationships influence interactions with healthcare professionals. What strengths do female physicians bring to patient-centered care? Does this mean you should seek a doctor of the same gender and race? Our panelists will bring their background and experiences in public health research and health communication to address modern questions in health care. We will also share our personal perspectives as patients facing major medical diagnosis as young adults. If selected, we intend to bring one or more current medical professionals to our panel.	JulieAnn Villa '96, Yun Xue '12, Caroline Huang '10, Jennifer Reichek
How to be a Mentor	Finding a mentor is often listed as a key to success for young women professionals, but how do you finally become a mentor to do the mentoring? Whether it's talking to Girl Scouts for outreach events or having a formal relationship with a new employee at your workplace, being an effective mentor can be incredibly rewarding. In this panel, several women professionals will discuss their experiences in mentoring the next generation.	Judy Wang SM '11, Rebecca Kusko '09, Constance (Connie) Jeffery '87, Julie Arloro-Mehta, Diane Staheli
Top of Her Game: How the Creative Process Can Fuel the Rise of Women Leaders	In a world of rapid disruption and multidimensional challenges, a background in design has become almost a prerequisite for entering a growing number of industries. From business strategy to social impact, companies are seeking talent who can do things that in fact are core skills of a designer: define vision, overcome complexity, communicate ideas, and inspire change. This trend comes at a time when the number of women in design has surpassed the number of men, and 42% of graduates from architecture programs are women. And yet, when it comes to leadership positions, the gender gap still presents a significant hurdle. Only 17 percent of principals and partners at American architecture firms are women, and looking more broadly at leadership across industries, only 6.4% of Fortune 500 companies are run by a female CEO. This panel will convene a discussion about how to close the gap, bringing together a diverse group of women leaders—all of whom have used design backgrounds to carve unique career paths in technology, real estate development, the performing arts, and design. We will hear how this group—from the C-Suite to upwardly mobile emerging leaders—has harnessed their creative process to lead at exceptionally high levels and transcend the status quo. Using the experiences they share as a starting point, we will then explore how expanding opportunities to shape non-linear career paths can help fuel the pipeline of women leaders.	Meghan Webster MA '08, Grethe Barrett Holby '71, MArch '73, Lisa Picard MCP '95, SM '95, Tsitsi Kolawole, Lisa Smith '04