CIUK 2023 Keynote Presentation

10 Oct 2023

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Melyssa Fratkin

Industry Programs Director, 

Texas Advanced Computing Center, 

UT Austin

Presentation Title: Women in Advanced Computing: Leveling the Playing Field

 

Abstract: The HPC industry is changing rapidly. We are all faced with expanding our horizons and finding talented staff to keep up with the changes – changes that can bring new insights and different perspectives. But ‘Leveling the Playing Field’ in HPC is not just about hiring from a more diverse talent pool. We also need to talk about Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, or we’ll never escape the status quo. What strategies can we employ to find that new talent? And how can we build a more inclusive culture to ensure that our new hires stick around? This talk will offer some strategies and ideas for DEIB efforts that can be implemented in any organization.

Bio: Melyssa Fratkin is the Industrial Programs Director at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin. In this role, she oversees TACC's corporate partnerships and government relations activities. Melyssa focuses on developing and managing strong collaborations between industry and academia with the Science & Technology Affiliates for Research (STAR) pro​gram.

 

Melyssa is the founding co-chair of Texas Women in HPC, an organization aimed at raising awareness and broadening diversity in HPC by supporting women and under-represented populations in high performance computing in industry, academia and government across the state of Texas. She also serves as Vice President of the AMD HPC User Group, and Communications Coordinator of the ACM Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing (SIGHPC).

 

Melyssa received a BA from Rutgers University and MBA from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.