Women Decode STEM

Swaathi is the CTO of Skcript, a multi-disciplinary technology consulting company. She’s been an entrepreneur for the last 7 years and enjoys coding. She has built products like Hellonext - a tool for organizations to collect and process user feedback. She has expertise in multiple coding languages and technology frameworks. Additionally, Swaathi is also an open-source contributor. Outside of work, she gives talks about code, tech, and startups and advocates for girls and women in...

Stephanie Itimi is a digital entrepreneur, technology advisor, keynote speaker, and author. She’s the founder of Seidea, a social enterprise helping Black, Asian, minority ethnic women build cyber-security careers, and Seinfo, a digital library empowering African women and youth with the skills needed for remote work. In addition, she is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Information Security at Royal Holloway, London. In this episode, I talk to Stephanie about creating equitable opportunities...

Rebekah Bastian is an entrepreneur, writer, author, artist, mentor, wife, mother, and an aerial acrobat. After 15 years at Zillow, with roles including VP of product and VP of community and culture, she is now CEO & Co-founder of OwnTrail. I’m excited to talk about her journey from being a VP at Zillow to recently transitioning into an entrepreneur. We’ll also be talking about her book - Blaze your own trail. How she got started with OwnTrail and making mentorship more accessible. Take a...

Anna western is a product designer and an entrepreneur currency building PRISM which is a visual bookmark software. It lets you save and share screenshots from websites so you can have a visual reference of your favorite websites. She's previously worked as a product designer at Facebook and later co-founded Slapdash, a startup that went through Y combinator. Currently she works as the Chief Design Officer at Medcorder while continuing to build Prism. Excited to speak to her about her...

Zoe Chew is a product builder from Malaysia, who is well known for her unique style of building products. She has built products like personal finance manager, SaaS subscription manager, MVP for food delivery app and many more! Her product I lazy to read that auto summarises article into 5 sentences, has been #1 on Product Hunt with over 1300 upvotes! Zoe challenges herself to design and build products in 24 hours using no code tools. She also offers consulting services to build MVP and...

Dr Quinn Wang is an Ophthalmologist and the Founder of Quadrant Eye, a TeleHealth platform for conducting remote eye exams. I met Dr. Wang on a social platform and was really drawn by how candid her posts were. Today we talk about startups, being a woman in STEM and how we can increase representation. Connect with Dr. Wang LinkedIn @quinnwang Twitter @quinneyeQ Connect with me on social Instagram @womendecode Twitter @womendecode

A fellow immigrant who has made it big in Silicon valley and is now helping other immigrants in their entrepreneurial journey, Arjita Sethi is a serial entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of Equally, which is an AR education platform for kids. She also serves on the Advisory Board of Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in San Fransisco. With her passion for teaching she is a professor at San Francisco State University where she teaches entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation and business...

Anne-Laure is the founder of Ness Labs, she writes a weekly newsletter which is a science-based newsletter for makers to practice self-care, cultivate their curiosity, and create. It has now extended to a community of creators, makers and entrepreneurs who get together to explore how to build while being mindful. She is also doing her Masters in Neuroscience at Kings college in London. Today we are going to talk about her entrepreneurial journey and how makers can implement mindful...

Asra Nadeem is the first female Pakistani venture capitalist and a global speaker who has spoken on the TEDx stage. She is the President at Draper University, a well known pre-accelerator and incubator in Silicon Valley. She's also an Angel Investor focusing on founders automating the future with artificial intelligence & machine learning. Asra is the co-founder of Opus.AI, a deep-tech company whose proprietary technology turns text into movies and 3D scenes in real-time. Today we will...

Briana Brownell has a unique journey - she started with a degree in mathematics, which she says was a field so unpopular at the time that she was the only person to get a degree in the subject in that year. She worked as a proprietary equities trader on the NYSE through the global financial crisis. She later went to grad school where she combined her interests in business, data science, economics and human behavior. Having always known that she would be an entrepreneur, she founded Pure...

Dr. Shawna Pandya is a scientist-astronaut candidate with Project PoSSUM, physician, aquanaut, speaker, martial artist, advanced diver, skydiver, pilot-in-training, VP Immersive Medicine with Luxsonic Technologies and Fellow of the Explorers’ Club. Dr. Shawna has proved this multiple times that,n if you believe in your dreams and work hard to attend them, anything is possible. I’m sure each one of you will be inspired by her and get to learn about space medicine and more. Connect with...

Dr. Kilan C. Ashad-Bishop is a Biomedical Scientist and advocate for social change. After she earned a PhD in Cancer Biology, she was able to carve out the perfect career as a postdoctoral researcher at University of Miami School of Education and Human Development and the Director of College Access for Breakthrough Miami. She volunteers with K-12 and collegiate STEM programs to provide students with access to STEM education, she also serves as the Vice Chair of the City of Miami Climate...

To tell us about Immunology, we are joined by Shivalee Duduskar, a trained Biotechnologist. She is pursuing her Doctorate in Immunology from Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany. She is going to take us through her journey of getting into the field of Immunology. Following her passion for art, Shivalee has found a way to bridge the gap between science and art with her scientific illustration service - Biotale Illustration. It helps scientists, researchers and biotech companies...

The role of Product Manager is key in the success of a product. They overlook the development process of a product, from ideation to getting the finished product to the end users and beyond. The role of product managers has so many definitions, that some of us are still trying to understand what exactly they do. We are joined by Richu Channakeshava today, who will take us through her journey of becoming a product manager and what her job entails. Connect with Richu on social Twitter...

Ayurveda is a medical practice that originated in India and has been practiced since ancient times. I'm sure a lot of us have presumptions and questions about what Ayurveda is. How does one study Ayurveda today, how is it different from modern medicine, does it treat all ailments and much more. So to answer all these questions we have Dr. Ranjani Deshpande with us today. She is a Specialist Ayurvedic Surgical Consultant and in addition to her practice, she is also involved in academics and...

I’m extremely passionate about data Engineering. Before starting the podcast I worked as a Data Engineering consultant and I still get excited to discuss it. When I was thinking about doing an episode on it, the first person who came to mind was a former colleague of mine, Yasneen Ashroff. She’s extremely knowledgeable in this field and has extensive experience. Currently she works as a Solution Principle for Data Engineering at Slalom Build. If you're looking to find a job in the Data...

Anisha Kulkarni is a Software Engineer at Intel. She has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Cornell University and currently works in the Deep Learning field. In today’s episode Anisha talks to us about navigating her career path as an experienced mid-career engineer. She takes us through the process she followed to transition into a new role within her organization with the help of a mentor. Anisha gives us pointers to find the right mentor, build a trusting relationship with...

Lakshmi Sudheer, Senior Security Partner at Netflix talks to us about the different roles in the cybersecurity space. Cybersecurity is one of the fastest growing fields today, which means we will need more trained professionals taking up jobs in this space in the coming years. She explains how security is integrated in every step of a software development life cycle. She also tells us the importance of bug bounty programs for both companies and professionals in the community. And since...

Hiranmayi Shankavaram, is assistant professor at R.V College of Architecture. She holds a bachelor's degree in Architecture and a Master's degree in Urban Development and Management. Architecture is more than just designing skyscrapers and fascinating structures. In today's episode, Hiranmayi talks about her non-traditional path towards Urban Development. We discuss Hiranmayi’s research during her master's course at IHS - institute of housing and urban studies in Rotterdam. She also takes...

Dr.Isabel Torres is a Science Editor, Writer and Communicator. She holds a PhD in genetics from the University of Cambridge and is a mother of 4 kids. In today's episode she shares insights into what it is to be a science communicator. She tells us about her projects Pretty Smart Science which uses illustration to make science appealing to the general public and Mothers in Science that support and connect mothers in science and raise awareness of the challenges they face in their careers...