The Cadence Women in Technology Scholarship Winners

Cadence is committed to building a culture that fosters inclusion and embraces diverse backgrounds, experiences, and ideas. Diversity in thought leads to diversity in innovation.

But the gender gap in tech represents a major obstacle to those goals, so Cadence takes the empowerment of women in technology seriously. Not only do we have strong internal support for our female employees with our Women@Cadence group, but we also strongly support future female innovators with partners like Girls Who Code and the Anita Borg Institute.

That’s why we were incredibly excited to fund our first Cadence Women in Tech Scholarship this month, awarding $65,000 total to 13 students currently enrolled in college and studying a technical degree.

To win this scholarship, in addition to reviewing academic transcripts and letters of recommendation, each applicant had to answer questions about the challenges they face being a woman in technology and to describe the most interesting technical project they have been involved with.

Cadence is excited to again sponsor the Cadence Women in Tech Scholarship for 2019. Please check back in the coming months for more details.

Read some highlights from our scholars’ applications below.

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Biying Xu

University of Texas at Austin, class of 2019, Ph.D.

The biggest challenge I have faced as a woman in technology is to try to express my own opinions when we are the minority in a community. In a group discussion where there are much fewer women than men, the voice tends to be biased. Therefore, it needs more courage to express ourselves to reach a more balanced outcome.

Dayane Reis

University of Notre Dame, class of 2020, Ph.D.

I consider every woman who work in the field of technology – myself included – as a warrior in a male-dominated battlefield.

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My piece of advice to every woman who ever faces discrimination or harassment in the workplace: Never give up of your careers, know the resources available to you as a female worker, and keep being your smartest and brightest you, every day. Success belongs to those who work hard, and you shall succeed.

Derya Tansel

Carnegie Mellon University, class of 2023, Ph.D.

My motivation and desire to develop technologies that will aid others to improve their way of life is personal since very early age. I struggled with partial hearing loss throughout elementary and middle school. Some of my burden was alleviated when I started using a hearing aid in high school. Later, I had a third and final surgery that allowed me to hear without any aids. It was during this time that I understood the influence technology has in alleviating people from their physical hardships to assist them in their day-to-day lives.

Jiwon Choe

Brown University, class of 2021, Ph.D.

My biggest challenges were fighting against the misperceptions that I had towards women in technology and shattering the self-destructive arrogance that I gained because of the misperceptions.

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Just the desire to be extraordinary could never have led me to pursue a doctoral degree in computer science. … I was nonetheless passionate about the field, and I would strive to be extraordinary regardless of my gender.

Miaomiao Ma

Purdue University, class of 2019, Ph.D.

The project that I am most passionate about is solving Maxwell’s equations numerically. The time that I first got to know Maxwell’s equations is in my undergraduate electromagnetic theory course. I still remember how amazed I was when I learned that four simple and elegant equations could actually describe almost all the complex electrical and magnetic phenomenon in nature…

Michal Luria

Carnegie Mellon University, class of 2021, Ph.D

In my graduate studies, … I had a hard time getting rid of the underlying assumption in my perception that I can do the design and research work, but not the technical work. The next leap of faith in myself happened when I completed a course project of building my own Arduino board from scratch. Holding the working board in my hand allowed me to realize how much my confidence has evolved over a few years, and that it is constantly growing and enabling me to do things I never thought I would be able to.

Pankhuri Sen

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), class of 2020, M.S./M.B.A.

Mentorship, or the lack of it at times, played a pivotal role in my career in technology. When my mentor was leading the creation of an institutional mentorship program at Qualcomm, I decided to be a part of it. As a founding member of the initiative which came to be known as QCares, I regularly mentored my newly joined female colleagues often spending time with them to support and guide them, especially at pivotal decision points. Being a mentor has been greatly valuable for me too—imparting my knowledge to my less experienced colleagues often reminded me of how much I know, and where the gaps in my knowledge are, and this has made me more confident in my skills.

Roshni Iyer

University of California Berkeley, class of 2019, B.A.

My research goals are in developing ML techniques for predictive analytics, training, and inference for various beneficial societal applications. This motivates my decision to obtaining a doctorate degree in CS. Pursuing a Ph.D. degree will not only enable me to learn and contribute to state-of-the-art research, but will also be foundational towards my lifetime goal of becoming a professor.

Shreya Ramachandran

Caltech, class of 2019, B.S.

Many people believe electrical engineering means hardware, but my passion lies in another area of the field, signal processing. It is amazing that any information in this world can be represented as a mathematical function, known as a signal, and how theoretical manipulation of these signals can perform amazing physical feats.

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I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project because I loved using my passion for signal processing for research that had the potential of saving real patients’ lives. Motion-robust sampling techniques encourage the clinical use of MRI for heart imaging, which would enable physicians to detect heart anomalies earlier. This would impact the countless patients with coronary artery disease, congenital heart defects, and all other cardiovascular diseases.

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While doctors can save one life at a time, one engineering innovation can save millions of lives simultaneously. This powerful thought motivated me to conduct this project and stimulates my passion for electrical engineering every day.

Sirma Orguc

MIT, class of 2020, Ph.D.

When I look back now, I sometimes think and ask myself: why was it a struggle for me to have a similar experience as my male friends did? Since then, every year I am getting more confident, more secure. No women should have to struggle to show the society that they are as capable as men do. Now that I am at MIT, one of the most prestigious schools who put extra effort on gender equality, I see a completely different picture. I am happy to be part of it, and am looking forward to see and contribute to changes in my own country to empower women in these fields.

Soya Park

MIT, class of 2022, Ph.D.

The first step to break the glass ceiling, we should challenge the perception that women are unfit for STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics]. We shouldn’t be surprised when a woman outperforms in science nor when a man is a gifted artist. I’ve been having conversations on this topic starting with colleagues and my family in a casual manner. I also organized women in STEM movie-watching (e.g., Hidden Figures) in my department. Women’s lunch and events in conferences are good opportunities to share and talk about our experiences. I hope to make these events also welcoming to men so that both of us are working together on breaking the glass ceiling.

Upma Gandhi

University of Calgary, class of 2019, M.S.

In the third year of undergraduate studies, I came up with an idea to build a program that can give simple methods to relieve the stress of the user. The main inspiration behind this idea was that stress therapy in India is very expensive and considered as a Taboo as well. … I put that idea on paper and started writing about it in details.

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It was a very interesting project to work on and this leads me to be interested in human-computer interaction as well. This project helped me to realize that even with a small idea and passion, very helpful projects can be created which will not only help me to achieve my career goals but also help others to tackle the problem of stress and overcome it with an application that’s waiting for you on your phone.

Wei Ye

University of Texas at Austin, class of 2020, Ph.D.

I always experience a feeling of isolation as a woman in tech. There are many women who are great in all kinds of tech fields, but they always are a small minority. I clearly remember that, at my very first EDA conference in the US, there were about one hundred attendees and I was one of only two women. … I’ve grown used to being one of the only women in the room. … There is a petty undercurrent of condescension since men always dominate almost every subfield in the tech world. I have to work a little harder, be a bit more agile to make myself noticeable and trustable. I believe that most young women who have started entering STEM fields share the same slight feelings of alienation as I did.

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Cadence would like to congratulate these young women for all that they have accomplished thus far and look forward to seeing their development as they continue with their studies and careers. We would also like to recognize all the young women who applied. We are in awe of the determination, thoughtfulness, and strength you all share. Thank you—all of you—for sharing with us the struggles and triumphs of our young women in tech. You are inspiring!