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Category: Women in Technology

Company Girl

Published January 24, 2012

There are many valid ways to pursue one’s career aspirations, but most tend to fall into two categories: Those who choose to run their own company Those who choose to work for someone else I most definitely fall into the latter category. I have tremendous respect for those who can weather the storms of uncertainty that plague entrepreneurs, but I am not one of those people. Partially, it’s pragmatism. I can’t live without health insurance. (see here and here and here…) I have chronic conditions that require regular care to prevent serious complications. I was once offered the opportunity to…

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Balancing Work and Life – Without A Net

Published September 12, 2011

While you might not know it by simply looking at my post count, I actually enjoy my day job (as a Senior UX Designer at Microsoft) just as much as I enjoy my evening-and-weekends life as an actress. It’s not just a day job, it’s my career. No running away to join the proverbial circus here… I love my team, find my work challenging, and enjoy an amazing amount of freedom. It’s just that non-disclosure agreements and corporate decorum make it more difficult to find subjects for public work posts. At my busiest, I work 40-hour weeks at Microsoft, 15-hour…

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The Magic of Community

Published June 23, 2011

(To my visitors from the Carnegie Mellon homepage, many welcomes! Would love to hear from you if you have questions or comments.) Over the past few years, I’ve had the honor of participating in a unique program at Microsoft in the Server & Tools Division – the STB Women’s Leadership Council. Our chairwoman Betsy Speare recently spoke to the Microsoft JobsBlog about the WLC’s birth and importance at Microsoft. We also spoke a bit about the WLC at the panel Betsy and I participated in at TechEd 2011. I first heard about the WLC program when the woman who leads…

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What Comes After Ever After? (Part 2)

Published June 6, 2011

In Part 1, I matriculated to CMU thanks to a presentation by Randy Pausch, but the promise of CS was about to change drastically. By the time my senior year at CMU rolled around, I had completed a successful internship at Pittsburgh area design firm MAYA Design, and they had expressed interest in offering me a full time position. Everything seemed to be coming up roses, and I was happy to plan on staying in Pittsburgh indefinitely. That all changed on September 11, 2001, when the stock market crashed along with those ill-fated planes. MAYA’s financial sector clients vanished, and…

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A Few Steps towards a Brighter Future

Published June 6, 2011

The IGNITE Brighter Future Walk was a great success today – we raised nearly $5,000 (and will probably surpass that with matching corporate funds) and saw both familiar faces in addition to some new faces – like a large contingent of lovely ladies from GeekGirlCon, where coincidentally I’ll be speaking in October! (Date and time TBD.) We also presented one of the participating students with a $1500 scholarship courtesy of Microsoft! As for me, I walked three miles less than 2 weeks post-knee surgery, with a little jogging thrown in for good measure, and I’m holding up well! It was…

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