Eight prominent women were selected Tuesday from a pool of 16 finalists to receive the Women in Tech Award.
This year marks the eighth time the Women Tech Council (WTC) hosted its award program, which seeks to recognize innovative women who are positively impacting the technology industry.
The 2015 recipients are: Denise Leleux (eBay), Mary Anne White (Orbital ATK), Jill Layfield (Backcountry.com), Stormy Simon (Overstock.com), Catherine Wong (Domo), Vicky Thomas (Lucid Software), Jessica Harris (Utah Valley University) and Amanda Hudson (Western Governors University).
Wong, as well as runners-up Mary Sinnott, Tricia Schumann and JoCee Porter, all have affiliations with the U. Wong served on the advisory board for the College of Engineering, Sinnott is an alumna with her master’s degree in mechanical engineering and Schumann is an associate instructor for the U’s MBA program.
Porter, a sophomore in chemical engineering, is the secretary of the American Nuclear Society Student Section and interns with the Utah Nuclear Engineering Program. She first got involved in her current field of study as a participant in the U’s ACCESS program, which aims to jump-start the education of incoming freshman women interested in science and math.
Porter said she loved meeting the other finalists.
“It’s mostly the women, not the awards, that people are there for,” Porter said. “It was so inspiring to talk to the other women and realize that this is something that’s possible for me as well. I’m just a girl from Utah, but I can do this.”
By Nikila Venugopal, The Daily Utah Chronicle