EDINBURGH, Scotland, June 10 — Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC) will be running several activities at ISC High Performance 2016 with the aim of broadening participation in the conference. The range of activities is designed to reach as broad an audience as possible, to prompt discussion and encourage the adoption of best diversity practices throughout the HPC community.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016, 10.15am – 11.15am (CET): Addressing the Gender Gap in the Community

The ISC 2016 Women in High Performance Computing BoF will again focus the HPC community on the growing importance of increased diversity in the workplace. Employers will discuss successful strategies for improving diversity and how unconscious or implicit bias can impact hiring and promotion. Panelists include Jacqueline Chen, distinguished member of technical staff, Sandia National Laboratories (USA), and Carolyn Devany, President, Data Vortex Technologies (USA). Toni Collis, Director of WHPC (UK), will provide an introduction on the challenges of unconscious bias in the workplace.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016, 12.30pm – 1.45pm (CET): A Celebration of Women in HPC

WHPC will host a special networking lunch during ISC week, designed to celebrate the role of women in high performance computing careers. Attendees will include women leaders and young career women in corporate organizations, research institutions, academia, and business. The luncheon will focus on networking, mentoring, and sharing of knowledge, and will be keynoted by Intel. Registration is free and kindly supported by event sponsors Intel, DDN, Data Vortex, and IBM.

Thursday, June 23, 2016, 9.00am – 1.00pm (CET): Fourth International Workshop on Women in High Performance Computing

This annual WHPC workshop will bring together employers and employees from the international HPC community to discuss methods all can use to improve diversity, from modifying the way women are recruited to small changes that can improve retention of female staff in the HPC workforce. The workshop will focus on two key themes:

1. Career development to provide all women in HPC the feeling that they belong in the community.
2. Concrete steps that employers can take to improve diversity and retain female staff in the HPC workforce.

These issues will be addressed by an expert panel that includes Deb Agarwal, Senior Scientist and Data Science and Technology Department Head at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (USA), Alison Kennedy, Director, Hartree Centre (UK), Lorna Rivera, Senior Research Specialist, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA), and Figen Ulgen, General Manager, Intel (USA). Audience input to help address these issues will be sought in two parallel breakout sessions led by the panelists. One session will gather new ideas for improving diversity in the workplace and the other will share career development skills with early career attendees.

More on the WHPC activities during ISC can be found at: http://www.womeninhpc.org/women-in-hpc-at-isc-2016/.

About Women in HPC

Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC) was created with the vision to encourage women to participate in the HPC community by providing fellowship, education, and support to women and the organisations that employ them. Through collaboration and networking, WHPC strives to bring together women who work with HPC and technical computing, encourage women to engage in outreach activities, and improve the visibility of inspirational role models. WHPC is supported by EPCC (www.epcc.ed.ac.uk), the Supercomputing Centre at the University of Edinburgh, and through the EPSRC (www.epsrc.ac.uk) research grant EP/N006321/1. For more information visit http://www.womeninhpc.org.

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Source: Women in HPC