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2022 TechEX I2I Scholarship Awardees

Emily Chahar, IT Project Manager at the University of Delaware

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Nicole Klueber, Systems Integration Engineer for the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences at The Pennsylvania State University

It was truly an honor to be an Inclusivity Initiative Scholarship recipient and to have the

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opportunity to attend the Internet2 Technology Exchange in Denver, Colorado. It was exciting to see

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research professionals come together and share their experiencesin many different facets. The sessions

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were invigorating and allowed for participants to have conversations with the speakers in a personal and

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informal manner, which was unique to this event. I was able to meet my fellow scholarship recipients

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and buildrelationships with them as we participated in various events together at the conference. It was

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wonderful to have breakfast and lunch sessions with mentors who shared personal experiences and

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provided advice to the scholarship recipients. It was also beneficial to have mentors at the conference to

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answer questions and assist with networking.

As a result of this scholarship, I was able to connect with others who have similar passions to mine.

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Attending the conference sessions provided me the information necessary to join working groups that

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continue to advance research in higher education. I was also able to create connections with individuals

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at different research institutions to establish partnerships and learning opportunities. I am grateful to be

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an Inclusivity Initiative Scholarship recipient and participate in a conference that positively impacted my

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career and empowered my vision to expand diversity in the technology field.

2019 TechEX I2I Scholarship Awardees

Bridget Bartell, Cybersecurity Analyst at University of Wisconsin-Madison

I greatly appreciated the opportunity to attend the Internet2 Technology Exchange conference in New Orleans. The Internet2 team clearly put a lot of work and care into designing and organizing the event. As an Inclusivity Initiative scholarship awardee, I was grateful for the ability to meet with community leaders during the breakfast and lunch hours. The event clearly draws accomplished people from all over the world, it was helpful to have someone help connect you to some of these incredible individuals.
 
As far as sessions go, I appreciated Internet2’s staff member Adair’s session regarding diversity. The lack of women in IT is obvious, but I thought it was great to help call out some of the lessor considered aspects of diversity such as neurodiversity, mental health, education, and sexuality, and how that affects team dynamics as well. I also feel those areas can be judged more harshly and so people can be embarrassed instead of embracing the differences that make for a balanced and productive team. I overall enjoyed the information security track and was pleased by the number of incident response options. It’s great to hear how others are handling situations we handle on a daily basis and know that we are all in this together.
 
Once again, I want to deeply thank the Internet2 community, and Taleitha, for the time and effort put into organizing the event.

Jacqueline Knight-Barber, Support Engineer at OSHEAN

I really enjoyed this event. I met a lot of great people and made connections that will help further my future. One thing I loved most about this experience was being able to meet mentors every day so that I had “go-to” people when needed. Everyone I met was so kind and extraordinary in their own way. While I was there, I was on a mission to learn a few specifics that I could take back to my coworkers and use towards our new Layer 2 implementation. These included EVPN, NSO and anything that involved implementing a new network. I gained a lot of valuable knowledge. I was very thankful Mike Kowal from Cisco took time to sit with me to teach me NSO because it gave me some good key pointers to bring back to my company. Aside from what my main goals were while there, I found it very easy to migrate from session to session. I especially enjoyed the social because it gets you to step out of your comfort zone a bit.

Overall, I would definitely go to this event again. I am very thankful for the experience to go this year. There are not many places that you can meet such a diverse group of people and connect with such a strong community.

Shashwitha Puttaswamy, Research Scientist, Cyberinfrastructure at George Washington University

I am very grateful the Internet2 Inclusivity Initiative Committee selected me, and The George Washington University nominated me from our IT Department and supporting me in my travel and accommodation as part of the Scholarship program. The Internet2 Technology Exchange was well organized from start to finish.  I was also able to get in contact with my former colleague and project partners.

It helped me to build professional connections within the field and learn new tools and developments, which I can implement in my work. It made me much more confident in understanding the concepts and implementing the software. There were many interesting talks which were overlapped, but Internet2 community members were very supportive to put me in touch with the speaker and learn more about the projects and give a recap of the presentations. In the award program there were many women who shared their personal experiences in the field of IT which was a remarkable journey and a very inspirational talk.

Overall it was a wonderful and memorable experience. I will always look forward to being part of the Internet2 community.