STEM Conference

Kimberly Bryant

Founder of Black Girls Code and an Aspen Institute Fellow

Kimberly Bryant is the Founder and Executive Director of Black Girls CODE, a non-profit organization dedicated to “changing the face of technology” by introducing girls of color (ages 7-17) to the field of technology and computer science with a concentration on entrepreneurial concepts.

Kimberly has enjoyed a successful 25+ year professional career in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries as an Engineering Manager in a series of technical leadership roles for various Fortune 100 companies such as Genentech, Merck, and Pfizer. Since 2011 Kimberly has helped Black Girls CODE grow from a local organization serving only the Bay Area, to an international organization with seven chapters across the U.S. and in Johannesburg, South Africa. Black Girls CODE has currently reached over 3000 students and continues to grow and thrive.

Kimberly serves on the National Champions Board for the National Girls Collaborative Project, and the National Board of the NCWIT K-12 Alliance. Kimberly and Black Girls CODE have been nationally recognized as a social innovator and for her work to increase opportunities for women and girls in the tech industry. In August 2012 Kimberly was given the prestigious Jefferson Award for Community Service for her work to support communities in the Bay Area.

In 2013 Kimberly was highlighted by Business Insider on its list of “The 25 Most Influential African- Americans in Technology” and was named to The Root 100 and the Ebony Power 100 lists. The highlight of 2013 was Kimberly’s invitation to the White House as a Champion of Change for her work in tech inclusion and for her focus on bridging the digital divide for girls of color.

In 2014 Kimberly received an American Ingenuity Award in Social Progress from the Smithsonian along with being given the Inaugural Women Who Rule Award in Technology via Politico. She has been identified as a thought leader in the area of tech inclusion and has spoken on the topic at events such as Personal Democracy Forum, TedX Kansas City, Platform Summit, Big Ideas Festival, SXSW, and many others.

Chrissy Houlahan

United States Representative

U.S. Representative Chrissy Houlahan is an Air Force veteran, engineer, entrepreneur, and educator who is continuing her career of service as the first woman ever to represent Pennsylvania's 6th District in Congress.

Chrissy is the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors who came to America with nothing. She grew up in a military family; her parents met when her father and grandfather flew P3s in the same Navy squadron. She earned her engineering degree from Stanford with an ROTC scholarship that launched her service in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserves, and later earned her M.S. in Technology and Policy from MIT.

Chrissy has helped lead several thriving Southeastern Pennsylvania companies including AND1, a basketball apparel company headquartered in Paoli, and B Lab, the organization that launched the B Corporation movement. She went on to serve in Teach for America as a chemistry teacher at Simon Gratz High School in North Philadelphia, and then led and scaled a non-profit helping thousands of underserved students all across America build their literacy skills.

These experiences helped shape her political vision of a great nation united by common values that leaves no one behind. She is committed to fighting for access to quality, affordable healthcare, common sense gun safety, government accountability and transparency, and working to build a strong, stable economy with good jobs and good benefits for everyone.

Chrissy is a leader driven by a spirit of service. She’s a mom, a longtime resident of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and a congressional representative serving in Washington to solve real problems for the people and communities of Pennsylvania.

Jennifer L. Hunt

Stetson Endowed Professor of Experimental Pathology and Chair of the Department of Pathology, Immunology, and Laboratory Medicine

Dr. Hunt is a physician executive who has served in many leadership roles, including her current role as Chair of Pathology, Immunology, and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Florida in Gainesville. In her past role, she was Chair of Pathology at the University of Arkansas and also the first female Chief of Staff for that institution. Dr. Hunt is a certified executive coach and has extensive experience in coaching women leaders in medicine. Dr. Hunt’s personal passion is to help increase the number of women in leadership in healthcare across the country. Dr. Hunt finds great joy in teaching people practical tools, skills, and strategies for personal empowerment and growth.

Karina Montilla Edmonds, PhD

VP, Global Lead for Academies and University Alliances

Karina Montilla Edmonds is a globally recognized visionary leader in the field of innovation, technology transfer, and commercialization. She is a strategic thinker and strong problem solver adept at building partnerships and influencing key stakeholders. Her strong interpersonal skills emphasize her ability to lead with empathy and trust. She has decades of experience working with the private sector, universities, and national laboratories across the country.

Dr. Edmonds currently serves as the VP and Global Lead for Academies and University Alliances at SAP. In this role, she is leading university partnerships that inspire, expose and educate students through engaging SAP curriculum. She also oversees the Sales and Engineering Academies which develop early talent and emerging leaders to build the best sales and engineering talent in the world.

Prior to joining SAP, Edmonds was the Global Lead for Cloud AI at Google in Sunnyvale, California. At Google, her primary role was to facilitate research collaborations in AI between Google Cloud and top academic researchers. Edmonds joined Google Cloud from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where she served as the Executive Director for Corporate Partnerships. At Caltech, she was responsible for implementing and managing an integrated strategy with the private sector and major federal funding agencies across numerous research areas.

Edmonds was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Energy as the first full-time Technology Transfer Coordinator for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in April 2010. In that role, Edmonds was responsible for working with the DOE’s national laboratories to accelerate the advancement of discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace. She has also held positions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and TRW, Inc. (now Northrop Grumman). Edmonds has co-authored two patent applications in the area of noise reduction for the automotive environment. As a Principal Research Scientist, her research at Northrop Grumman was in support of speech recognition for mobile applications.