GPL Challenge 2024
On September 21, 2024, we will be hosting the Girls' programming league (GPL) challenge virtually.
The event will include a 2 hour competition session in the morning divided into Novice and Advanced divisions. Teams of up to 3 female middle/high school students are welcome to compete! In the afternoon, there will be keynotes speech and a panel discussion given by academic and industrial female leaders whose backgrounds align with this year's theme: computer science and astronomy. By organizing this competition, we aim to inspire and offer female students a chance to tackle algorithmic programming challenges within a nurturing setting suitable for both novice and skilled programmers. The keynote speech and panel discussion are intended to equip participants with perspectives on the current landscape of the STEM field from a female viewpoint.
CONTEST RULES AND FAQ: harkerprogrammingclub.org/contest-rules-faq​
OUR 2024 SPEAKERS
Women in STEM Panel: CS & Astronomy
Dr. Monica Valluri​
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Dr. Maggie Lieu
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Dr. Jessie Christiansen​
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Katelyn Sweeney
Monica Valluri grew up in Bangalore, India where she got her PhD. in Astrophysics prior to moving to the USA for postdoctoral research at Columbia University and Rutgers University. She researches the structure, dynamics, and evolution of galaxies with a focus on the properties of their "dark components": supermassive black holes and dark matter by using computer models. She was a researcher at the University of Chicago before moving to the University of Michigan where she is a Research Professor. Since 2021, she has also been an Associate Director of the Michigan Institute of Computational Discovery and Engineering (MICDE).
Dr. Jessie Christiansen is the Chief Scientist of the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute and a TED fellow. She has worked on the NASA Kepler, K2, and TESS missions, searching the sky for exoplanets, and is helping plan for NASA’s next big flagship missions - the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and the Habitable Worlds Observatory. Dr. Christiansen’s research is in the detection and characterization of exoplanets and their populations, and she is currently the most successful woman planet hunter in the world.
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Dr. Maggie Lieu is a senior research fellow in machine learning and cosmology at the University of Nottingham. Her expertise in Statistics and Machine Learning helped in studies on clusters of galaxies. blackholes, and asteroids. Maggie is also the editor on Astrostatistics and Machine Learning for the Elsevier Astronomy and Computing Journal and a panel member of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) astronomy advisory panel.
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Katelyn graduated from MIT with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She later received a master's degree from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where she worked on helping companies more sustainably manage their water resources. Katelyn Sweeney now works at SpaceX on Starlink’s Direct to Cell program. She has always been fascinated by how space technology can be used to improve people’s lives and continues to spread her passion for invention and innovation, inspiring young girls across the country to pursue careers in STEM fields.