UC Merced: Thirty-four students from San Joaquin Valley colleges are getting an opportunity to learn how to access and build careers in technology and research at a unique workshop designed to help diversify science-related fields.
Students from UC Merced, Merced College and California State University, Stanislaus, will attend the three-day Valle de Exploracion: Find Your Path to a Tech Career workshop held Feb. 7-9 at UC Merced.
The workshop is funded by a Google Explore Computer Science Research grant and funding from the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS).
The public is invited to attend the opening address by Julie Baker, who went from teaching music to building Ursa Space Systems, a satellite and Earth-imagery tech company.
Baker is an advocate for diversity in hiring, with women making up half of Ursa’s leadership team.
“When we started hiring, we were very careful and cognizant of the fact that when people are interviewing, they tend to really gravitate to those who are most like themselves,” she said in an interview on Forbes.com.
The lecture takes place at noon Feb. 7 in Classroom and Office Building 2, Room 140. For more information, visit citris.ucmerced.edu.
Students in the workshop come from the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, and will be trained in computer science, data and application development. Their mentors will include Saeideh Bakhshi, a quantitative UX researcher at Google, and ag-food-tech leaders Seana Day and Adrienne Gifford.