3rd Annual U of T Scientista Conference
Advancement and Integration of Women in STEM - Women Coming Together
The University of Toronto Scientista Chapter will be holding its annual conference on March 19, 2022, aimed at the advancement and integration of women in STEM. This conference will host a variety of female STEM keynotes, workshops, panels, and networking opportunities.
Join us for the chance to be part of a movement towards women’s equity in STEM, learn new skills, and network with leading women in their fields.
Location: Virtual through gather town
Date: March 19, 2022
Price: Free
Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/504003677770368?ref=newsfeed
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Conference Schedule
Meet Our Keynote Speakers!
Inmar Givoni writes fiction.
She is also a start-up mentor, AI consultant, advisory board member, and a public speaker on AI, tech leadership and other topics. She volunteers her time organizing events and conferences for tech leadership, women in tech, and AI in Toronto (and combinations, thereof).
Before turning to writing, she was a Director of Engineering at Uber Advanced Technology Group, Toronto, where she led a team who brought from research and into production cutting-edge deep-learning models for self-driving vehicles. She received her PhD (Computer Science) in 2011 from the University of Toronto, specializing in machine learning, and was a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge. She worked at Microsoft Research, Altera (now Intel), Kobo, and Kindred at roles ranging from research scientist to VP, Big Data, applying machine learning techniques to various problem domains and taking concepts from research to production systems. She is an inventor of several patents and has authored numerous top-tier academic publications in the areas of machine learning, computer vision, and computational biology. She is a regular speaker at AI events, and is particularly interested in outreach activities for young women, encouraging them to choose technical career paths. For her volunteering efforts, she has received the Arbor Award from UofT. She has been recognized as one of Canada’s 50 inspiring women in STEM (2018), one of Canada’s Tech Titans: Top 19 of 2019, and one of Forbes Magazine’s Women in AI to watch (2020). She was featured in Marie Claire, Toronto Life, The Globe and Mail, TWIML & AI podcast, ReWork’s list of 30 influential women in Canadian AI, UofT’s News, and other media venues, as well as the 2021 “See It Be It Stem It” calendar.
Dr. Sheila Singh is a professor of surgery and biochemistry, chief pediatric neurosurgeon at McMaster Children’s Hospital, former Division Head of Neurosurgery at Hamilton Health Sciences, and inaugural director of the new Cancer Research Centre at McMaster University. She holds a Tier 1/ Senior Canada Research Chair in Human Brain Cancer Stem Cell Biology, and is the founding Director of the McMaster Surgeon Scientist Program. Her PhD thesis described the novel identification of a population of cancer stem cells that exclusively drive the formation of brain tumours. Since 2007, Dr. Singh's lab applies a developmental neurobiology framework to the study of brain tumorigenesis. Building upon previous cell culture techniques developed for the isolation of normal neural stem cells (NSC) and applying them to brain tumours, and through development of a xenograft model to efficiently study brain tumour initiating cell (BTIC) activity, Dr. Singh's lab aims to understand the molecular mechanisms that govern BTIC self- renewal. Dr. Singh is currently studying the regulation of BTIC signaling pathways in glioblastoma, brain metastases and childhood medulloblastoma, with an ultimate goal of selectively targeting the BTIC with appropriately tailored drug and molecular therapies. Her laboratory is funded by CCSRI, CIHR, TFRI, CRS, the Stem Cell Network, McMaster Surgical Associates,
Brain Canada and the Boris Family Fund. She is scientific founder and prior CEO of a start-up company, Empirica Therapeutics, a brain cancer therapeutics company that is seeking new, data-driven and polytherapeutic treatment options for patients with Glioblastoma and brain metastases. Empirica was acquired by Century Therapeutics Inc (Philadelphia) in June 2020, resulting in the creation of a Canadian subsidiary, Century Canada, based in the McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton.
Meet Our Panelists!
