Women in Tech winners talk about paving the way in STEM

The honorees featured at the second Women in Tech Awards luncheon were lauded as pioneers in their respective fields ”“ ranging from biotech to engineering to telecommunications ”“ both for their professional accomplishments and because they were often the only females among their peers.

The event, hosted by the Westchester County Association at the Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown on Thursday, highlighted five women for their work in STEM sectors ”” science, technology, engineering and math ”” and included one college and one high school student excelling in those fields.

The honorees were JoAnn Difede, director of the program for anxiety and traumatic stress studies at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center; Joan Fallon, founder and CEO of biopharmaceutical company Curemark LLC; Lynn Macdonald, executive director of the pain and neurology department at Regeneron Phamaceuticals Inc.; Rebecca Sommi, senior vice president of operations, support and engineering at Broadview Networks Inc.; Andrea Soto, vice president at MasterCard; Lindsay Peckham, a student at Westchester Community College studying computer information; and Brigette Obermeyer, a senior at Briarcliff High School who aspires to study engineering.

The event was moderated by William M. Mooney Jr., CEO and president of the Westchester County Association. The keynote speaker was Linda Sanford, a senior advisor at IBM Corp.

Westchester County Executive Robert P. Astorino also spoke briefly to a crowd of 250, announcing a new marketing campaign his office is working on to attract leading female executives to the county.

In brief remarks, the honorees shared similar stories about being the only woman in their respective conference rooms or laboratories.

Macdonald, of Regeneron, urged the young women in the room to get out of their comfort zones and have confidence in themselves in order to grow in what are predominantly male careers.

Soto, of MasterCard, said companies should try to “grow, find and keep” women in technology fields.

“It”™s growing the pipeline” of girls interested in STEM fields, she said.

The next step, she said, is finding the fairly small pool of women in technology.

“How do we raise the profile, specifically for MasterCard, so women are considering us as a technology company and coming to be a part of our family?” Soto asked.

The last item companies should look to change, Soto said, is the pattern of women who drop off halfway through their careers.

“Whether it”™s institutional barriers, unconscious bias, inflexibility with work schedules; whatever the case may be, we”™re seeing we”™re just not getting to those senior and executive levels,” she said.

In the keynote speech, Sanford said women should be collaborative and constantly reinventing themselves.

“We have too many silos and everyone stays in their silo, but real solutions come by bringing people together across the organizations to solve the problems,” she said, adding things are constantly changing “and if you don”™t, you”™re going to become obsolete.”

“We have so many exciting opportunities ahead of us here and it”™s not only an opportunity for women, it”™s an opportunity that needs women,” she said.