Ada Lovelace Day: Dr. Rosio Alvarez
When G sent me this post about Ada Lovelace Day, little did he know that I actually had the perfect “xika boss” to blog about in honor of women and technology - and that I’m related to her!
First, a bit about Ada Lovelace Day:
Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.
Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Entrepreneurs, innovators, sysadmins, programmers, designers, games developers, hardware experts, tech journalists, tech consultants. The list of tech-related careers is endless.
The post goes on to cite psychological research which shows that women need female role models more than men need male role models, and thus the blogging project is a way to shed light on the accomplishments and contributions of these kick-@$$ mujeres to provide a roster from which to draw inspiration.
Thus, without further ado, I present to you Dr. Rosio Alvarez, Chief Information Officer at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. (If you’re wondering why this place sounds familiar, it’s because President Obama’s pick for Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu, was serving as the Lab’s Director when he was nominated.)
Rosio is my mother’s cousin (her father is my maternal grandmother’s brother). I didn’t really know her growing up, but I heard about her being way out there on the other side of the country in this place called “Massachusetts” (where I would later, coincidentally, spend seven years of my own life!) Turns out she was out there getting herself educated (B.S., M.B.A., Ph.D.) and moving up the ladder (Executive Director, Office of Information Technologies; Associate Chancellor; Assistant to the Deputy Chancellor) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Can I get a WOW?!?!
After spending 18 years back East pioneering in the fields of information technology and management, she returned home to California and has been at the Berkeley Lab since 2007. As Chief Information Officer, she is charged with managing a 130-member IT Division, as well as continuing with her own research on the socio-cultural implications of technology use in organizations. Here’s a glimpse at the types of people and work under her purview:
She’s pretty amazing, no? I’m glad I share some genes with her and that I was given this opportunity to highlight her work in honor of Ada Lovelace Day. Not only is she accomplished as a person, but she is a prime example of a woman, woman of color, Xikana/Latina, and all the other multiplicities of identity she may ascribe to, who serves as a trailblazing role model for us all.
