The UC Womxn in Technology (WIT) Committee is excited to highlight the remarkable contributions of women in IT across the UC system through the annual “UC Womxn Rock IT” blog article. This year, the local WIT chapters nominated either an individual woman or a team of women to showcase their impactful work in Information Technology—from education technology and software development to security and beyond. The article celebrates the achievements of these nominees, who have made significant strides in the IT field or have advanced projects that align with the mission and values of UC WIT. These stories, spanning from March 2024 to February 2025, illustrate the dedication and innovation of women who are essential to the technology that supports and drives the UC system forward.
Sarah Bailey, Content Collaboration Service Lead, Productivity & Collaboration Services, UC Berkeley
Sarah led a project reducing UC Berkeley’s reliance on Google Workspace storage, resulting in annual savings estimated at $1.2M. This massive organizational change was challenging yet impactful due to the significant savings achieved with minimal outside help. Additionally, as co-chair of the Berkeley Staff Assembly (BSA), Sarah was instrumental this past year in efforts to improve staff morale and to strengthen the relationship between BSA, staff and the new chancellor by organizing several “firsts” from smaller group discussions to town halls. These discussions supported open and honest conversations related to staff well-being and current events at the institution and beyond.
Dana Conrad, Educational Specialist for Accessibility and Technology, Teaching & Learning Center (TLC), UC Santa Cruz
Dana has made significant contributions to the campus in many areas. This past year, her achievements were most notably recognized with the Accessibility Team; a group of undergraduate employees ensuring the accessibility of digital course materials. In 2020, Dana identified a need for a proactive approach to accessibility on campus and designed a program allowing instructors to submit course materials for accessibility review and remediation. Each year, Dana recruits and trains new employees, refines processes, and promotes the program. With this work, Dana has made great progress in demystifying and raising the visibility of accessibility benefiting students and faculty alike.
Wei Feinstein, High-Performance Computing Services Lead, IT Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)
Wei exhibits exceptional leadership and technical expertise. Her strategic vision and project management skills enhance the Lab’s infrastructure and user experience. Notably, she revived the High Performance Computing (HPC) Technology Exchange, fostering collaboration among multiple Bay Area institutions and led a complex, urgent HPC software upgrade via Spack to reflect a user-centric approach. Her proactive, problem-solving style, and effective management of daily operations have significantly contributed to departmental success. Beyond her technical role, her leadership as co-chair of the Women’s Support & Empowerment Council Policy Subcommittee advances the professional goals of UC Womxn in Technology, showcasing her commitment to broader organizational initiatives.
Oksana Gologorskaya, Manager of Research Data Strategy and User Success, Academic Research Services (ARS), UCSF
Oksana established User Success as a vital focus in IT ARS, persistently advocating for user needs in planning and operations. She brings a user-centered and product-minded approach. As an example, Oksana interviewed dozens of researchers to ensure AI strategic planning aligned with real UCSF community needs. She also launched Generative AI Office Hours, a meetup-style virtual space where community members share how they use AI in their work, which now consistently has 100+ attendees across UCSF. A skilled technologist herself, Oksana has contributed to research leading to publications in machine learning, Natural Language Processing, and clinical applications. As a leader, Oksana champions the team’s growth and sets them up for success with care, trust, and a clear vision that adds purpose and joy to their work.
Joy Guey, Emerging Technologies Advocate / Developer Social Sciences Center for Education, Research and Technology, UCLA
Joy founded the Bridge Innovation Studio in the Social Sciences Center for Education Research and Technology to assist faculty and students with leveraging emerging technologies to advance their research and pedagogical goals. More recently, she presented at the Administrative Management Group (AMG)’s Annual Leadership Conference entitled, “Navigating the AI Landscape” to inform over 150 attendees on the use of AI for productivity while emphasizing the importance of mitigating biases. She deliberately crafted her messaging to promote a safe environment to ask questions and encouraged everyone to speak out and learn from one another about how they use these tools in their own departments. Moreover, she spearheaded the organization of the Extended Reality (XR) Spring Summit while collaborating with the current chairs of the XR initiative, Francesca Albrezzi and Janar Bauirjan, to bring together over 100 enthusiasts across the UC campuses to engage in exciting topics about extended reality technologies.
Monica Hansen, Manager, Identity and Access Management, UC San Diego Health
Monica is a remarkable leader and has advanced the process and technology used to manage user access at UCSD Health. Under Monica’s leadership, the Access Management team has implemented a Role Based Access Control model of user access, which has allowed for improvements in the efficiency and automation of the provisioning of user accounts and access. These improvements have also enabled her team to provide effective support during recent Strike activity by ensuring that all temporary and contingent workers have fast and easy access to systems and tools required to support ongoing patient care activities. Under Monica’s leadership a small team achieves amazing results with responsibility for managing more than 40,000 user accounts and building appropriate user access in critical enterprise applications such as Epic.
Michelle Key, Business Systems Analyst, ITS Administrative Business Systems, UC Santa Barbara
Michelle is an experienced business analyst and developer with over 20 years of expertise in WebTMA, including eight of those years at UC Santa Barbara. Her contributions have been instrumental in maintaining and optimizing WebTMA, proactively addressing potential issues, and ensuring users have a great experience with the system. While working remotely, Michelle remains highly engaged with her customers, Campus IT, and colleagues. She actively participates in UC Tech and WebTMA conferences each year, fostering connections and sharing knowledge with peers across the UC and industry. Michelle is known for her technical expertise, problem-solving skills, and collaborative approach. She is always willing to assist others and seek solutions, demonstrating both leadership and teamwork. Her dedication, expertise, and forward-thinking mindset make her a deserving nominee for the Womxn in Tech Spotlight.
Jessica Moffat, Inpatient/Emergency Department EMR Analyst, UC Davis Heath
Jessica has consistently shown exceptional leadership skills and is instrumental in the success of implementing complex Epic enhancements to help increase efficiency and value to UC Davis Health Emergency Department workflows. Her background in nursing, nursing informatics and her vast knowledge in Epic makes her an invaluable resource who is always willing to take on new complex projects. Her thirst for knowledge and her eagerness to help her teammates and the customers she supports are second to none. She has repeatedly taken on a multitude of multidisciplinary projects while managing a multitude of Epic enhancements and incident tickets with such ease and poise. Her ability to mentor and provide support and guidance to her colleagues and/or new employees is exceptional.
Gabriela Rabago, Event and Media Services Coordinator, Office of Information Technology, UC Merced (UCM)
Gabriela provided critical audiovisual and technical support for the inaugural CENVAL-ARC Symposium at UC Merced. Remarkably, she accomplished this as a brand-new staff member, quickly adapting to coordinate seamless virtual and in-person sessions, ensuring speakers, including National Science Foundation (NSF) officials, could participate effectively. Her timely problem-solving, attention to detail, and calm management of technical logistics contributed significantly to the symposium’s success and created an inclusive environment for attendees.
Parul Saxena, Manager, Delivery & Quality, Epic Systems, UC Los Angeles Health
Parul exemplifies excellence in IT leadership, consistently demonstrating her expertise and dedication during critical downtimes, cutovers, and upgrades. Parul’s meticulous planning and unwavering commitment ensured a seamless transition, uniting teams, workflows, and patient care. Known for her relentless drive and ability to navigate complex challenges, Parul has been instrumental in the successful transition of the UCLA Health West Valley Medical Center to CareConnect (Epic) from Meditech. Her innovative use of Teams to streamline communication and organization with the use of Lists and Channel posts has significantly enhanced project efficiency. Parul’s commitment to continuous learning, coupled with her leadership and teaching abilities, makes her a standout professional in the field.
Naomi Silguero, IT Security Analyst 3, Administrative IT, UC Davis
Naomi has made a transformative impact by streamlining the Vendor Risk Acceptance (VRA) process at UC Davis Administrative IT. She tackled this essential yet time-consuming cybersecurity challenge by deeply analyzing policies, visually mapping the end-to-end workflow, and identifying bottlenecks. Through her innovative tools, training, and continuous improvements, she has simplified a complex approval process, enhancing efficiency and security. Naomi also fosters inclusivity by hiring and mentoring students—many of them women—helping launch careers in cybersecurity. Her customer-focused approach and dedicated VRA resource webpage provide invaluable support, ensuring a more accessible, effective, and inclusive cybersecurity landscape at UC Davis.
Jade Noelani Yonehiro, Open Access Data Analyst, CA Digital Analyst, UC Office of the President
Jade is a rare UC staff member who is a skilled analyst, advocate for equity and inclusion, and scholar in their own right. They brought all of these skills and experiences to bear on their work for CDL’s Journal Open Access Lookup Tool. Facing a temporary staff absence that would have otherwise delayed the project, they stepped up to provide project leadership and management for the tool’s development, and critical data wrangling work to make the service function. This lynchpin tool allows UC scholars to discover crucial journal publication information, enabling them to fulfill UC’s mission of providing open and equitable scholarship to the larger public community.
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The University of California Women in Technology Committee (UC WIT) is a self-chartered, independent entity that promotes a supportive, inclusive environment to advance the professional goals and aspirations of UC women in technology. Click here to learn more about UC WIT