01/24/2012 - First Spring Semester 2012 Meeting!

Wow! Our first meeting was a huge hit. The turnout was beyond anyone's expectations, it was so exciting to see so many new and returning faces interested in CSE and WIC. It was fun playing Apples to Apples, Catchphrase, and eating yummy baked goods with everyone. As Devan mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, there will be lots of various activities this semester such as engineering banquets, laser tagging, and another Girl Scout Workshop. There are so many ways to get involved this semester so make sure you're on the WIC e-mail list :) Next meeting- laser tag!

12/05/2011 - Digital Organisms and Evolution: The Avida Meeting

For our last meeting of the semester, WIC hosted a presentation from member Mairin Chesney about Avida and Avida-Ed software. Avida is a complex program used by researchers to study evolution using digital organisms, and Avida-Ed is a tool developed here at Michigan State that aims to make the technology more accessible to students learning about evolution and enables them to design their own experiments.

Mairin's presentation was a great introduction to both Avida and Avida-Ed, helping to show how the fields of biology and computer science are working together in new and exciting ways.

• MSU Digital Evolution Laboratory (Devo Lab)
• Avida-Ed at MSU
• 'Testing Darwin' - Discover Magazine's cover story on the Devo Lab

12/01/2011 - The Grace Hopper Experience - Angela Mireau

At Grace Hopper I really liked the feeling of unity with the other girls. We are used to being the minority, but now we were the majority and we were celebrating this! It was very interesting to meet other women at other companies and schools and just hearing their stories. I felt the conference was inspiring to reach your potential. One line from CIO of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg's keynote speech that stood out to me was, "What would you do if you weren't afraid?". The conference helps overcome doubts you have about yourself, and explore options with employment and graduate opportunities.

On our plane ride home from Portland, almost half the passengers were women who attended Grace Hopper. They cheered "I am a technical woman!" and we all responded "We are technical women!". It was a great cap to the spirit of the conference.