A Jane of All Trades: 2019's Hall of Fame Inductees

What do an engineer, a corporate vice president, two professors and a founder have in common? They're all Women In Technology International's 2019 Hall of Fame Inductees. And, they have a lot of reason to be. Each inductee has excelled in their field by blazing new trails and creating opportunity where it once didn't exist.



Dr. Heather Hinton just received an IBM Corporate Patent Portfolio for her work there in ensuring the safety and privacy of the company and it's users. With the constant concern in media and American public life that consumers have lost all privacy in their online lives, Dr. Hinton works to change that perception.

Julia Liuson is the first woman to be promoted to corporate vice president of Engineering at Microsoft. She manages practically every portion of Microsoft's engineering base including artificial intelligence, mobile and Windows apps and all of the programming languages. Liuson is a pioneer in her field not only through her appointment to corporate vice president but also her ability to manage large teams, sometimes even across oceans.

Dr. Sara Rushinek has served as a visiting professor all around the United States and world but makes her home in Miami at the University of Miami Business School. She is truly a jane of all trades, with specialities in fields as different as SEO app development and health informatics. Dr. Rushinek offers a world of knowledge to her hundreds of students.

Blanca Trevino's addition to the Mexican Council of Businessmen caused the organization to change its name after years of unchecked gender discrimination. Trevino's massive success is all attributable to her co-founding of Softtek in 1982, which now has 12,000 employees across the world. Her early deduction that IT services would be in high demand for the coming generation sealed her success.

Dr. Natalia Trayanova is one of the leading medical professionals changing the field for patients with cardiac arrhythmia. She earned the NIH Director's Pioneer Award for designing computational devices used in patients with cardiac arrhythmia. Dr. Trayanova's work saves lives and makes space for more crossover between the medical and technological fields.

All five of these esteemed professionals pushed through the tech industry in a time when it was even less welcoming to women than today. Many of them like Trevino and Dr. Trayanova, created new technologies that changed the face of their industries. Dr. Hinton, Liuson, and Dr. Rushinek all brought a new perspective to their fields and changed them for the better. All five Hall of Fame Inductees have very different careers and aren't all located in Silicon Valley. They find their expertise useful all around the world, with teams varying in size, and responsibilities vastly different.

Dr. Hinton, Liuson, and Trevino spend their time in offices, Dr. Rushinek in a classroom, and Dr. Trayanova in a lab but despite their differences, their accomplishments make them some of the most venerable women in technology this year. The inductees will receive their award at the Women in Technology Summit this June in San Jose. Summit attendees will have a chance to hear the inductees speak and have the opportunity to network at the awards luncheon.

Opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of WITI.