Mary Fernández is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and activist for women and minorities in

science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of ...

(STEM). She is the CEO of MentorNet, a not-for-profit online organization that helps mentors and students in STEM develop mentoring relationships that enable students to gain insight on how to set and reach their academic goals and prepare for potential internships that align with their careers.

Education

Fernández enrolled in the engineering department at

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

in the early 1980s. After taking an introductory computer science course taught by

Andries van Dam Andries "Andy" van Dam (born December 8, 1938) is a Dutch-American professor of computer science and former vice-president for research at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Together with Ted Nelson he contributed to the first hypert ...

, she changed her major to computer science. She earned her

bachelor's A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ( ...

and

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

degrees from Brown, and her Ph.D. from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1995. While pursuing her degree at Princeton and before she became the CEO of MentorNet years later, Fernández sought mentoring from Brian Kernighan *69, today a Princeton professor as she struggled to adapt to her environment at Princeton. As a female minority and first-generation student the struggle to maintain and accomplish a career in STEM, especially a male-dominated field, Fernández was able to achieve her goals with her mentor and inspired her to mentor for MentorNET when it was founded in 1997.

Career

Fernández joined

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

as a senior technical staff member in 1995. She worked there for seventeen years, ending her career as the Assistant Vice President of Information and Software Systems Research. During her time there, she worked on technology to handle semi-structured

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

, particularly the

XQuery XQuery (XML Query) is a query language and functional programming language designed to query and transform collections of structured and unstructured data, primarily in the form of XML. It also supports text data and, through implementation-sp ...

language. In 1998, Fernández joined MentorNet, an organization that matches mentors with STEM students and helps them develop mentoring relationships. She joined the board of directors of the organization in 2009, becoming the board chair in 2011. In 2013 she became CEO, and she transitioned to president in 2014 when MentorNet became a division of the Great Minds in STEM non-profit. Fernández served as the secretary and treasurer of ACM

SIGMOD SIGMOD is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Management of Data, which specializes in large-scale data management problems and databases. The annual ACM SIGMOD Conference, which began in 1975, is considered one of ...

, and was the associate editor of ''

ACM Transactions on Database Systems The ''ACM Transactions on Database Systems'' (''ACM TODS'') is one of the journals produced by the Association for Computing Machinery. ''TODS'' publishes one volume yearly. Each volume has four issues, which appear in March, June, September and ...

''. She serves on the board of the

Computing Research Association The Computing Research Association (CRA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit association of North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering, and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia enga ...

. In 2011, Fernández was awarded the Great Minds in STEM Technical Achievement in Industry Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fernández, Mary American women computer scientists American computer scientists Brown University alumni Princeton University alumni AT&T people Scientists from New York (state) Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century American scientists 21st-century American scientists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists