By UC Tech News
The UC Womxn in Technology (WIT) Committee is once again highlighting the remarkable contributions of women in IT across the UC system through the annual “UC Womxn Rock IT” campaign.
Local WIT chapters nominated individual women and teams of women for their impactful work in Information Technology — from education technology and software development to security and beyond. All nominees have made significant strides in the IT field or have advanced projects that align with the mission and values of UC WIT from March 2024 through February 2025.
Congratulations to all the nominees and finalists for their dedication and innovation! Their work is essential to supporting our university and driving our work forward.
Meet the UC womxn who rock IT!
Sarah Bailey
Content Collaboration Service Lead, Productivity and 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 Conard
Educational Specialist for Accessibility and Technology, Teaching and Learning Center, 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. Through this work, Dana has made great progress in demystifying and raising the visibility of accessibility benefiting students and faculty alike.
Alexandra Chrystal
Communication and Training Manager, Information Technology Solutions, UC Riverside
Alex set a good foundation for UC Riverside’s implementation of the UC Cybersecurity Mandate by creating a comprehensive communication and training plan that brings awareness and drives action, ensuring that UC Riverside meets the cybersecurity requirements. Finding ways to implement security enhancements in the least disruptive way is challenging. Alex balances the technical team by consistently advocating for good user experience and considering the impact of changes on students, faculty and staff. She develops solutions that accommodate the various needs of the UC Riverside community, empowering ITS to develop and provide helpful guidance for campus users.
Wei Feinstein
High-Performance Computing Services Lead, IT Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
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 and 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. She interviewed dozens of researchers to ensure AI strategic planning aligned with real UCSF community needs and launched Generative AI Office Hours, a meetup-style virtual space where community members share how they use AI in their work. This event 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 and 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’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, collaborating with the current chairs of the XR initiative, Francesca Albrezzi and Janar Bauirjan, to bring together over 100 enthusiasts from throughout the University of California to engage in exciting topics related to 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 efficiency and automation for provisioning user accounts and access. These developments enabled her team to provide effective support during recent labor activity by ensuring that all temporary and contingent workers had fast and easy access to the systems and tools required to support ongoing patient care. Under Monica’s leadership, a small team achieves amazing results, 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 that 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, teamwor, dedication, expertise and forward-thinking mindset.
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 and nursing informatics and her vast knowledge in Epic makes her an invaluable resource. She is always willing to take on new complex projects. Her thirst for knowledge and 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 new employees is exceptional.
Gabriela Rabago
Event and Media Services Coordinator, Office of Information Technology, UC Merced
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 that speakers, including National Science Foundation 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 and Quality, Epic Systems, UCLA Health
Parul exemplifies excellence in IT leadership, consistently demonstrating her expertise and dedication during critical downtimes, cutovers and upgrades. Her 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, California Digital Library, UC Office of the President
Jade is a rare UC staff member who is a skilled analyst, advocate for equity and inclusion and scholar. They brought all these skills and experiences to bear on their work for the California Digital Library’s Journal Open Access Lookup Tool. Facing a temporary staff absence that would have otherwise delayed the project, Jade 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.
About the UC Womxn in Technology Committee
The University of California Womxn 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. Learn more about UC WIT.