Quarry Lane School to Launch Women-Focused Speaker Series

This fall, The Quarry Lane School is launching a speaker series focused on empowering women in science, engineering and technology. The series will feature female visionaries and thought-leaders from various companies throughout the Bay Area and beyond. The first event of the series will be held on September 22nd and feature a panel of speakers from companies including Netflix and SAP.

“Our goal in launching this series is to empower our female student body to rise above any barriers or expectations,” says Andrea Gia Bevilacqua, Dean of Student Affairs at The Quarry Lane School. Ms. Bevilacqua was also central in organizing the speaker series. “By engaging with professionals and thought-leaders in these fields, we hope to further spark an interest and encourage more girls to pursue paths in science, engineering and technology; these are fields where women are largely underrepresented.”

Quarry Lane’s speaker series aims to feature one speaker, or panel of speakers, each month throughout the school year and will be open to female students in their middle to high school grade levels. In addition, field trips to offices and headquarters of the speaker’s companies are planned.

“At Quarry Lane, we have always aspired to create an atmosphere that encourages our students to adopt a ‘limitless mindset’,” says Dr. Sabri Arac, Founder and Headmaster at The Quarry Lane School. “Limitless, in that we want our students to know no boundaries, to know and believe that they can achieve anything they set their minds to. I truly believe that our students will be the future leaders and innovators of our world. With women sorely underrepresented in industries of technology, science and engineering, we want to open the minds of our female students to the possibility of a career in those fields and we strive to provide opportunities to foster this initiative. Launching this series is another way for us to continue this pursuit.”

Speakers for the first event will include: Ashley Sprague, Director of IT at Netflix; Devika Chawal, Engineering Director at Netflix; Alisa Peters, Sr. Software Engineer at Netflix; and Lisa Buccino, Senior Intellectual Property Attorney for SAP. More information on upcoming speakers will be available at The Quarry Lane School’s website: http://www.quarrylane.org/page.cfm?p=1619