Silicon Valley Bangladeshi Women in STEM (SVBW STEM)

 Afroza Ahammed is a Senior Clinical Laboratory Scientist (CLS) at Kaiser Permanente. She has been providing quality patient care, which complies with local, state and federal requirements, for a decade now.  Born in Bangladesh, she resided and grew up in Qatar since three months of age; after finishing High School, she came to the US for higher studies. Afroza graduated from San Jose State University (SJSU) with a Bachelor's in Microbiology, later completed the SJSU Clinical Lab Scientist internship program in affiliation with Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC). Upon passing the CLS (ASCP-BOC) exam, she joined Kaiser Permanente clinical laboratory as a generalist in 2008. She had already completed most of the MA course works in Molecular and Microbial Biology at SJSU before joining the CLS program. The MA degree was conferred in 2010. Kaiser Permanente recognized her outstanding qualification and efforts in 2015 and she was promoted to a Senior CLS II classification. R...

 Ishita Moazzem is currently working as a Software Quality Assurance Engineer at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Her primary responsibilities include managing software QA for Centrios software, managing TestLink test suites database, verifying field reported issues, and assisting in live demonstrations for software releases to potential clients of Intel and TSMC. She earned her Master's degree in Information Technology from Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and her Bachelor's degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from North South University in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In addition to her studies, Ishita was involved in writing Bengali plays and poems for various cultural events organized by the Bangladesh Student Association of Georgia Tech, USA. She was also a regular performer in plays and singing. Outside of work, Ishita enjoys spending time with her husband and son, and reconnecting with her passion for writing and performing on stage.

 Shamema Nasrin is a research scientist at Gilead Sciences who specializes in designing, executing, and interpreting in-vivo and in-vitro systems to predict the pharmacokinetics, disposition, and metabolism of small molecules. She has over six publications and has received multiple awards for her leadership and research presentations.  Before her current role, she worked in the pharmaceutical industry for five years in global regulatory compliance analytical method development, which has given her a solid foundation in regulatory compliance and honed her analytical method development skills. She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences & Molecular Medicine from Washington State University and a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from Khulna University in Bangladesh. 

 Anika currently works as an M&A Strategist at Intuitive Surgical Inc, where she is focused on developing a go-to-market strategy for an AI tool used in non-invasive robotic surgery. She has been working in the healthtech industry for the last 8 years, practicing her background in engineering in the world of business mergers and acquisitions.  Anika earned her MS in EE from Santa Clara University, and her MBA from the University of California Los Angeles. She holds a BS in EE from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). In her free time, she illustrates children's books to provide resources for bilingual children to learn Bengali alongside English. Additionally, she is actively involved in volunteering for her company's Women Leadership Network and Pan Asian Employees resource group.

 Kaneez Tumpa is a Transportation Electrical Engineer at Caltrans in California District 4. She is part of the design team responsible for developing electrical design plans for highway lighting, electrical, and power systems. Prior to joining Caltrans, Kaneez worked in the semiconductor field for over 15 years as a DFT (Design for Test) Engineer at Rambus and Cadence, where she supported testing, silicon bring ups, and chip debugging for various memory interfaces and emulation platforms. Kaneez holds an MSc degree from San Jose State University and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). In her free time, Kaneez enjoys traveling, cooking, and reading books on technology and leadership. She also volunteers for various community service projects and organizations.

 Mehnaz Rahman is a Research Scientist at Intel Lab in Santa Clara, specializing in Wifi, LTE, 5G, 6G, MIMO, and other pioneering wireless technology. She has been working at Intel Lab since 2016 and has filed over 30 US patents and other publications. She is also an author of a book on 5G communication published by Springer, which has been distributed to libraries of all the reputed universities of the world. Mehnaz completed her Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. She completed her journey in less than 3.5 years with a published book and patent on her own, along with numerous journals and conference papers. Mehnaz completed her undergraduate program in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in Dhaka. Mehnaz has given multiple guest appearances and talks on 5G wireless communication at the global level. Apart from her academic achievements, Mehnaz is an active member ...

Tanzia Ahmed Nijhum, MD is an Internal Medicine Physician at Kaiser Permanente Health Center in Milpitas, California. She previously worked as a clinical research assistant at Harvard Medical School and as a physician in a rural area for a Johns Hopkins University project to decrease maternal and infant mortality rates.  Nijhum's research work on telehealth applications for community health workers in rural Bangladesh has been published in “BMC Medical informatics and Decision Making”, “Journal of Critical Care Medicine”, and “Journal for American College of Physician”. She has also worked as a clinical observer at the University of Illinois, University of Chicago, and Indiana University. Nijhum worked as a physician for a project led by Johns Hopkins University to decrease maternal and infant mortality rates in a rural area. This experience motivated her to continue working for the underprivileged population. She volunteered to work for extra months in the Intensive Care Unit duri...