Who We Are

Alison Stanton is a problem solver focusing on business intelligence reporting, product measurement, process improvement through automation, and technical training. As owner and CEO of Stanton Ventures she makes data accessible, discoverable, and actionable for Operations teams, Product Managers, and clients. Currently, her main languages are SQL, Python, and LookML. She loves knitting and using technology to empower audacious ideas.

Amber Houle is a software developer at ThoughtWorks and is a City Director for Women Who Code Chicago. She is passionate about promoting diversity and bridging the gender gap in STEM fields, which she aims to do by leading technical workshops for women. Having done her undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics, Amber gets strangely excited when talking about Schrodinger or relativity. She also loves piano, running and has a recent obsession with Chow Chows.

Candice Haddad is a software developer at Jellyvision and City Director of Women Who Code Chicago. Candice came to software development after obtaining her Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Michigan, where she researched how people use digital technologies to express themselves and form community. She firmly believes that understanding and learning to code can and does have major social justice impacts and, therefore, wants to make it accessible to all.

Coraline Ada Ehmke is a speaker, writer, teacher, open source advocate and technologist with 20 years of experience in developing apps for the web. As a founding member of OS4W.org and contributor-covenant.org, she works diligently to promote diversity and inclusivity in the tech industry. Her current interests include refactoring, code analytics and artificial intelligence.

Diana Calvache is a food adventurer, adrenaline junkie, and lifelong student. Always open to trying and learning new things, her mission is to make the most out of what limited time we have. In the tech community she is commonly found volunteering as a mentor for young students who have an interest in software or robotics. When not dedicating her time to teaching and learning, she works as a software developer at 8th Light where she writes code that is well documented, easy to read, flexible and maintainable.

Lorena Mesa is a political analyst turned coder. She works as a platform software engineer at Sprout Social, co-organizer for PyLadies Chicago, and Write/Speak/Code conference organizer. Lorena loves to make meaning out of data, asking big questions and using her code to build models to derive that meaning. Part Star Wars fanatic but mostly a Trekkie, Lorena abides by the motto to "live long and prosper".

Nicole Lopez is a software developer for Avant and a product of awesome meetups like Girl Develop It and Railsbridge. She is passionate about coding and loves to learn. Nicole is interested in how technology can be used to better communities, particularly benefitting reproductive rights, domestic violence services, and refugee and immigrant populations.

Rodica Trifan is a software developer. She started with Pascal in school and has been recently learning Ruby and Rails. She is an avid learner of new technologies through both meetups and online self-study resources. Rodica has been a leader at her previous job through the nature of her duties. She organizes tasks and has a clear vision of what needs to be done to finish a project. In her spare time, Rodica likes to dabble with wearables and knitting.

Valerie Concepcion is a software engineer at Enova and City Director for Women Who Code Chicago. She is passionate about using technology to improve the lives of underserved populations and strongly believes that diversity in the tech community is key to this. Hooked on the maker movement, Valerie loves writing code that brings things to life and connects the physical and digital worlds.