Women in Healthcare - Meet Our Panelists!

Our Virtual Panel is coming up on Wednesday, September 29th at 6pm! Read about our panelists from clinical areas, research, and healthcare tech who will share some of the experiences that have led them to their current roles.

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- Brina Aceves -

Moderator, SBWiStem leadership

I’m Brina, a fourth year at UCSB as a Cell and Developmental Biology major and a part of Prof. Thomas Weimbs research lab where we investigate polycystic kidney disease and the development of new therapies. I hope to go into the research field and eventually study women's health. My goal is to empower women in STEM and better healthcare provided to women all over! Outside of academics I do love surfing, being active and cooking!

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- Christine Raby -

Panelist, well health

Christine Raby is the VP of Professional Services at WELL Health. Prior to WELL Health, Christine worked on public health initiatives at Mayo Clinic and Mount Sinai. She then transitioned to healthcare technology, where she drove growth at Noom Health and MDLIVE. During her time off, Christine enjoys exploring the great outdoors with her Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

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- Sara Imam -

Panelist, Well Health

Sara Imam is a senior at the University of California, Berkeley, pursuing a degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, with a mathematical emphasis on data science. She is currently a Jr. Software Engineer at WELL Health. Sara also enjoys numerous volunteer and extra-curricular activities, such as serving as the president of Womxn in Mathematics and teaching classes about 3D printing. Outside of work, Sara spends her time playing video games and Magic the Gathering, building computers, 3D printing, listening to music, and she is a huge mechanical keyboard enthusiast. Sara is fluent in English, French, and Bengali.

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- Joy Kane -

Panelist, Santa Barbara county Health Department

Joy Kane is the Senior Epidemiologist at Santa Barbara County Public Health Department. Since the start of the pandemic, Joy has overseen the COVID-19 Epidemiology Branch, which has provided Santa Barbara County residents and decision makers with vital data on the pandemic. Joy has over 10 years of experience working in public health settings. Joy holds a Master's degree in Public Health, specializing in Epidemiology. In her free time, Joy enjoys beach days with her dog.

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- Brenda Aceves -

Panelist, Interventional Radiology Nurse Practitioner

Brenda Aceves is an Interventional Radiology Nurse Practitioner at Stanford. She works directly with Interventional Radiology physicians to provide optimal care to inpatient and clinic patients. As a clinician, she provides direct care in treatment and management of patients that require minimally invasive surgical procedures. She collaborates with other specialties to provide multidisciplinary care, including, gynecology, oncology, vascular, etc. Previously, she started a Nurse Practitioner run inpatient Cardiology service at Loma Linda University Medical Center, where she was the primary provider for hospitalized cardiology patients. She received her BSN in 2014, MSN-FNP in 2018, and was recently accepted to a DNP-Executive track at John Hopkins University. She loves to participate in initiatives that focus on improving minority health care and health disparity, specifically among the Latino community. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her family.

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- Barbara Conviser -

Panelist, Sansum Clinic

Barbara Conviser has worked in healthcare for over 20 years.  As an epidemiologist, research director and informatics manager, she combines analytics with wide-ranging industry experience to improve both care and efficiency. 

She began her career in Clinical Research and served as Research Director at the Cancer Center of Santa Barbara, where she expanded a small department into a thriving program, partnered with global research consortiums.  

Looking to engage in problem-solving on a broader level, she transitioned to Population Health and Value Based Care, where she utilizes clinical data and analytics to improve health across populations while ensuring efficient utilization of healthcare resources. 

Barbara currently serves as the Director of Population Health and Decision Support at Sansum Clinic where she bridges the technical aspects of healthcare with the hands-on operations and patient/provider aspects of care delivery.  

Barbara received her undergraduate degree in molecular biology from Princeton and her Masters in Public Health-Epidemiology from UCLA. She came to Santa Barbara in 2003, where she still happily lives with her two children, husband and dog.

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Special thanks to WELL Health for sponsoring this event!

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Lightning Talks Spotlight: Ali French & Lauren Wong from HG Insights

For those of you who don’t already know, Santa Barbara Women in STEM is hosting our first of many Lightning Talks event on March 3, 2021 at 6:00pm PST via Zoom. This event is sponsored by HG Insights, and will feature 10 speakers, from a variety of companies, who will share their software-related projects and passions in only three minutes! There will be prizes and giveaways for both the speakers and the attendees. We hope to see you there!

View the event and RSVP:

Lightning Talks Event - Software. March 3, 2021 at 6:00pm PST.

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This past week, we connected with Ali French and Lauren Wong, both from HG Insights, a technology intelligence software company located in Santa Barbara. Ali is a Sr. Manager of Global Revenue Operations, and Lauren is a Senior Data Services Engineer. They shared what they love about working at HG Insights, their perspective on what the recruiting process is like now, and what HG Insights is doing to maintain collaboration among teams. Check out their interviews below, and be sure to catch their Lightning Talks on March 3rd!

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Q: What do you love about HG Insights?

Ali: I love that we're growing quickly but are able to maintain the internal personal relationships of a small company.

Ali French, HG Insights

Lauren Wong, HG Insights

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Lauren: Definitely the culture! Working with colleagues who are just as passionate and motivated about what we do is a bonus that motivates me to do my best daily. Its rewarding being able to see my day-to-day work impact our customers directly as well.

Q: How are you able to share the sense of work culture, community, and collaboration to prospective employees via remote interviews? 

Ali: I like to talk about the "before times" and compare it to how those same things are now. For example - in the "before times" we could easily walk to the funk zone or somewhere close for happy hour and in the "now times" we do virtual happy hours (not as many as when WFH first started - the zoom fatigue is REAL but that's ok and people understand that virtual happy hours don't HAVE to happen, and they can be scheduled ad hoc).

Q: How has the office environment changed since going remote?

Lauren: Aside from the Zoom fatigue that I'm sure we're all experiencing, I would say HG has done a good job at keeping all of us connected. Whether it's through virtual happy hours, drive-thru lunches, or keeping our company town halls a good mix of business and fun. HG's company culture is a large part of our office environment as well, I think all of my colleagues genuinely like working with each other and connecting with each other, so it's really a natural thing.

HG Insights Group Fitness Class

Q: What are key things (skills, experience, interests) that you look for in potential interns or entry-level employees?

Ali: Problem Solving is number 1 for me. Not just from the standpoint of "can this person fix what's broken in the system/process" but from the standpoint of can this person be forward thinking enough to know that a solution is a bad idea because it solves a problem today but will lead to another one in 6-12 months. Even if those situations are unavoidable and you have to put a Band-Aid on something, having the ability to identify those situations is key. This is also a reason why I'm a big fan of giving late-stage candidates interview assignment/project - it weeds out people who aren't serious about the opportunity and gives them a real-life example of something they'd need to problem solve for on the job.

Lauren: I would say it's important for potential interns to have a natural desire and passion for working with data. Having that innate curiosity for asking the 'why' and challenging what is considered the standard quo is something HG looks for in its candidates.

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Q: How has the interview process (and/or recruiting process) changed since going remote?

Ali: Personally, I like zoom interviews. It keeps people on time because both the candidate and the interviewer can see when another person has entered the zoom room, signaling that it's time to wrap up. That was hard to do when conducting in person interviews without feeling rude to the candidate. And if one interview runs late, it throws off the entire schedule which can often lead to last minute shuffling of interview slots (and everyone hates last minute schedule changes!)

Q: Hobby/activity you have picked up in quarantine?

Ali: PiYo!! (Pilates-Yoga Hybrid). Pre-quarantine I was not a huge fan of group classes but now I'm a big fan. I love it even more because it's run by a co-worker’s wife. Her Facebook group has been a life saver for both my physical and mental health during quarantine!

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Ali with her dog

Q: What’s your go-to work snack?

Ali: Chips, Chips and more chips.

Lauren: Before our offices closed, I definitely would go for our usual Wednesday bagels, but since work from home, I love going for a classic avocado toast with tomatoes and balsamic vinegar or Trader Joes' soft dried mangos!

Q: What was the last song you listened to?

Ali: I don't wanna know - Fleetwood Mac

Lauren: Pretty Bug (feat. James Vincent McMorrow) by Allan Rayman

Good Space Giveaway and Interview with Owner, Mika Silverman

In collaboration with Good Space Coworking, we are awarding a student in STEM one membership grant!

This grant provides one student with a membership to Good Space for one academic term, beginning January 2020. Good Space Coworking provides a quiet, focused study and work space for students and professionals alike. We are following all local COVID recommendations including frequent sanitization, socially distant workspaces, and enforcing mask usage for all of our members.

A winner will be selected on December 30th!

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For more info on Good Space Coworking, check out our interview with owner, Mika Silverman below!

Q: Being a woman in STEM - studying physics at UCSB, working in IT and project management, and as a consultant and business owner - why do you find it so important to support students entering STEM fields?

A: STEM isn’t easy but it is exceptionally valuable to individuals, society, and the planet. Personally, it took me years to feel comfortable contributing when I was the only woman in the room. I felt I was under added scrutiny. The tipping point for me was when I knew I was the best in the room. I want to help others get there so they can make valuable contributions. 

Mika Silverman, Owner/Founder of Good Space

Q: What makes Good Space stand out when it comes to study spaces for students? 

A: Aside from being a comfortable place to study, with plenty of desks, great wifi, comfy chairs, outlets everywhere, quiet, with plenty of free, easy parking, the Good Space community is what makes it a great place to study. Good Space has many people studying not just from various universities but for exams such as MCATs, LSATs, USMLE. 

Q: favorite Hobbies during COVID?

A: I have always been a hiker, but lately, without anything social to do on a Saturday, I have switched from doing a quick four or five miles to doing longer ten or twelve hikes. I usually take the podcast “More or Less” with me. It is a fantastic deep dive into popularized news statistics, going past the number into how the data was gathered, the accuracy, and analysis.

Q: What have been some of your clients’ successes using Good Space during COVID? 

A: Good Space has been facilitating stress-free productivity for many members during COVID. That has translated into different types of success. I hear about great test scores, funding for new ventures, landing new jobs, contracts for hundreds of thousands of dollars closing, and great term GPAs. I think everyone is succeeding in their own pursuits.

Q: Anything else you want to talk about? 

A: Good Space was founded to bring the business, science, technology, and academic communities together because my personal passion is bringing people together to support them. I encourage people to contact me. Entrepreneur looking for some pitch deck feedback, contact me. Student in desperate need for a quiet place to study, but can’t afford membership, contact me. Work-from-home parent professional that needs space a few days a week, contact me. Looking for contacts to help find a job, contact me. I can’t always help, but if I can I want to.

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Workshop Follow-Up: Healthcare industry insights

Thank you for attending our Virtual Panel and Workshop! In this post and some future ones, we will answer more of your questions with help from members of our network. Up first is nurse practitioner Vicky Diaz.

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Below are questions and answers about the healthcare industry from Vicky Diaz, MSN FNP:

Q: How important is networking to get your foot in the door in the healthcare industry? 

A: I feel that networking is very important. I have actually found most of my jobs through people that I know. I'm a board member for the California Association Nurse Practitioner SB chapter and I encourage nurse practitioner students who are about to graduate to come to our events. During our monthly meetings we often announce job openings. The best way to get the foot in the door of a new job is to know somebody who works there. The more a person sees you, the better they know you and the more likely it is that you will be considered for a job.

Q: How does medical training/education look different right now due to COVID?

A: I'm a preceptor for nurse practitioner students. However, due to COVID my boss decided that I could not take any students due to distancing and decreasing the traffic in our practice. We are also required to wear PPE and for a while it was difficult to get N95 Masks for our staff, so having a student was out of the question. I feel that [due to COVID] student nurse practitioners are struggling to get placement for their training since there are only a few places that allow students. I have had to turn down several students in order to protect my patients (since I work with elderly population). Therefore, my advice would be for anyone who is a student to try to get an internship or a lower paying job in the company where they want to eventually work. It is OK to start as a janitor or the dishwasher at the company if this will lead to other opportunities. 

Q: What are your top tips for students who are figuring out if they want to enter the medical field? 

A: I highly recommend young adults to consider going into the medical field since it offers job security. However, don't do it if you hate working with people or hate blood. The best way to know if you would like working in the medical field is to do volunteer work at a clinic or hospital. This way you can get used to being around sick people. It is important to acquire skills on how to help others in need and learn to be compassionate and caring. I started working as a caregiver. 

Q: Why did you choose to enter the medical field, and what did your decision process look like?

A: I decided to go into the medical field after my sister found me a summer job being a caregiver for a lady who was dying of cancer. It felt good to help somebody and get paid for it. It did not feel like a job.

Since I had no money for college, I started at SBCC. I do feel that many city colleges offer vocational degrees that are in demand. Getting my registered nurse degree from SBCC led to more opportunities and I was able to find a job right away. Also being able to work allow me to pursue my dream without having too many student loans.