Rising Stars
We recognize the contributions and impact of our more established alumni and friends through the College of Computing Hall of Fame.
Class Six
Joy Buolamwini, Artist-in-Chief and President, Algorithmic Justice League
Joy Buolamwini (B.S. CS '12) is the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, a groundbreaking MIT researcher, and an artist. She wrote the national bestseller Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines. Her research on facial recognition technologies transformed the field of AI auditing. Her “Gender Shades” paper is one of the most cited peer-reviewed AI ethics publications ever. Her TED talk on algorithmic bias has been viewed more than 1.7 million times.
Buolwamini advises government leaders and agencies on equitable and accountable AI policy. Her art, which centers the impact of AI on society, has been exhibited across four continents. Her work has appeared in publications like TIME, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and Rolling Stone. She is featured in Emmy-nominated documentary Coded Bias, which is available in 30 languages.
Anil Chawla, Tech entrepreneur, executive, advisor
Anil Chawla (B.S. CS '04) is a technology entrepreneur and executive based in Durham, North Carolina. Anil most recently led ArchiveSocial, the #1 provider of software to archive and produce legal records of social media. Under his leadership as the founding CEO, the company grew from startup idea to more than 70 employees, 2500 customers, and eight-figure annual recurring revenues. ArchiveSocial was acquired in 2022 and Anil now often invests his time towards mentoring and advising early-stage entrepreneurs. Anil was recognized as a "40 under 40" by Georgia Tech, where he received his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and currently serves on the Advisory Board for the College of Computing.
Class Five:
Candace Mitchell Harris, Founder and CEO, MYVANA
Candace Mitchell Harris (BS CS ‘11) is a computer scientist and visionary entrepreneur transforming the hair care industry through science & technology. She serves as the Founder & CEO of MYAVANA, an innovative beauty tech company that uses AI technology to recommend the perfect products for your hair. They offer a hair analysis kit that is known as the “23&me for your hair” to send in your hair strands to their lab for microscopic hair analysis and a digital healthy hair care plan, or an instant analysis through their mobile app by taking a photo of your hair. MYAVANA has developed its own patent-pending proprietary technology to help people choose the best hair care products, ingredients, regimens, and professional salons to achieve desired styles and overall hair health.
Henry Shi, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Super
Henry Shi (MS CS ‘18), is the cofounder and COO of Snapcommerce, the mobile commerce and fintech company that enables consumers to experience more of what life has to offer. Under his leadership, Snapcommerce has grown to over 30 million users and exceeded $1 billion in sales. Prior to Snapcommerce, he has held an engineering position at Google and cofounded uMentioned. Shi holds a master’s in Computer Science with a specialization in Machine Learning from Georgia Tech and graduated in the top 1% of his class at the University of Waterloo. His entrepreneurial accomplishments have been recognized by Forbes’ 30 Under 30 and EY Entrepreneur of the Year.
Class Four:
Vivian Chu, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Diligent Robotics
Vivian (Ph.D. '17) is a decade-plus expert roboticist who specializes in human-robot interaction. She has received high tier industry honors including: MIT Technology Review ‘s 35 Innovators Under 35 list; a Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholar, and Robohub 25’s women in robotics you need to know in 2016. In addition to creating Moxi and Poli, Vivian has used her expertise on robotic platforms including PR2, Meka Robot and Kinova Jaco2.
Kyle Woumn, Vice President of Product and Engineering at Overflow
Kyle Woumn (B.S. '16) helped to build Overflow, a startup whose mission is to inspire the world to give by making it easy for nonprofits to receive gifts of non-cash assets such as stock and cryptocurrency. Overflow serves and powers stock donations for more than 200 nonprofits doing amazing work in their respective communities such as the Golden State Warriors Community Foundation, StreetCode Academy, and Meals on Wheels San Francisco. Prior to joining the founding team at Overflow, Kyle was a software engineer at Twilio on their messaging team. Kyle was recognized as a 2022 Forbes 30 under 30 honoree in the social impact category. Additionally, Kyle was honored on the AFROTECH Future 50 list which recognizes 50 rising titans in the tech industry.
Class Three:
Kathy Pham, Fellow, Harvard University; Fellow, Responsible Computer Science at Mozilla; Founding Member, U.S. Digital Service
Kathy Pham (B.S. 2007, M.S. 2009), is a computer scientist, product leader, and founder. Her past work has spanned Google, IBM, Harris Healthcare, and the United States Digital Service, where she was a founding product and engineering member. She has founded Women in Product Boston, the Cancer Sidekick Foundation, Team Curious, and Unite for Sight southeast. Kathy is the Co-Lead of the Responsible Computer Science Challenge and founder of the Mozilla Builders Incubator at Mozilla. She also co-founded the Ethical Tech Working Group at Harvard and focuses on ethics and social responsibility with an emphasis on engineering culture, artificial intelligence, and computer science curricula. Pham is a Shorenstein Fellow and Adjunct Faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School, where she teaches Product Management and Society.
Renji Bijoy, Founder, CEO and CTO, Immersed
Renji Bijoy (M.S. 2016) is part of the Forbes 30 Under 30 class this year and is the founder and CEO of Immersed. Immersed is a startup that has raised $12 million and is partnered with Facebook, HTC, and Microsoft to build VR offices. Renji has a master’s degree from Georgia Tech in computational perception and robotics. In 2017, Renji was in the 0.01% of startups to be accepted in the highly coveted Techstars Accelerator Program for his startup focused on remote collaboration and solo productivity in VR. These days, Bijoy is leading his team of the world’s best developers and designers to build the very-near future of work. Immersed broke a record for the world’s fastest crowd-funding campaign, raising $8.1 million in 17 days.
Class Two:
Kabir Barday
Kabir Barday (BS CS) is the Founder, President, and CEO of OneTrust. In under four years, he has grown the company into the #1 fastest growing and most widely used privacy, security, and governance technology platform to comply with the CCPA, GDPR, LGPD, ISO27001, and hundreds of the world’s privacy, security, and compliance requirements. OneTrust has largely pioneered the privacy technology market and has been awarded 130 patents as a result. Kabir oversees all aspects of OneTrust’s product development, operations, and sales internationally. Kabir holds a Fellow of Information Privacy with the IAPP, the highest designation of a privacy professional, and sits on the advisory boards for the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF), the Center of Information Policy Leadership (CIPL), The International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), and Shared Assessments (known for the SIG third-party risk standard). He has spoken at hundreds of leading industry events globally including Gartner Symposium, Gartner Security & Risk, IAPP Global Privacy Summit, RSA Conference, and Infosecurity Europe.
Vanessa Larco
Vanessa Larco is a Partner at NEA focused on enterprise and consumer tech investing. Prior to joining NEA, she led Product Management teams at Box, working on the next generation of productivity apps across the web and mobile. Her passion for design and analytics stems from her experience in gaming, which includes leading the Speech Recognition Experience team at Xbox Kinect, building a top-grossing studio at Disney Social followed by founding a kids gaming startup. She’s led investments in Cleo, Rocket. Chat, Mejuri, EvidentID, Greenlight Card, Feather, and Lily AI. She is also a board observer at Robinhood, Willow Pump, and OmniSci.