Patty Lopez, Ph.D., was the 2015 recipient of SWE’s Advocating Women in Engineering Award. She is a senior platform applications engineer at Intel Corporation, working with customers to deliver Xeon® server chip solutions that power high-end data centers and mission critical applications. Before starting her career with Intel in 2008, Dr. Lopez spent 19 years as an imaging scientist for Hewlett-Packard (HP), creating and transferring technology in imaging into scanner, camera, and all-in-one products. She has released more than 50 products across five business lines and holds seven imaging patents.
At the same time, Dr. Lopez has spent the past two decades as a change agent, studying, understanding, and addressing the impact of organizational culture on the recruitment, retention, and progression of women and minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers. An active board member of several national organizations, including the Computing Research Association of Women and the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions, her volunteer efforts across several venues focus on building the STEM pipeline for K-12 and beyond, and creating an inclusive work culture.
She spent a decade as the HP campus manager for New Mexico State University, receiving the HP Technical Leadership Award, the HP Campus Recognition Program Award, and the HP Diversity and Inclusion Award. While working at Intel, she received the 2010 Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation Great Minds in STEM community service award.
A founding member and co-chair of Latinas in Computing in 2006, Dr. Lopezis a MentorNet mentor and has served as a member of the National Center for Women and Information Technology Workforce Alliance.
Dr. Lopez’s involvement in mentoring young women dates back 20 years. Starting in 1995 at the Hewlett-Packard offices in Greeley, Colorado, she led intern hiring and mentored five women and minority undergraduates, including one Native American, who were subsequently offered full-time jobs at HP.
After joining Intel, Dr. Lopez focused on developing technical women via the Women at Intel Network (WIN) employee group. Recognizing that men were critical to the development and advancement of technical women, she looked across Intel for male advocates. In 2010, Dr. Lopez served as the WIN vice president and as the WIN cross-site liaison, working with leaders across Intel to develop and promote technical women. She helped a MentorNet protégé hired into Intel India create a WIN employee group, and has mentored several women across Intel.
Dr. Lopez developed a presentation that has been used across Intel annually to encourage women to submit proposals to conferences. An alumna of Intel’s Blueprint for Extraordinary Performance Leadership program for Hispanic, black, and Native American leaders, Dr. Lopez has opened the door for other underrepresented participants. In 2014, she served as project co-lead for a 22-week development assignment as part of a progression and advancement team to create a five-day pilot immersion event for experienced women new to Intel, while still delivering in her primary job role.
In her spare time, Dr. Lopez enjoys traveling, hiking, biking, and skiing with her husband, a municipal prosecutor, and her three children. She holds a B.S., an M.S., and a Ph.D. in computer science from New Mexico State University.
This article was first published in the Conference 2015 Issue of SWE Magazine.
