The Connecticut Technology Council has set 56 finalists for its seventh annual Women of Innovation Awards.
Dartmouth College business professor Ella L.J. Edmondson Bell, the founder and president of ASCENT-Leading Multicultural Women to the Top, will be the keynote speaker for the March 31 award dinner at Southington’s Aqua Turf Club.
The program recognizes Connecticut working women and students in eight categories who are innovators, role models and leaders in their technology professions or fields of study.
Among the finalists in the academic innovation and leadership category is Farmington High teacher Antonella Bona; Deborah Day, science research instructor, Amity Regional High School; Donna Jean Fredeen, dean of arts and sciences at Southern Connecticut State University;
Amanda Harper-Leatherman, assistant professor of chemistry, Fairfield University; and
Rachel O’Neill, assistant professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of Connecticut.
In the entrepreneurial innovation and leadership category are finalists: Phoebe Browning, COO, YourNurseIsOn.com; Jill Lawrence, principal, J Lawrence LLC; Lakshmi Nair, senior founding scientist, Soft Tissue Regeneration Inc.; Leonora Valvo, CEO and founder, etouches; and Nancy Westcott, president, GoatThroat Pumps.
Finalists in the small business innovation and leadership category: Laura Dietz, vice president, Sonalysts Inc.; Billie Jo Mitchell, director, Manufacturing, RSL Fiber Systems, LLC; Pauline Murphy, managing director, Investments, Connecticut Innovations Inc.; Jessica Rowen, president, Mitchell-Vance Laboratories; and Carla Tillery, associate and team leader – Northeast Traffic, Fitzgerald & Halliday, Inc.
