Lavanya Iyer
2023 Distinguished Alumni Service Award
Lavanya Iyer is a Scrum Master and Lead Full Stack Web Developer at JP Morgan Chase in the Downtown Seattle office. Lavanya graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in May 2014 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and Minor in Leadership Studies. Outside of her schoolwork at Illinois, she held multiple leadership positions, such as President of Women in Computer Science, Webmaster Assistant for Society of Women Engineers, Web Designer for Engineering Council, and the CS Ambassador for Engineering Student Alumni Ambassadors. She represented CS@Illinois at an ECE-CS UIUC alumni reception during Spring Break 2013 and spoke about her experiences at Illinois. She also represented the National Center for Women in Technology (NCWIT) as an Aspirations Awards winner and ambassador during the 2014 NCWIT Summit on Women and IT. At the summit, she spoke about CS outreach at Illinois, through the department and through Women in Computer Science, and helped prepare for summit events.
While working at Goldman Sachs for two and a half years as both a Full Stack Web Developer and UX Designer, Lavanya was a mentor for Girls Who Code in partnership with Goldman Sachs. She also organized networking events and conducted mock interviews for prospective interns and full-time hires.
At JPMorgan Chase, Lavanya is a member of the company's internal Women in Technology organization. She also participates in diversity events, particularly the Diwali celebration every November. Outside of work, she has participated in the Clarifai Champions program, which provides tools and resources for technologists to become Developer Evangelists. She currently is a Google Women Techmakers Ambassador and helps organize NCWIT’s annual Aspirations Award ceremonies in the Seattle area, which congratulate high school women for their achievements in technology.
In addition, Lavanya has learned Indian classical music for over 16 years and Indian classical dance for over 13 years. She has performed at the Chicago Thyagaraja Utsavam and Chicago Tamil Sangam cultural programs since she was five years old. She also performed her Bharatnatyam Arangetram in 2010. Currently, she sings at professional Indian events in the Seattle area. These two art forms are very close to her and have immersed her more into her Indian culture.
Lavanya feels that Computer Science is helping shape our world into a better place to live in. Literally any profession in the world today needs some aspect of Computer Science in any shape or form. It is up to our generation to increase this influence and solve many of the problems that plague our world today. Lavanya hopes to be a significant contributor towards this goal through her work at JPMorgan Chase and outside activities.