By Frincy Clement, Susanna Raj and Alessandra Sala
The moment we have been waiting for is here! Women in AI North America is thrilled to announce the nominees who made it to the Finalists for Women in AI Awards North America 2025. In its third edition, 170 women and allies across Canada, USA and Mexico will be honored at the Women in AI Summit & Awards North America, which is scheduled on June 6, 2025 at Toronto, Canada. Stay tuned for the registrations opening in two weeks!
This year's competition reached new heights with over 250 nominations spanning 12 diverse award categories, showcasing the extraordinary talent and innovation driving the AI field forward. The nominations went through rigorous review, thanks to the efforts of our phenomenal 55 expert jury panel from across Mexico, USA and Canada and the strategic guidance of 13 Boards of Advisors. The upcoming ceremony will feature the highly anticipated reveal of winners in each category, celebrating excellence in artificial intelligence across North America.
All of the Winners, Finalists and Special Jury Recognitions will be honored with their special awards, on the big stage in June. This momentous occasion will bring together industry leaders, Honorary Chairs representing each country, Award Sponsors, distinguished Advisors, and expert Jury members. Registration for this exceptional in-person celebration opens in early April 2025, offering a unique opportunity to connect with the brightest minds shaping AI's future.
The 2025 Women in AI Awards North America Finalists by categories are:
Trailblazer Award - Woman in AI of the Year
Briana Brownell, Founder and CEO, Pure Strategy Consulting Inc. (Canada)
Chathuri Daluwatte, Head of AI Diagnostics, Alexion AstraZeneca Rare Disease (United States)
Claudia Del Pozo, Founder and Executive Director, Eon Institute (Mexico)
Gandhi Sivakumar, Distinguished Engineer and CTO, Finance sector, Americas, IBM USA (United States)
Helia Mohammadi, Chief AI & Precision Health Officer, Microsoft (Canada)
Ishita Ghosh, Senior Manager Data Science , Walmart USA (United States)
Jayeeta Putatunda, Director - AI CoE, Emerging Technologies, Fitch Group, Inc. (United States)
Lourdes Martinez, PhD in Computer Science, Universidad Panamericana (Mexico)
Maryam Emami, CEO, AI Materia (Canada)
Monica Kedzierski, VP, Global Data, Analytics & AI, Herbalife (United States)
Noelle Russell, Founder and Chief AI Officer, AI Leadership Institute (United States)
Sasha Stiles, Poet, language artist, AI researcher, Sasha Stiles (United States)
Shalmali Patil, Business Intelligence Engineer, Amazon AWS (United States)
Shingai Manjengwa, AI Education and Development, Talent and Ecosystem, Mila AI Quebec Institute (Canada)
Usha Jagannathan, Director - AI Products, IEEE SA (United States)
Executive Leader Award - Woman Executive of the Year
Angela Angela, Chief Data and Product Officer, Starling Medical (United States)
Christina O'Reilly, Senior Vice President, Marketing , Pythian (Canada)
Jyotika Varshney, Founder & CEO of VeriSIM Life, Verisim Life, Inc. (United States)
Laura Money , Executive Vice President & Chief Information and Technology Officer , Sun Life (Canada)
Maria Laws, Vice President of Learning & Development, Ahura AI (United States)
Pam Snively, Chief Data & Trust Officer, TELUS (Canada)
Rogayeh Tabrizi, Founder & CEO, Theory+Practice (Canada)
Shweta Shrivastava, Senior Director, Product Management , Waymo (United States)
Sonia Edmonds, Managing Partner, Innovation & Change, BDO Canada, LLP (Canada)
Swetha Subramanian, Vice President , Data Science, AI & Insights , Loblaw (Canada)
Victoria Lee, CEO and President, Fraser Health Authority (Canada)
Rising Star in AI Award - Young Role Model of the Year
Aditi Maheshwari, MASc Candidate in Computer Engineering University of Toronto, Program Manager and AI Lead, AI Launch Lab (Canada)
Alisha Arora, AI Innovator, Systems Design Engineering Student University of Waterloo, UNICEF Youth Ambassador for AI, Research at MIT AI Lab (Canada)
Angelina Chen, Ms. , Mission San Jose High School (United States)
Cecilia Shen, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Cybever, Inc. (United States)
Delaney Thompson, Co-Founder & CPO, Bahia AI (Canada)
Dhari Gandhi, Associate Project Manager, Vector Institute AI (Canada)
MaryLena Bleile, Biomarker Statistician, Sanofi (United States)
Nadine Hamra, Senior Software Engineer, Sun Life (Canada)
Parishay Azer, Student, Vista Del Lago High School (United States)
Regina Khalil, Senior Software Engineer, Sun Life (Canada)
Riya Eliza Shaju, Data Scientist and Educational Researcher, Pacific Salmon Foundation and University of British Columbia (Canada)
Rosa (Zahra) Jahankhah, Student, UC Berkeley, AI Researcher, Stanford (United States)
Rue Sriharsha, Trustworthy AI Consultant, Deloitte (Canada)
Sophia Rial, Consultant, Turnberry Solutions (United States)
Yuyin Liu, Independent Researcher, University of Chicago (United States)
Zandi Eberstadt, Computational Linguist, Researcher of AI and Cognition, Johns Hopkins University; The Human Language Technology Center of Excellence (United States)
Women in AI Champion Award - DEI Champion of the Year
Anne Lee, CTO, AI Research Lab, Nokia Bell Labs (United States)
Brenda Okorogba, Learning Experience Designer and Resource Mobilization Advisor, Momentswithbren Consulting (Canada)
Cassidy Reid, Founder, Women in Automation (United States)
Jenny Kay Pollock , Founder, Women And AI (United States)
Laleh Behjat, Dr., Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary (Canada)
Shahrzad Sayehban, Senior ML Developer, AltaML (Canada)
Shilpi Agarwal, Founder and CEO, DataEthics4All Foundation (United States)
Shoshana Rosenberg, Co-Founder, Women in AI Governance, Chief AI Governance and Privacy Officer, WSP USA (United States)
Wanda Muñoz, M.A. , Independent Consultant, Inclusion & Gender Equality Expert (Mexico)
Ally Award - Ally for AI of the Year
Ernest Solomon, Field CTO, Pythian (Canada)
Himanshu Joshi , Senior Manager (Applied AI - Design and Delivery) , Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Canada)
John Havens, Global Director, IEEE Planet Positive and Founding E.D., IEEE AI Ethics Initiative (United States)
Robert Brooks Borcherding, Chief Executive Officer, Pythian (Canada)
Ryan Kennedy, Timashev Chair of Data Analytics and Professor of Political Science, The Ohio State University (United States)
Samir Saber, Dean, Digital & Information Technology Center of Excellence and Executive Director, Workforce Technology, Houston Community College (United States)
Yj Lin, Sr. Program Manager, Dell for Startups (United States)
WAI Volunteer Award - WAI Community Catalyst of the Year
Aigerim Meimanova, Petroleum Engineer, Interface Fluidics (Canada)
Chelsea Squires, Senior Manager, Data Science , ATB Financial (Canada)
Irene Bratsis, Director Digital Product & Data, Women in AI (United States)
Kimberly Eltanal, Lead, GlobalLogic (Canada)
Lahari Pakalapati, Data Scientist - Advanced , RBC, Canada Hackathon Lead, Women in AI (Canada)
Monali Gaikwad, Events Lead, Toronto, Women in AI Canada (Canada)
Nalini Garg, Senior Manager, Deloitte, California State Ambassador, Women in AI (United States)
Nammi Sriharan, Senior Manager Digital Delivery, Metrolinx, Ontario Ambassador, Women in AI (Canada)
Parisa Asgharzadeh, Senior Machine Learning Scientist, Metaspcetral (Canada)
Ruishu Fan, EIC designer, Women in AI Canada (Canada)
Sireesha Chavali, Data Engineer, Enique Solutions (United States)
Suparna Pawar, Georgia State Ambassador, Women in AI (United States)
AI in Startup Award - AI Entrepreneur of the Year
Anekha Sokhal, CEO, Founder, JewelVision (United States)
Angela Holmes, CEO, OmniScience, Inc. (United States)
Dhana Naga Kalyani Tummala, Co-Founder, VP of Product Development and Professional Services, AIFA Labs (United States)
Dipti Bhide, CEO and Co-Founder - LittleLit AI (Canada)
Emma Brown, Chief Product Officer, Deep Media, Inc. (United States)
Iryna Andriushchenko, CEO, Handy.ai (Canada)
Karla Congson, CEO+CTO, Agentiiv (Canada)
Lindsey Casselman, Head of Learning, Schoolio (Canada)
Luciana Frazao, CEO, Fluence (United States)
Mariem Akrout, CEO, AI.Energy Inc. (Canada)
Miroslava Rodriguez, CTO, Erandi Aprende (Mexico)
Nadia Macicakova, CEO founder, memxovil (Mexico)
Setareh Lotfi, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Aura Intelligence, Inc. (United States)
Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, CEO & Founder, Profound Impact Corporation (Canada)
Sumati Sharan, Founder/CEO, Ladle Cooking (United States)
AI in Research Award - AI Researcher of the Year
Aditi Singh, Assistant College Lecturer, Cleveland State University (United States)
Alma Yadira Quiñonez Carrillo, PhD in Computer Engineering, Universidad Autonoma de Sinaloa (Mexico)
Annie Lee, Assistant Professor, Ontario Tech University (Canada)
Aparna Krishna Bhat, Senior Analyst, EY (Ernst & Young), USA (United States)
Audrey Durand, Associate Professor, Université Laval (Canada)
Jullin Fjeldstad, Head of Clinical Embryology and Scientific Operations, Future Fertility (Canada)
Na Zou, Assistant Professor, University of Houston (United States)
Pegah Khosravi, Assistant Professor of Biomedical AI, City Tech & Graduate Center, CUNY (United States)
Raissa Souza De Andrade, PhD, University of Calgary (Canada)
Samira Ebrahimi Kahou, Assistant Professor, University of Calgary (Canada)
Sherry Yun Wang, Assistant Professor, Chapman University School of Pharmacy (United States)
Shweta Mahajan, Dr, Qualcomm AI Research (Canada)
AI for Good Award - Responsible AI leader of the Year
Akshata Moharir, Lead Data Scientist , Microsoft (United States)
Barbara Ruiz Rodriguez, SAP & AI Strategy Consultant, Reinas de la IA (Mexico)
Daniela Camberos , Chief People & Innovation Officer, DD360, UNESCO Women for Ethical AI Leader, G100 (Mexico)
Daniela Rojas Arroyo, Senior Program Officer, Eon Institute (Mexico)
Devshree Golecha, Head of Business Intelligence, Step Up for Students (United States)
Diane Gutiw, Vice President - Global AI Research Lead, CGI (Canada)
Eileen Halladay, Consultant , Iris West Enterprises LLC (United States)
Hema Chamraj, Director, AI Advocacy, Responsible AI, AMD (United States)
Irina Sedenko, Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group (Canada)
Jen Gennai, Partner & Head of Responsible AI, T3 (United States)
Jesslyn Dymond, Director, AI Governance & Data Ethics, TELUS (Canada)
Julia Mykhailiuk, EU AI Policy Lead, Pour Demain, Research Fellow in AI, Democracy & Foreign Policy, / fp21 (United States)
Leesa Soulodre, Managing Partner, R3i Capital LLC (United States)
Lucia Trochez Ardila, Specialist Consultant, UNESCO (Mexico)
Madhavi Najana, Software Engineering Manager, Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati (United States)
Parul Gupta, Senior Production Engineer, Meta (United States)
Ravit Dotan, AI Governance Advisor and Researcher, TechBetter and SAS (United States)
Renata Thiebaut, Full Professor and Research Director, Global University Systems (Canada)
Shaina Raza, Machine Learning Scientist, Responsible AI, Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Canada)
Sissi De La Peña, Directora Asuntos Internacionales y Gubernamentales, AMCID (Mexican Academy for Cybersecurity and Digital Law) (Mexico)
Stephanie Worrell, Founder, AI-MPOWERU (United States)
Sukanya Konatam, Senior Manager of Data Governance & Data Science , Vialto Partners, Texas, USA. (United States)
Susan Tejuosho, Legal Technologist , RAILS (United States)
Vinodhini Ravikumar, Principal Software Engineering Director, Microsoft (Canada)
Ying Li, Product Lead, Meta (United States)
Yukun Zhang, Director,AI Governance, ATB Financial (Canada)
AI for Good Award - AI for Social Impact Leader of the Year
Amreen Poonawala, Senior AI Product Manager, Benetech (United States)
Bella Davis-Riemer, Founder & CEO, Monarch AI Inc (United States)
Elham Kheradmand, Dr., University of Montreal (Canada)
Jen Carter, Global Head of Technology, Google.org, Google (United States)
Jessica Bolanos, Co-Founder and CEO, Goodspero (United States)
Juliana Garaizar, Founding Partner, Energy Tech Nexus (United States)
Lyndsay Lamica, Account Executive, Eduphoria! inc (United States)
Maham Khalid, Founder, Revohub (Canada)
Neha Goel, Senior AI Engineer & Advisor, Microsoft & N23 Studio (United States)
Parna Khot, Founder, Kairos Spark AI (United States)
Rania Hoteit, Entrepreneur, Founder and Former CEO, VP Board Directors, Board Advisor, Speaker and Coach, ID4A Technologies (United States)
Rosalba Sotz Gomez Gutierrez, CEO Batsil, Batsil.org (Mexico)
Sara Filipcic, CEO & Founder, Be Human(e) (United States)
Sarah Baldeo, CEO, ID Quotient Advisory Group (United States)
Sedef Akinli Kocak, Director of Professional Development, Vector Institute (Canada)
Siya Raj Purohit, Education GTM Leader, OpenAI (United States)
Sorely Falomir, Bachelor's Degree in Administrative Computing Systems, Universidad Autonoma De Chihuahua (Mexico)
Susan Gonzales, Founder & CEO, AIandYou (United States)
AI in Industry Award - AI Innovator of the Year Private Sector
Aishwarya Jadhav, Machine Learning Engineer, Waymo (United States)
Aishwarya Vedantaramanujam Srinivasan, Senior Applied Scientist, Thumbtack (United States)
Alina Rivilis, Director, Data Science, Home Trust Company (Canada)
Ananya Ghosh Chowdhury, Senior Cloud Solution Architect, Data and AI, Microsoft, Microsoft (United States)
Anshika Khandelwal, Solution Architect - Machine Learning, Quantiphi (Canada)
Audrey Thibodeau Poulin, Innovation Expert and Certified Artificial Intelligence Consultant, iA Financial Group (Canada)
Deepali Arora, Senior Principal Data Scientist, Oracle (Canada)
Fabiola Velarde Galicia, PhD candidate in Information Technologies and Master in Data Science, EPAM Systems (Mexico)
Greta Cutulenco, CEO, Acerta (Canada)
Kulsum Lopez, Product Manager, Dell Technologies (United States)
Linh Tran, Global Head of Product, LivePerson (United States)
Luz Angélica Caudillo Mata, Sr. Member of Technical Staff - Systems, MDA Space (Canada)
Nalini Garg, Associate Partner, Deloitte (United States)
Nishtha Jain, Head of Innovation and Digital technology , Takeda (United States)
Riddhi Rajendrabhai Dasani, Senior Data Scientist, Deloitte (Canada)
Selin Kurnaz, CEO and Co-Founder, Massive Bio, Inc. (United States)
Shadi Balandeh, Ai and Data Science Manager at TELUS, TELUS (Canada)
Shailja Gupta, Product Manager, ADP (United States)
Shivangi Khurania, CEO/ Founder, Udeso (United States)
Supriya Bachal, AI operations Engineer(program manager), Siemens DIgital Industries Software (United States)
Thaija Dickerson, Procurement Technology and Digital Readiness at Constellation Brands & Co-Founder of Kontrak IQ(United States)
Tracy Bannon, Sr. Principal - Software Architect & Researcher, The MITRE Corporation (United States)
WanTing Huang, Director of Innovation and Research, ServiceNow (United States)
Winnie Vorihilala, Practice Leader in Data Science and AI, iA Groupe financier (Canada)
Yasmina Benkhoui, Sr. Manager, Strategic Partnerships and Ecosystem Lead, NVIDIA (United States)
AI in Industry Award - AI Innovator of the Year Public Sector
Adina Gray, Business School Faculty, Thompson Rivers University (Canada)
Anuradha Ganesh, Deputy Chief – Enterprise Architecture, Data, ML and AI, MTA (United States)
Kim Thoa Nguyen, Data Scientist, Autorité des marchés financiers (Canada)
Meaghan Ferrigno, SVP, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Destination Canada (Canada)
Join us in celebrating these 170 phenomenal women and allies who are revolutionizing the AI industry and shaping the future of technology at the in-person WaiSummit & Awards in Toronto.
A hearty shout out to the steering committee: Alessandra Sala (Senior Director of AI and Data Science, Shutterstock// Global President of Women in AI), Frincy Clement (Principal Data Scientist, ADP // Head of North America and Canada Ambassador WAI), Susanna Raj Founder & CEO of AI4Nomads & Co-founder of Global South in AI // USA Ambassador WAI) and executive organizing team led by Suparna Pawar (Georgia State Ambassador, WAI USA) and Nammi Sriharan (Ontario Province Ambassador, WAI Canada).
About Women in AI
Women in AI (WAI) is a global network of female experts and professionals in the field of Artificial Intelligence working towards inclusive AI that benefits a global society. Through empowerment, knowledge and active collaboration, WAI has grown into a recognized global platform of 16000+ members across 150+ countries with over 400 volunteers and led by prominent and influential women in Artificial Intelligence.