Telling our stories – Federica Montesano

Each year, we have the privilege of meeting inspiring women through ACM-W events. We invite participants to share their experiences in blog posts, highlighting their journeys, challenges, and achievements.

This month, we feature Federica, currently pursuing her PhD in Computer Engineering at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.

In this blog post, she shares her Ph.D. research focus and discovering ACM Women and womENcourage.

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Introduction

My name is Federica Montesano, and I am about to start the third year of my PhD in Computer Engineering at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. I have studied Computer Engineering in both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, while my current research topics are High Performance Computing and Scientific Computing, particularly in the fields of Parallel Discrete Event Simulation.

My Research Focus

I have always wanted to pursue a PhD, and I had the luck to meet my current advisor, Francesco Quaglia, who helped me further renew my interests in operating systems and discover new interests in parallel simulation. My research revolves around Parallel Discrete Event Simulation. I’m currently working on a comprehensive review of memory and data management for Parallel Discrete Event Simulation in shared-memory and multi-core machines, with the goal of optimizing the overall memory utilization of these platforms and also improving data management in the runtime environment, with a particular focus on low-level techniques as means to reach our goal.

Lessons Learned in University

Besides growing my competencies as a professional, some of the things I had to learn during my university experience have been patience and perseverance. Patience because good results do not come without failures, and perseverance because after every failure, something can be learned from it. I strongly believe that women, especially during the first years of university, should learn to embrace these qualities, because computer science is still a male-dominated field, and we as women should always be aware of our potential in order to fully express it.

Discovering ACM Women and WomENcourage

Thanks to my colleague, I discovered ACM Women and womENcourage, so I decided to try and participate in the 2023 conference in Trondheim. I really enjoyed meeting people from different backgrounds and study paths, and even though I didn’t meet people studying or working in the same field as mine, I could actually expand my knowledge on different topics. I think this experience helped me develop an interdisciplinary mindset that I hope to put into practice when needed.

I would recommend women to go to womENcourage and participate in as many social programs (e.g., the hackathon) as you can without stressing too much, as the environment is fully accepting and enriching.

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