emergenCITY winners of the Female Student Travel Award attend Grace Hopper Celebration 2025 in Chicago
As part of the Female Student Travel Awards, we, Helena and Noreen, had the opportunity to participate in the Grace Hopper Celebration 2025 in Chicago through emergenCITY. The conference for women in the technology industry took place at the beginning of November and offered us an exciting insight into the proceedings of an international scientific event. This year’s focus was on “Women in Tech” and artificial intelligence (AI).
In addition to inspiring presentations on time management, career planning, and the use of AI in everyday working life, there was also a wide range of technical talks. Our personal high-lights included: “Stopping Bad Actors: How Tech Tackles Fraud and Abuse at Scale,” which explained how Microsoft combines machine learning with manual checks to detect and defend against cyberattacks faster and more effectively. “Oops, I Clicked Again,” a presentation on attacks via websites and previously unknown attack methods such as abuse of the Win-dows Run Box or ApateWeb.
The exchange with other students, researchers, and industry experts was also particularly enriching. The “braindates” allowed us to discuss topics that are currently on our minds in small groups – from PhD programs and working environments in other countries to differences in teaching, research, and corporate culture in an international context.
Of course, we also took the opportunity to explore Chicago. During our sightseeing tour, we visited numerous attractions – and, of course, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to take the obligatory photo in front of the famous Cloud Gate “The Bean” statue.
We would like to express our sincere thanks to emergenCITY and all the organizers of the Female Student Travel Awards for giving us this wonderful opportunity. We are taking home many inspiring impressions, valuable contacts, and new experiences!
Helena is currently pursuing a PhD at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at TU Darmstadt at the Chair of Energy Information Networks and Systems. She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering at TU Darmstadt. Her research focuses on the resilience of power grids and protection against cyberattacks.
Noreen is currently studying for a master’s degree in IT security at TU Darmstadt, where she also completed her bachelor’s degree in computer science. Her areas of interest include security operations center engineering, incident response, and IoT security.
