Who We Are: Cindy Goral

Vice President: Operations

Cindy I grew up as an army brat, a daughter of a Sgt. Major. My mom thought I should be an executive secretary until a counselor in high school said there weren’t enough women engineers. As a freshman at University of Colorado, I wanted to go into medicine but was turned off of chemistry by an auditorium full of students with a boring lecturer and interested in computer science taught by a new professor from Cornell.

I got my B.S. in Applied Math from the school of Engineering at University of Colorado and went on to get my M.S. from Cornell, introducing the topic of radiosity to computer graphics in 1984. I spent 20 years in the software industry, designing and writing software for array processors at Floating Point Systems, CAD at Daisy Systems, video special effects at AMPEX, and image processing software at Light Source Computer Images and defining, shipping, and leading multiple versions of PowerPoint at Microsoft.

I first heard Anita Borg speak at a women’s group at Microsoft. I remember her describing the idea of a video wall so that you could have dinner with your parents who lived remotely. I always loved the aspect of how technology was going to enable the user. As a technical woman interested in having impact in the world, I am excited to have a leadership role at ABI.

I live with my dad (a decorated WWII, Korean, and Vietnam vet), my husband (a jack of all trades), my son (an avid ice hockey player), and our parrot and bearded dragon, and spend time as a hockey mom and bird enthusiast.

My LinkedIn Profile

I also support the following charities: Peregrine Fund, Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, Palo Alto Partners in Education (PiE), CHADD, Women’s Sports Foundation, Fisher House, Solar Cookers International, World Wildlife Fund

Officers

Staff

Our Founder

Board of Trustees

  • William Wulf, Ph.D., Former President, National Academy of Engineering, Board Chair
  • Bill Unger, Partner Emeritus, Mayfield Fund - Vice-Chair
  • Margaret Ashida, Director, Diversity and Workforce Programs - IBM Software Group
  • James Beck, CPA & CMA, Managing Director & CFO, Mayfield Fund - Treasurer & Vice President
  • Francine Berman, Professor, Dept of Computer Science and Engineering, UC San Diego and Fellow, ACM
  • Debi Coleman, Managing Partner, SmartForest Ventures
  • Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President, Research and Systems Engineering, Google
  • Penny Herscher, President & CEO, firstRain
  • Kathy Hill, Senior VP Ethernet and Wireless Systems Technology Group, Cisco Systems Inc.
  • Wayne Johnson, Vice President, University Relations, Hewlett-Packard
  • Maria Klawe, President, Harvey Mudd College
  • Richard Rashid, Senior VP and VP Research, Microsoft
  • Justin Rattner, Senior Fellow & CTO, Intel
  • Cheryl Shavers, Former Undersecretary of Technology, Clinton Administration, & CEO of Global Smarts, Inc.
  • Telle Whitney, President & CEO, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
  • Linda Bernardi, Emeritus (Term: 1996 -2006)
  • Greg Papadopoulos, Emeritus (Term: 1996 -2006)

Individual and Organizations

Board of Advisors