Students in NDSU’s Perspectives in Women's Studies course (WGS350) are set to host a guest panel of accomplished women leaders from across the United States to discuss how gender socialization has had an impact on their careers. The panel is scheduled for March 7 at 11 a.m. The event is not open to the public. (insert time and place/and if open to the public)
The course, taught by Alison Bertolini, associate professor of English, aims to provides students with a greater understanding of how gender helps to determine access to leadership and power in the U.S., especially in the context of the workplace.
Scheduled panelists include:
• Seinquis Leinen, NDSU director of admission, has 12 years of experience working in college admission and recruitment. She has worked at NDSU since 2014 and leads a team of more than 25 professional staff and 80 student employees. She earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of North Dakota and master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Prior to joining the NDSU community, she worked at Minot State University and the University of North Dakota.
Her guiding core values in life are Family, Personal Development and Economic Stability. Her Gallup Strengths are Achiever, Maximizer, Learner, Belief and Responsibility.
• Mina Pitakas is the vice president of client management and digital payments solutions at Fiserv Financial in New York City. Fiserv Inc. is a multinational company that provides financial technology services to clients across the financial services sector, including banks, credit unions, securities brokers, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, leasing and finance companies and retailers.
Pitakas is a successful sales and account management professional with more than 25 years of experience in the financial services and financial technology industries. She prides herself on her problem-solving skills and her ability to advocate for her clients.
• Malini Srivastava is a licensed architect in the state of Minnesota, as well as an associate professor of architecture in the College of Design at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, where she also serves as the director of the Master of Science in Architecture, Research Practices Program and associate dean for research, creative scholarship and engagement.
Srivastava completed her doctoral defense at Carnegie Mellon University, titled “Purposeful Play.” She is a 2018 recipient of the American Institute of Architects’ Young Architect Award and a 2014 recipient of the Archibald and Edyth Bush Fellowship. In 2017, she received the Outstanding Educator Award from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at NDSU.
• Christine Templin is the engineering and operations leader at Apple Inc. in San Francisco, where she has led Apple Cloud Services since 2021. She has spent more than 20 years building and operating engineering teams in support of high-volume traffic products for consumer-facing and enterprise businesses.
Prior to working at Apple, Templin was the infrastructure engineering and operations director at Twitter, where she worked for nearly eight years as a member of the leadership team that built Twitter's infrastructure engineering and operations teams, technologies and processes.
Templin is a seasoned leader and coach focusing on collaborative, cross-functional teams and individual development. She has extensive executive experience working with customers, vendors and strategic partners in marketing, sales, engineering, operations and product research and development.
