Alexis Blevins Baird ’05 at Bing

Nicole Gervasio ’10 at Google

“Don’t be evil”—Nicole Gervasio reports this is the company motto of Google, where she is spending a year in online sales before she heads off to graduate school in the fall. An English and urban studies double major, Gervasio describes herself as one of Google’s “wildcard” humanities people in a workforce of mostly business and computer science graduates.

She plans to focus her graduate studies on the literature and lives of traditionally marginalized groups. A recent recipient of a Javits fellowship for graduate study, she admires Joseph Slaughter, a professor at Columbia University whose research explores the individual’s place within a national/corporate body. How do disparate individuals figure into the creation of a unified entity, without experiencing the extinction of individuality?

Of her own situation, she relates: “There are not many queer or working class people at Google. There are not many people of color.”

Yet, as an individual within a vibrant corporate body, Gervasio has autonomy over the products she takes on. This underscores the company’s individualistic culture, she explains. It also reflects the social concern that her colleagues and the larger organization routinely communicate. For example, she is proud of Google’s stand against the Chinese government’s blocking of information from ordinary citizens.

Gervasio cautions inhabitants of the Net to focus more attention on protecting original creative works that can get swept up in the sheer amount of data online. “As the Internet expands the knowledge available to everyone, we still have to figure out better ways to negotiate the ownership and exchange of that intellectual property. Basically, I wouldn’t want to see writing, an occupation I value so much, become devalued as a result,” she says.

Kimberly Blessing ’97 at Comcast Interactive Media

Kimberly Blessing’s career as a computer scientist started when she was 5 years old, working with a TRS-80 Color Computer, one of the first for home use. By the time she was 8, she was writing programs on a Commodore 64.

As a senior at Bryn Mawr, she designed the College’s first website. But she almost dropped out of college. The crisis erupted when Blessing’s maternal grandparents died. Her computer science advisor and the IT staff came forward, providing emotional support and encouraging her to take on special projects for the campus. Thanks to them, she says, she remained in school and received her degree.

After College, Blessing became a web developer at AOL and eventually ran the department. In the mid-2000s, she worked as a private consultant before leading web development platform initiatives at PayPal.

Today, she is a senior software architect at Comcast Interactive Media in Philadelphia, working on Comcast.net and XfinityTV. She also teaches computer science courses at Bryn Mawr.

Innovation drives the digital industry, she points out. In the near term, she sees a continuing boom in ultra-lightweight tablet devices such as the iPad. People like to carry devices around and stay connected. But for the long term, where are the digital wizards to invent the next generation of computers?

Lisa Redekop ’83 at Thomson Reuters

Lisa Redekop ’83 lives in London with her husband and two children. For her, balancing family and a corporate career is not just a challenge—it’s great satisfaction, she says.

Recently she joined Thomson Reuters, a news and information company. Her work involves taking marketing messages and making then usable and useful by sales people.

Marketing, she points out, has been a traditional field for women. Sales, however, have been more male-dominated. And there has also been suspicion between both camps.

“As a marketer,” she says, “one sits in front of a customer and brings the value of a product to life. There is a continuum between the marketers and salespeople that needs to be recognized and explored.” Redekop’s job is to synthesize the two disciplines.

Growing up in Arizona, she planned to be a vet and was active in the Future Farmers of America, an activity that honed her speaking skills. Although she had never traveled to Pennsylvania before College, she imagined a refreshing change from the desert—a “green and horsey place,” she says.

At Bryn Mawr, she majored in Growth and Structure of Cities, and devoted her senior thesis to exploring the architecture of American embassies, focusing on how their designs reflect the American character.

Redekop’s concerns with digital technology center on children. “Our kids need to know how to write!” she says. Adults also need to be filters to help kids sort through the Internet’s labyrinth for quality information, she continues. “Digital technology is a platform—content is still king.” While all forms of communication form a mosaic of the collective human voice, she adds, “I really value a nice card or letter.”