Meet the 2025 Local Host Committees
WE Local Host Committees are made up of SWE leaders from across the U.S. who guide the strategic development of their conference.
Meet the leaders who make WE Local a success!
San Jose Local Host Committee
LHC Chair, San Jose
Kimberly Lam
Kimberly Lam is a product manager in Azure Edge at Microsoft and proud SWE member since 2013. In this role, she manages VM features that can be controlled at the cloud and operate at the edge.
Prior to Microsoft, Kim worked in the aerospace and defense industry in a variety of roles ranging from systems engineering, proposal management, modeling & analysis, and operations analysis. She is also a graduate of the Lockheed Martin Engineering Leadership Development Program.
Kim recently became a SWE life member. Throughout her SWE career, she has held leadership roles at the section, region, and Society levels. Most recently, she was the FY24 President of the Santa Clara Valley Section and FY23 Society Scholarship Coordinator. She was recognized as a Distinguished New Engineer in 2023.
Kim earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at NJIT and M.S. in Operations Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Kim is proud of her heritage as a Chinese American woman and first-generation engineer.
Cherry Hill Local Host Committee
LHC Chair, Cherry Hill
Dr. Jennifer Winikus
Dr. Winikus is a Teaching Associate Professor at Lehigh University where she specializes in digital and embedded systems, with a research focus on engineering education.
She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from Alfred University and a Master’s degree and PhD in Computer Engineering from Michigan Technological University. Her passion for education has extended to engagement with pre-college outreach initiatives at Lehigh University and as a Program Evaluator for ABET.
Dr. Winikus joined SWE in 2013 and her SWE journey began with participating in the Collegiate Competition and volunteering at the 2014 Region H conference. Since then she has served in various leadership positions at the Collegiate, Local, and Society Levels. Currently, she is active with SWE as a member of the Women in Academia Committee and the Lehigh Valley Professional Section, along side being the Academic Representative on the Conference Advisory Board.
Milwaukee Local Host Committee
LHC Chair, Milwaukee
Heidi Balestrieri
Heidi is the Director of Engineering at Sentry Equipment, a peerless global provider of sampling and process improvement technologies that protect people and the environment for a safer world. There she has led several creative cost-reduction initiatives and implemented process efficiencies. She has utilized her position to mentor multiple women engineers.
Her involvement goes beyond her place of work, as Heidi has held numerous leadership positions within SWE including her current position as VP Outreach for SWE-Wisconsin; volunteered with various STEM-related organizations including FIRST Lego League, STEM Forward, and Girls in Engineering, Mathematics, and Science (GEMS); and was named as a 2023 Women MAKE Award Honoree.
Heidi earned her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at North Dakota State University where she first joined SWE in 1997 as a collegiate member and has remained a member ever since. In that time, she has been dedicated to promoting SWE at various events and engaging with the community.