Developing and pitching a game-changing piece of technology no doubt requires some mental gymnastics. But to hear Penn alumna Jeanine Gubler Heck tell it, the physical kind might not hurt, either.
“You can’t just go out and wing it,” said Heck, vice president of artificial intelligence product at Comcast, at the sixth annual Women’s Athlete Panel and Reception on Wednesday, Nov. 7. “You can’t just do a back handspring. You need to practice.”
Heck, who studied computer science and was co-captain of Penn Cheerleading before graduating in 1999, says it was her days practicing tumbling and cheering at the University that helped her years later when she was charged with demoing the X1 voice remote for the company’s leadership.
“One of the pivotal times in my career was the first year that we built this capability. Our chief technology officer wanted us to show it to all the executives and get their buy-in,” she said. “The key thing was practice. I would show up, always early. I would do every voice command.”
“Being prepared and practicing,” she noted, “is something that I think we learn as athletes.”
That anecdote was one of many related to some 200 Penn female athletes by their predecessors at the Women’s Athlete Panel and Reception on Wednesday, Nov. 7, each offering insight into how sports can translate to life beyond Penn.
“We know that sports keep us physical healthy and mentally healthy, they teach us so many important life skills and forge our determination—and that’s exactly the benefit that can be seen in a successful career path,” Penn Director of Athletics and Recreation M. Grace Calhoun said in opening remarks.
The event, hosted by the Trustees’ Council of Penn Women in Hutchinson Gym, included a networking portion that allowed student-athletes to meet with former students in a number of industries, such as law, fashion, and technology.
It also provided an important opportunity for students from across the athletic spectrum to bond with each other, organizers said.
“You were groomed to play one sport,” said moderator Cindy Shmerler, a sports journalist and tennis commentator who graduated in 1981. “You train together as a team, you eat together as a team, you compete together as a team, and for the most part, you live together as a team—but you don’t know each other.”
Field hockey team, go talk with the fencers, she instructed. Softball, meet tennis. Recognize one another on campus. Attend each other’s games.
“You never know when you’ll be able to support each other,” Calhoun said.
In a similar endorsement of such camaraderie, panelist Katie Orem, Class of 2014, said backing fellow women is an important habit to carry into the workplace.
“When you see a woman in a meeting, acknowledge her great idea and her contribution,” Orem, a vendor manager at Amazon, said. “I heard something recently that a win for one woman is a win for all women. ... I can’t emphasize that enough.”
Rachel Wu, a sophomore studying computational biology and a defender on the women’s lacrosse team, said she admired the confidence of the panelists and appreciated the reminder “to seize the moment and not waste opportunities.”
“It’s inspiring to see what these women have done...and not giving up even when they didn’t know necessarily what direction their life was going in,” Wu said.
Class of 2008 alumna Elizabeth Kern offered her experience in that regard, explaining how she decided late in college, as she was studying history, that she wanted to pursue medicine. The former co-captain of the women’s squash team went on to complete a post-baccalaureate pre-med program at Columbia and earn a master’s degree in public health at New York University. She is now in her final year at Drexel Medical School.
In her head through it all, she said, was a coach’s motto about always pushing forward: “Don’t defer.”
Former Penn Deputy Director of Athletics Alanna Wren Shanahan, who received her undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University and also played lacrosse, expressed a similar sentiment when discussing how to confront historically male-dominated spheres.
“You have to be fearless,” Shanahan, now director of athletics and recreation at Johns Hopkins University, said. “Being fearless doesn’t mean that you’re not afraid. It’s owning that fear and then advancing past it.”
But success doesn’t come without failure, the panelists made clear—whether it’s on fields and courts, or in the workplace.
Heck, for example, recalled how, while pursuing her MBA at Columbia, a high-profile internship didn’t go quite as planned and didn’t result in a job offer. Still, the experience taught her valuable lessons.
“I learned to not work on things that I’m not passionate about. I won’t do things if I don’t believe in them,” she said. “I also learned to speak up for myself in that moment.”
After meeting with students, Heck said she was encouraged by the number of women who expressed interest in tech.
“We need more women leading organizations, whether that’s companies, or government, or any kind of organization,” she said, urging women to “come together as a force.”
She added: “And what better group of women than women at Penn who are athletes to really be that force.”
By Angelo Fichera
Photos by Penn Athletics
