An early adopter of the computer age and a passionate advocate for ensuring access for women in technology, Sandra Smart-Ashburn is this year’s recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences (ICS).

Sandra began her love of computers in high school. Excited by their ability to solve problems and perform math computations, she was introduced to this emerging technology by her father, an engineer, who brought home some of the new technologies for her to explore, including an early personal home computer.

In the 1980s, Sandra took her first computer science class at a community college. From there, she transferred to UC Irvine because she was attracted to its innovative computer science department. That department’s impressive track record paved the way for the establishment of the School of Information & Computer Sciences in 2022, the first school of its kind in the UC system.

Now retired, Sandra was the assistant vice president of information technology development for AT&T, leading a software-delivery organization responsible for personalization and machine-learning technologies. Before her role at AT&T, she held multiple leadership positions at DIRECTV, including senior director of enterprise integration and enterprise offers and vice president of IT development.

For Sandra, her continued engagement with UC Irvine has grown in parallel with the transition of the Department of Computer Science to what has become the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences, named in 2004 after its benefactor. Inspired by the next generation of Anteaters, she has mentored students and supports an endowed scholarship, the Smart Family Endowed Award for Women in Information and Computer Science.

Sandra serves on the board of the Dean’s Leadership Council for the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences and previously served on the school’s Diversity committee, a joint venture with the Henry Samueli School of Engineering. She was inducted into the UC Irvine ICS Alumni Hall of Fame in 2018 and served as a speaker at the ICS 50th Anniversary Celebration.