Speakers
Keynote Speaker: Lillian Anderson, Deloitte Consulting
From Noise to Notes: My STEM Journey and the Hidden Math of Music and Speech
Abstract: Have you ever wondered how your favorite songs stream perfectly to your phone, or how voice assistants like Siri and Alexa understand what you say? Behind these everyday wonders is a fascinating world where math meets technology, called signal processing.
In this keynote, Lillian Anderson shares her personal journey from Fargo North High School to a career in tech consulting, highlighting how a passion for math opened doors to exciting opportunities in STEM. Lillian will introduce the basics of signal processing, the math that helps computers turn noisy data into clear music and speech.
Through interactive activities, you’ll discover how math helps us capture, clean up, and interpret sounds— from the notes in a song to the words in a conversation. You’ll get hands-on experience with the math behind audio signals, see real-world applications, and learn how these skills power everything from music apps to medical devices.
Whether you’re a math lover, a musician, or just curious about how technology works, this session will show you how math is at the heart of the sounds and voices that connect us every day. Get ready to explore, experiment, and see how your own STEM journey can begin with a single note.
Bio: Lillian Anderson is a proud Fargo North High School alumna (Class of 2015) and former Sonia Kovalevsky Day participant who turned her love of math into a career in tech. She earned both her B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech, focusing on digital signal processing, a field where math helps decode sounds, images, and signals all around us. While at Georgia Tech, Lillian served as president of Women in Electrical and Computer Engineering (WECE) for two years and received the Helen E. Grenga Outstanding Woman Engineer Award in 2020 for her leadership and service.
Today, Lillian brings her passion for math to Deloitte Consulting, where she works as a product manager for an innovative AI tool that helps clients make strategic business decisions by analyzing large datasets. Her career has spanned DSP engineering, software engineering, technical project management, and engineering market activation, giving her a front-row seat to how math shapes the world, from apps we use every day to the biggest business challenges.
Based in Seattle, Lillian enjoys backpacking, running, and hosting potlucks with friends. She believes that math isn’t just about numbers; it’s about solving real problems, building connections, and opening doors to exciting opportunities. She’s thrilled to return to Sonia Kovalevsky Day to share her story and encourage the next generation of young women to pursue their passions in math and beyond.
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