Armed with a Ph.D. in computer science, Patricia Lopez was working at New Mexico State University when a former professor and HP employee asked her to interview for a job with the company in Colorado.
HP was looking to improve its scanning technology.
“When I first started, there was a need to help customers have a better scanning experience,” said Lopez, 48. “So my background in computer visioning was a natural fit for the image process that they needed for their growing scanning division.”
Since landing the job as an imaging scientist 18 years ago, Lopez has been tasked with making scanners easier to operate.
“We try to make it as pain-free as possible … where the user focuses on what they want to do with their images. We don’t want to put a lot of sliders and graphs and knobs in front of them.”
She also has several patents under her belt, one involving the software that identifies a photograph’s dimensions on a scanner.
Her personal mission is to get young people, especially females, interested in math and science.
She also mentors college women and is involved with the company’s internship program.
“I’m a Hispanic female; there’s not a lot of those in high tech,” she said. “It’s really heartening to see diverse women and minorities going into computing. It’s hard to bring (that) talent into HP, it’s very competitive to get those minorities.”
She recalls that there weren’t many technology companies in the area when she first moved there, naming IBM with its Boulder campus. Dozens of companies have since sprouted up – not only divisions of other global companies that work closely with HP but companies founded by former HP employees.
