AISES presented its 2018 Technical Excellence Award to Nedlaya Francisco, IBM advisory software engineer and an alumna of the UA Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, at the society's annual conference in Oklahoma City on Oct. 4-6, 2018.

Francisco has worked at IBM for 14 years, in the area of secure and reliable storage systems for people and businesses. She has 29 issued patents and three published inventions, and volunteers as a robotics teacher with precollege students. She has presented Lego robotics courses at Shiprock High School in New Mexico and at the Pascua Yacqui Clubhouse in Tucson, Arizona.