Alum of the Week: Pooja Sankar, Founder and CEO, Piazza

Before coming to the University of Maryland in 2002 to earn a master's degree in Computer Science, Pooja Sankar '04, earned a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science at IIT, Kapur.  Ms. Sankar then took her talents to Oracle, Kosmix, and Facebook before founding her company Piazza while she earned her MBA at Stanford Business School.   Piazza,  is an online, educational platform that allows professors, teaching assistants, and students, to ask and answer questions as well communicate and exchange ideas.  Ms. Sankar was recently interviewed on NPR, and she spoke about how this platform can help shy students ask questions anonymously in a forum to get help that they may need. She is very committed to ensuring that all students are able to succeed in courses--particularly technical ones.  She has sited her own undergradate experience as one impetus for founding the company.

In 2014, she decided to open the platform to technical recruiters, to help companies with the task of finding qualified candidates, and in 2012, Ms. Sankar was also the subject of a Forbes Magazine article on the growth of Piazza.

photo credit: Stanford University

Alum of the week: Over the next several weeks, we will highlight diverse graduates of the department and we will highlight their accomplishments. Our graduates go on to do many things: found companies, research, teach, and work in a variety of fields from tech to law to education to medicine.