Lydia Cupery

Growing up in Istanbul, Turkey, I loved picking up Turkish sayings, translating, teaching English, and keeping track of my earnings in overly complex excel documents. I started Calvin College as a business major and continued learning language as a Gilman Scholar in China.

After taking a computer science class on a whim, I began to appreciate how building systems from scratch and breaking down a problem to its component parts tied in with my interest in language and business processes. Eventually, I declared Computer Science as a major and graduated from Calvin College with a degree in Computer Science and a minor in Business focusing on Finance.

In my time at Calvin, I did a REU research project on the 911 system, lab monitored, and was a Resident Assistant. Off campus, I gained web development experience at CQL and business experience as a summer analyst in the Operations division of Goldman Sachs. On campus, one of my most fulfilling projects was co-founding Calvin College Women in Computing (WIC) with two friends. We set up a mentorship program connecting Calvin students to mentors working in technology, organized company tours, and generally worked to provide a support network for females studying technology.

I chose Atomic Object as my first job partially because of Atomic’s emphasis on bringing new atoms up to speed quickly (via the accelerator program), because the job combined high-quality technical solutions with the business-focused side of consultancy, and because I was impressed by the personality and work ethic of the management and atoms I had met.