Delia Grenville, a research scientist and technology strategist at Intel Corporation, was honored as Technologist of the Year at the 20th annual Women of Color STEM Conference.

At the time of the award, Grenville was working as an architect specializing in strategy, innovation, platform engineering, and user experience.

Her nomination described her as a visionary thinker who gives her all to everything she does.

As a lead human factors engineer in Intel's Digital Home User Experience Group, Grenville was responsible for defining usage and experience for consumer electronics products.

She created digital content technologies that allow consumers to filter content streaming to their televisions and enhance their content viewing experience via the internet.

Grenville has pioneered several programs for consumer electronic projects and is part of several teams that aim to foster innovation in the consumer experience.

Before joining Intel, she was a senior research scientist at Oracle, working on small device interfaces and geospatial visualization.

Grenville has also served as a program chair and reviewer for the Human Factors Engineering Society.

She is also the co-founder of an organization that seeks to steer professional women towards executive and leadership positions.

The "Got Strategy" workshop she co-created assists junior and mid-level professionals in setting and executing a career strategy.

When Grenville received the 2015 Technologist of the Year Award, she was thrilled by its impact on her career.

"The award opened up a lot of career conversations in and outside of my company," said Grenville. "It gave me access to executive-level connections and conversations I hadn't had before. I don't think where I was in middle management, those conversations would have occurred as quickly."

She received more opportunities as a speaker and panelist, invitations to meetings and luncheons, and increased access to top executives at her company, Intel.

Grenville encourages individuals to regard feedback from outside sources as constructive criticism, adding, "Career management is essential for women as we tend to be more focused on others. A lot of times, our situations can filter our viewpoints, the organizations that we are in," she said.

Grenville said her message to young people is simple: Focus on science in school, but pay attention to the importance of the Arts.

It's "up to students" to take the opportunity to blend arts and sciences to help them have the unique abilities to invent, design, and create our future technologies.

"Believe you can," she said, adding that those individuals who possess the "unique combination" of artistic talent and technical and scientific skill must recognize that they have something unique to bring to the world.

Grenville, who earned a doctorate and master's degree in industrial and systems management from Virginia Tech, said it's vital for individuals advancing on the corporate ladder to be aware of how they are perceived within their companies and beyond.

Her undergraduate degree is in mechanical engineering from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.