Each year, Systems Contractor News recognizes women and men in two different ways.
In January, SCN announces its Hall of Fame inductees. They are industry leaders, integrators, manufacturers, visionaries, and engineers. These individuals represent Pro AV excellence, and each has left an indelible mark on our industry.
SCN announces The Nine each year in May. They are a select group of younger professionals who are setting the tone for the industry's next generation.
Article continues belowAV Technology is giving an extra shoutout to the women who have been recognized in SCN's Hall of Fame and The Nine during the past few years.
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Dawn Cagliano
SCN Hall of Fame 2026: Over Dawn Cagliano's 20-year career, she worked her way up to become IVCi's first female president.
Cagliano is a trailblazer in the industry. She has spent 20 years at SCN Top 50 systems integrator IVCi, working her way up the proverbial ladder to become the first female president in the company's history. Over that two-decade span, her focus has never changed: to create spaces that connect people and create great experiences for people.
Cagliano wasn't Pro AV-bound from the start. She began her career managing call centers. It wasn't so much the centers she was focused on, but the experience for the customers.
"I was very focused back then on how to make the telephone conversation a more seamless interaction," Cagliano reflected. "I love connecting people, and I have always tried to improve the telephonic experience. That's what drew me to the AV world, the video component of the people connection."
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Sarah Cox
SCN Hall of Fame 2026: Meet Sarah Cox, a mastermind in the "experience economy." Currently the chief commercial officer at Stage Precision, Cox is also the founder of Neutral Human—and while she loves to immerse herself in technology, she is driven by helping move creative storytelling forward.
Young Sarah Cox was always a tinkerer. With a neurodivergent brain, she had to learn by figuring out the puzzle of all things. "I think that's what drew me to technology," she said. "To try and pick it apart, put it back together, and make something so I understood the process."
Cox grew up loving to sing, so she never shied from the stage and spotlight. As she moved up the high school ladder, something else grabbed her attention: lights.
"There was a guy up in the booth, and he was playing with the lights," Cox recollected. "I went up to have a look, and it was literally love at first sight. He was pressing these buttons on this little board and color changing the school stage. I was just drawn to the power that this guy had with this little tech board."
Those lights led Cox, who enjoyed DJing in her spare time (she had a regular gig on New Year's Eve at the Comedy Store for years), to the world of video at the inflection point of 2D video playback. Then, she was off to Disguise, immediately immersing herself in the 3D and real-time visual experiences aspect of the industry.
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Kirsten Nelson
SCN Hall of Fame 2025: Since her early days at SCN, Kirsten Nelson has been a champion for the Pro AV industry.
It seemed that Kirsten Nelson was destined for great things in the world of Pro AV. A journalism student and daughter of an electrical engineer saw her worlds collide in her first job out of college—assistant editor of Systems Contractor News.
Nelson's earliest influence came from her father—an electrical engineer with a passion for sound—learning all about sound and radio, where to sit to be in the sweet spot, how to get the best stereo imaging, and how to be careful around a turntable. In fact, her father designed his own lighting rig that connected to a stereo called the Nelson Technilite, which lit up according to the frequency range of music that was playing.
"I grew up in a household where not only was I exposed to a bunch of audio technology, but curiosity about technology in general," Nelson said.
At Boston University, Nelson met a bunch of computer scientists who moonlighted as DJs, and her love for music (and the technology behind it) grew. After connecting with David McGee (now content manager, AVTech Group, Future B2B) via an internship, Nelson interviewed with SCN—and the rest, as they say, is history. Nelson embarked on a career at SCN that spanned nearly two decades.
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Heather Sidorowicz
SCN Hall of Fame 2025: The Southtown Audio Video owner, Heather Sidorowicz, applies a different approach to commercial integration—to great success.
Southtown Audio Video, located in Hamburg, New York, near Buffalo, celebrated two major milestones in 2024—its 40th year in business and its 10th year under ownership by Heather Sidorowicz. Though she has owned the firm for a decade, her time with the company goes much further than that. Southtown was started as a hi-fi store by Sidorowicz’s father and, after years in the residential space, has become one of Western New York's biggest commercial AV companies.
Despite having AV in her blood, running an AV integration shop was not necessarily a fait acompli for Sidorowicz. “I was a theater major,” she confessed. “While that doesn't always seem like a direct connection, I think that I still deliver pieces of entertainment to people. I think there is a thread between being an actress on stage and doing a training for 25 people and making sure that they're able to connect the best way that they can.
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Nancy Knowlton
SCN Hall of Fame 2024: Since her days with SMART Technologies and now with Nureva, Nancy Knowlton is changing the nature of education around the world.
If you have been in a classroom, whether as an educator or student, there's a good chance you've seen Nancy Knowlton's contributions to the Pro AV world. She has been helping to transform education since she and her husband, David Martin, founded SMART Technologies in 1987.
When Knowlton isn't running Nureva—the company she and Martin started in 2014 where she is currently both president and CEO—you may find her in the kitchen as a self-proclaimed foodie. While she stays focused cooking up new (and healthy) recipes, perhaps it is the basketball courts where you can trace the beginnings of a work ethic that got her to where she is today. Knowlton played basketball for Bishop University in Quebec, Canada, and was one of Canada's top scorers. While others were out and about on the weekends, she was perfecting her craft.
"Every day I shot 200 free throws," Knowlton recollected. "And if the ball went through the net and it didn't come back to me, that didn't count. It had to go through the hoop, two bounces, and back in my hands to count as a made shot. I'm just a worker. I was a worker in sports as well. That's the ethic that got me where I was in basketball and then onward in life."
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Holly Clausen
Title: Senior Design Engineer
Company: AVI-SPL
Location: Seattle, WA
Overtime: She spent significant time collaging during the pandemic, and creating art has become a source of stress relief for her. She has also dedicated more time to running and recently trained for and completed her first half-marathon.
Why You Need to Know Her: As a senior design engineer at AVI-SPL within its Product and Solutions Group (PSG), Holly Clausen is responsible for creating and managing all AVI-SPL reference designs. However, she notes that a large team collaborates to bring these designs to life.
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Catherine Koutsaris
Title: Product Marketing Manager
Company: Matrox Video
Location: Montreal
Overtime: A dual citizen of Canada and the United States, she grew up in Montreal and embraces the area’s multi-cultural offerings. You can find Catherine trying new recipes, watching musicals, playing video games, or admiring her salt and pepper shaker and rubber duck collections.
Why You Need to Know Her: Always in style, she loves finding new ways of combining her engineering background with market knowledge to present innovative solutions for her clients' complex control room environments.
Learn more about Catherine here.
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Melis Vardar
Title: Manager, AV/IT Operations
Company: UCLA
Location: Los Angeles
Overtime: Vardar doesn’t just work in education, she's engulfed by it. She’s passionate about learning and is currently going for her master's degree.
Why You Need to Know Her: Basically, Vardar is what you get when you mix a bookworm who loves to learn with a whole bunch of Pro AV gadgets and solutions.
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Nicole Corbin
Title: VP of Business Operations
Company: Utelogy
Location: Central Massachusetts
Overtime: Newly engaged, she’s planning a wedding for next spring. She also loves nature photography as a hobby and has a black belt in Krav Maga.
Why You Need to Know Her: Utelogy’s human Swiss Army Knife has a background in UX design, but now she’s tasked with launching new initiatives and optimizing day-to-day operations at Utelogy.
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Karen Castaño
Title: Vice President, Hospitality
Company: Exertis Almo
Location: Dallas, TX
Overtime: While she enjoys photography and writing, you’ll most likely find her chasing around her two-year-old triplets in her spare time (which she photographs and writes about in her blog).
Why You Need to Know Her: Her own ambitions are secondary to her team’s where she is a strong advocate for promoting the future talent of Pro AV. “My joy is seeing other people succeed,” Castaño said. “It's far more important than my personal glory.”
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Adrienne Knick
Title: Senior Director, Certification
Company: AVIXA
Location: Fairfax, VA
Overtime: If you don’t see Knick working, chances are she’s in the air working on her pilot’s license.
Why You Need to Know Her: Adrienne Knick has long worked on improving the AVIXA testing and assessment space, and was a driving force behind making the CTS exam available through online exam proctoring.
Learn more about Adrienne here.
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Katie Murphy Khulusi
Title: Engineering Director, Acoustical and Mechanical
Company: Meyer Sound
Location: Berkeley, CA
Overtime: What doesn’t she do in her free time? Along with snowboarding and backpacking the Sierras with her dad, she is the neighborhood coordinator for the Berkeley Food Pantry, makes candles, and moonlights as a bar trivia host.
Why You Need to Know Her: You would think that being the driving force behind Meyer Sound’s PANTHER loudspeaker system would top the list, but that is just part of Katie Murphy Khulusi’s story. She’s not just part of the youth revolution in Pro AV, she is likely your strongest ally and advocate, using “every platform that is available to me to do that.”
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Brittany DiCesare
Title: Director of Sales and Operations
Company: Control Concepts, Inc.
Location: Amissville, VA
Why You Need to Know Her: Brittany DiCesare has a keen understanding of business, workflows, and relationships—and never shies away from a challenge, especially when it comes to learning something new or developing additional skills. “I’m able to easily switch between big picture and granular levels, when necessary, which allows me to be involved in both vision and operational conversations,” she explained. “Above all those things, I strive to be an equal member of a team that encourages, challenges, and helps inspire people to greatness.”
Learn more about Brittany here.
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Shameka Dunbar
Title: Director of Audio-Visual Services
Location: Houston, TX
Why You Need to Know Her: Shameka Dunbar has an eye for targeting potential problems and her experience in AV sales, engineering, design, and marketing allows her to develop innovative solutions, no matter the situation.
Learn more about Shameka here.
Celebrating Women in AV/IT 2026: Jennifer Goodyer
Title: Sales Manager
Company: RTSales
Location: Boca Raton, FL
Why You Need to Know Her: Through her involvement with the AVIXA Women’s Council, Jennifer Goodyer, CTS is working to make the Pro AV industry more welcoming for women.
Learn more about Jennifer here.
Read all the AV Technology Women in AV/IT 2026 articles Here
