CRA-W Activities for Women in Research Labs

CRA-W sponsors a number of activities for women researchers working in industrial and government research labs. While some of these activities are specifically focused on women in industrial and government labs, others have a broader focus but are nonetheless relevant to these researchers. Both types of activities are included here.

Travel Support

For women in industry/government labs

ResearcHers is a discussion mailing list whose purpose is to provide a space for communication and networking of women in computer science research, breaking the isolation of women computer scientists in industry, government labs, and academia.

Grace Hopper Conference

The Grace Hopper Conference, which is an annual gathering of women in computer science, features various activities of interest to researchers. There is usually an informal gathering to meet and share experiences: in 2006 AT&T sponsored a breakfast, while in 2004 Google sponsored a lunch. In addition, there are various panels aimed at women in industry and government labs. From Grace Hopper 2006:

  • Managing Career Change for Researchers
  • Challenges Faced by Female Technical Leaders
  • Opportunities for Women in International Companies
  • Leadership: A Diverse Perspective
  • Non-Traditional Ways to Advance Your Career
  • Research in Industrial Labs: How Collaboration Aids Innovation
  • Balancing Your Career and Family
  • The Technical Career Path
  • Another Ride on the Crazy Train: Work/Life Balance

Distinguished Lecture Series

The Distinguished Lecture Series sends faculty and researchers working in labs to campuses to encourage women and minorities to attend graduate school and consider careers in research. Each Distinguished Lecturer gives a talk about her research at the campus and participates in a panel describing research careers, graduate school, and the process of applying for graduate school. The lecture itself provides an opportunity to showcase the work of a woman researcher.

Mentoring Workshops

CRA-W has sponsored a series of Career Mentoring Workshops, targeted to women in all stages of their research careers. Women often find themselves a minority in their own institutions, and the CRA-W workshops bring them together with women already established in their fields. The established professionals provide practical information, advice, and support to their younger colleagues. Each of the workshops is associated with a major professional meeting, providing many attendees with the opportunity to attend technical talks and make contacts in their research areas. There is material targetted at both academics and women working in research labs.

Grad Cohort

The Graduate Cohort Program addresses the underrepresentation of women in computer science careers by building cohorts of graduate students, creating a community through their graduate years. Each cohort is brought together at an annual two-day workshop. Many of the panelists who speak at the meeting work in research labs, so the workshop also serves as an opportunity for women working in research labs to network and share their experiences with each other and graduate students in computer science.

Discipline-specific Mentoring Workshops

CRA-W and CDC are jointly soliciting proposals for discipline-specific mentoring workshops in the broad field of computing. The goal of these discipline-specific mentoring workshops is to increase participation of members of underrepresented groups within a specific research area by providing career mentoring advice and discipline specific overviews of past accomplishments and future research directions. Specifically, the workshop should focus on helping young researchers at the graduate or post-graduate level in either industry, government labs, or academia become interested in and knowledgeable about the research and research paradigms of a specific discipline. Speakers are drawn from both academia and research labs.

Profile of the Month

Deborah Frincke joined the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 2004 as Chief Scientist for CyberSecurity. Prior to joining PNNL, Dr. Frincke was a (Full) Professor at the University of Idaho, and co-founder/co-director of the U Idaho Center for Secure and Dependable Systems, one of the first such institutions to receive NSAs designation of a national Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education. She is an enthusiastic charter member of the Department of Energys cyber security grass roots community.

Dr. Frinckes research spans a broad cross section of computer security, both open and classified, with a particular emphasis on infrastructure defense and computer security education. She co-founded TriGeo Network Systems, which was recently positioned by Garner in the Leaders Quadrant for security information and event management. She has written over eighty published articles and technical reports.

Dr. Frincke is an active member of several editorial boards, including: Journal of Computer Security, the Elsevier International Journal of Computer Networks, and the International Journal of Information and Computer Security. She co-edits the Security Education Board column for IEEE Security and Privacy, along with Matt Bishop. She is a steering committee member for Recent Advances in Intrusion Detection (RAID) and Systematic Advances in Digital Forensic Engineering (SADFE). She is a member of numerous advisory boards, including the University of Washingtons Governing Board for the I-Schools Center for Cyber Security and Information Assurance and the State of Idahos NASA/EPSCOR Technical Advisory Committee.

Dr. Frincke received her PhD from the University of California, Davis in 1992.

Past Profiles

Research Labs


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