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CRA at RESPECT 2015

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The Computing Research Association will be participating in the Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT) 2015 Conference, the first international meeting of the IEEE Special Technical Community on Broadening Participation with technical co-sponsorship by the IEEE Computer Society.

A paper written by CRA Director of Statistics and Evaluation Betsy Bizot and CRA Surveys Committee Chair Stuart Zweben, was selected as one of four “exemplary papers.” The paper, Representation of Women in Postsecondary Computing 1990-2013: Disciplines, Institutional, and Individual Characteristics Matter, reports the results of an in-depth study of two decades of data from the IPEDS database, to examine trends in the participation of women in postsecondary academic computing programs at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral level.  Emphasis is placed on determining differences among the various disciplines within the computing field, and differences based on institutional and citizenship/ ethnicity characteristics.

CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) staff will be presenting three papers on a wide array of topics related to broadening participation in computing.

  • Jane Stout, CERP Director, will present work on the experiences of deaf and hard of hearing students in computing.
  • Heather Wright, CERP Research Analyst, will talk about LGBTQ students’ sense of belonging in the computing community.
  • Former CERP staff member, Ama Nyame-Mensah, will present research on the benefits of research experiences for undergraduate students on students from racial/ethnic minority groups in computing.

Papers on all three of these topics can be found on CERP’s Research Findings page.

The Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) and the Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC) are also involved in the RESPECT Conference and STARS Celebration.

  • Heather Bort, a CRA-W alumna, will present a Lightning Talk/Poster on Multi-Track Programming Competitions with Scratch.
  • Vetria Byrd will discuss Broadening Participation in Visualization (BPViz). She is the Discipline Specific Workshop host for BPViz 2015.
  • Sheila Castaneda (CRA-W) and Cheryl Seals (CDC) will be present at the NSF BPC Alliance Leadership: Fireside Chat; a panel of outstanding leaders who have established alliances and coalitions to diversify computing in the US.
  • Manuel Perez-Quinones (CDC) and Jamika Burge (CDC) will be presenting a session on Recognizing and Addressing Diversity Themes in Professional Settings.

Look for Sheila at the CRA-W table during the RESPECT Conference!