2016 BECA Winners – Martha Kim and Hanna Wallach

CRA-Women (CRA-W) recently announced that Martha Kim and Hanna Wallach are the recipients of this year’s 2016 Borg Early Career Award (BECA).  The award honors the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W and an inspiration for her commitment in increasing the participation of women in computing research. The annual award is given to a woman in computer science and/or engineering who has made significant research contributions and who has contributed to her profession, especially in the outreach to women.

Martha is committed to promoting diversity in computer science.  She has been particularly active in high school outreach, participating in high-school oriented conferences such as “Code Like A Girl,” serving on a working group that reviewed and revised her own high school’s approach to STEM education, and acting as a faculty mentor for the Artemis Program summer school.

Hanna is committed to increasing diversity and has worked for over a decade to address the underrepresentation of women in computing. She co-founded two projects, which are the first of their kind, to increase women’s involvement in free and open source software development: Debian Women and the GNOME Women’s Summer Outreach Program. She also co-founded the annual Women in Machine Learning Workshop, which is now in its eleventh year.