Tag Archive: CRA-WP
Articles relevant to the CRA Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP).
CRA released its third set of 2020 Quadrennial Papers, part of a series of white papers produced though its subcommittees, exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. This release focused on papers around the themes of Socio-Technical Computing and Diversity & Education.
CRA-WP has renamed the Grad Cohort for URMD Workshop to the Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills – The IDEALS Workshop. We would like to sincerely thank everyone involved in this renaming process. The community’s willingness to discuss, listen, and provide insightful feedback was essential to improving the process and outcome.
Applications are now open for the 2021 CRA-WP Graduate Cohort Workshops.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Women will likely be a virtual workshop on April 23-24, 2021. Apply here.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills – The IDEALS Workshop (formerly the Grad Cohort Workshop for URMD) will be a virtual workshop on March 11-12, 2021. Apply here.
For the past fifteen years, I have led the NSF-funded broadening participation alliance AccessComputing that has the goal of increasing the participation and success of people with disabilities in computing fields. This has given me and my team the ability to help create positive change and to observe what others have done to do the same. No doubt, there are still significant barriers for some students with disabilities to enter our field, and as technology changes new barriers often arise.
The Computing Research Association and organizers of the Distributed Research Experience for Undergraduates (DREU) Program made the decision to modify the 2020 DREU program from an onsite format to a virtual one. Given the devastating impact of the COVID-19 virus we felt offering a virtual Distributed Research Experience for Undergraduates (vDREU) would better ensure the safety of all participants while continuing to provide research-intensive opportunities to students considering advanced degrees in computing.
Twenty-eight students worked with thirteen faculty mentors on virtual research projects in a number of areas. In addition to offering students and mentors the opportunity to participate in a virtual research experience we will be providing students with a travel budget to be used for a follow-up onsite REU activity that is coordinated with their mentor at a later date.
DREU Application Opening
In mid-October CRA-WP will begin accepting student and mentor applications for the Summer 2021 session. Learn more about first hand experiences with the DREU program this video.
To identify and broadly engage the next generation of computer science researchers, the Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions (CAHSI), an NSF INCLUDES Alliance, piloted a national virtual Research Experience for Undergraduates (vREU) during the summer of 2020. Funded by an NSF RAPID grant, the pilot provided undergraduate research experiences for 50 students and 20 faculty drawn from 20 colleges and universities widely distributed throughout the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico. The program used the Affinity Research Group (ARG) model to guide faculty mentors throughout the experience. ARG is a CAHSI signature practice with a focus on deliberate, structured faculty and student research skills development. At weekly meetings, Drs. Morreale, Villa, and Gates discussed and provided resources for specific skills that were appropriate at a specific point in time of a student’s research experience. Faculty mentors put skills development into immediate practice throughout their summer research program.
The 2020 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing conference celebrated the technical contributions and career interests of diverse people in computing fields. The conference’s goal is to help all attendees — especially students —build vital connections that will serve them well both professionally and personally. The conference aims to provide an educational and supportive networking environment for underrepresented groups across the broad range of computing and information technology, from science to business to the arts to infrastructure. The Tapia 2020 conference theme, Inclusion Drives Innovation, highlighted the critical role that diverse perspectives play in driving innovations in computing and technology. Creating teams, organizations, and societies that are inclusive and respectful of differences leads to greater innovations that benefit the world.
Housed at Northeastern’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences, the Center for Inclusive Computing (“the Center”) serves as a catalyst in helping universities take the lead in educating more women in computing, both to meet a significant economic need and to address the issues of social inequity and exclusion. The Center awards funding to colleges and universities to scale best practices known to increase the representation of women in undergraduate computing. While these best practices are well documented and widely known, stagnant percentages indicate that uptake has been slow.
In order to accelerate change, the Center invites nonprofit colleges and universities to apply for one of two funding opportunities: Best Practice Grants and Data Grants.
To learn if your institution is eligible and how to apply, please visit our website for more information or email inquiries to khoury-cic@northeastern.edu.
The Scholarships for Women Studying Information Security (SWSIS) program provides scholarships of up to $10,000 for women earning their Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in fields related to information security. The scholarships support collegiate women working to join the growing security industry through academic funding and mentoring opportunities. Over the past eight years, SWSIS has supported more than 90 women for one to two years each and have funded more than $625,000 in scholarships, providing assistance at the formative stages of their careers.
CRA-WP is honored to present the recipients of two award programs. Tawanna Dillahunt of the University of Michigan and Michel A. Kinsy of Boston University have been selected as the 2020 Skip Ellis Early Career Award recipients. Olga Russakovsky of Princeton University has been selected as the 2020 Anita Borg Early Career Award recipient.
On March 5-7, 2020, CRA-WP hosted the 2020 Grad Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD) Workshop in Austin, TX. Now in its third year, the workshop brought together approximately 200 graduate students from groups that are underrepresented in computing (including Alaska Native, Black/African American, Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, and/or Persons with Disabilities). Collectively, they represented a diverse set of computing-related research areas and more than 90 institutions. By developing meaningful connections with a focus on mentoring and community building, the workshop aims to increase representation from these groups in computing research. Graduate students also learn research skills and career strategies from experienced researchers and professionals.
