Tag Archive: CRA-WP
Articles relevant to the CRA Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP).
Lack of diversity in computing is an enormous opportunity cost for technical innovation. For example, recent studies published by NCWIT show patents with diverse authors are cited more and companies with a more diverse sales force have more income. Diversity drives innovation. Even as demand for computing professionals grows, women and minorities are severely under-represented.
In May 2007, the National Center for Women & IT (NCWIT) launched the Award for Aspirations in Computing at its annual members meeting, which that year took place in Boulder, Colorado. Fifteen young women were selected from local Boulder and Denver high schools and recognized for their aspirations and achievements in computing.
On February 14, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Research held a hearing on Applications for Information Technology Research and Development. CCC Chair and former CRA Board Chair Ed Lazowska, CRA-W Chair and current CRA Board Member Kathryn McKinley, representing Microsoft, and Kelly Gaither of the University of Texas at Austin testified on behalf of the computing community and articulated the importance of federal funding for computing research.
The Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) recently held the 2012 CAPP Advanced Career Mentoring Workshop in San Francisco, CA on November 16-17, 2012. The goal of the CAPP Workshop is to increase the percentage of Computer Science and Engineering women faculty members and researchers/scientists who reach the top of their respective career tracks.
The Latinas in Computing (LiC) community was established after a Birds of a Feather session at the 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference (GHC). LiC’s primary goal is to promote the professional growth of Latinas and to increase their representation in the computing community.
CRA-W hosted another successful set of Career Mentoring workshops on the afternoon of Oct 3rd at Grace Hopper 2012 in Baltimore. Designed to be a “bite-sized” version of our two day Career Mentoring workshops, CRA-W sessions at Grace Hopper are organized into three tracks: Undergraduate, Graduate and Early Professional, each consisting of three one hour sessions. CRA-W has run these workshops at Grace Hopper since 2009. Our workshops consistently have a large number of attendees and receive very positive ratings on the Grace Hopper attendee survey. In 2012, all nine sessions had more than 70 attendees and the final session in the Graduate track on “Building Your Professional Network” had over 150 people learning about and actively practicing their networking skills. Slides from all the sessions are available on the CRA-W website on the Career Mentoring Workshops at Grace Hopper page.
Several computing organizations work at the national level to increase women’s participation in computing, but few seek regional level transformation. Regional events overcome impediments to women’s broad and deep engagement in computing. Read full article.
The Coalition to Diversity Computing (CDC) is gearing up to for the 2013 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference, which will be held in Washington, DC, Feb. 7-10, 2013. The conference, now in its seventh year, brings together diverse technical leaders to present state-of-the art topics in computing.
The first ACW was conducted in the fall of 2005 on a shoestring budget and the beneficence of Texas A&M University. There were 16 attendees (mostly assistant professors and late-term graduate students) and four senior computer science/computational mathematics faculty. The panels included navigating the tenure process, starting a research program, and managing work/life balance; in addition, a major component involved research proposal development. The latter component consisted of a presentation on proposal development by a former NSF program officer, as well as a mock review panel. We obtained permission from proposers to use their awarded and declined NSF proposals in a mock NSF proposal review panel.
On April 13-14, 2012 approximately 245 women computer science / computer engineering graduate students descended upon beautiful Bellevue, WA for the 2012 CRA-W Graduate Cohort Workshop. There they were joined by over 25 senior technical women representing academia, government, and industry. The Graduate Cohort Workshop, with significant support from Microsoft Research, along with support from Google, IBM, Yahoo!, and many University Departments, aims to increase the ranks of senior women in computing by building and mentoring communities of women through their graduate studies.
Throughout the United States, many initiatives are underway to engage youth in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). There are also a large number of organizations seeking to increase diversity and gender equity in STEM. The National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) occupies a unique role among these activities in that it facilitates collaboration with all stakeholders focused on increasing diversity and engagement in STEM, connects them to girl-serving STEM programs, and provides access to information and resources that enhance the impact and effectiveness of these initiatives.
