ture. Understanding these issues
has helped me to better identify the
sources of problems and also propose
solutions. For instance, understanding the statistical biases people have
against women in male-dominated
fields has helped me to: 1. Not blame
people for assuming I am less competent and 2. Explain to people the scientific reasons it is important to give
women a second look rather than going off of snap judgments. For the Diversity issue, we have invited experts
to discuss many of these topics.
As for solutions, I have found educating people and generating discussions to be incredibly helpful. At MIT
I never heard the word “feminism”
outside the Women and Gender Studies department, but in 2009 I co-founded “Graduate Women at MIT”
with these goals in mind. Few people
saw the need to have a campus-wide
women’s group. Many made frustrating and subtly sexist comments. After we started inviting speakers and
Women in
Computing
We explore four women
who contributed
extraordinary
advancements to the
field of computing:
1842 : Ada Lovelace was
an analyst for Charles
Babbage, the English
inventor of the first
mechanical computer.
Lovelace’s notes describe
the first algorithm tailored
for a computer, earning
her the title of the “first
computer programmer.”
1949: A United States
navy admiral, Grace
Hopper is known for her
contributions to COBOL,
a modern programming
language designed for
business and finance.
1966: Frances Allen
published highly impactful
research in the field of
compilers and parallel
computing, for which she
earned the prestigious
Turing Award in 2006.
2005: Mary Lou Jepsen
co-founded One Laptop
Per Child, a non-profit
organization that has
delivered more than 2. 4
million inexpensive laptops
to developing countries.
— Jay Patel
panelists to discuss topics, such as
implicit bias and gendered elements
of collaboration, women started talk-
ing more openly about their experi-
ences, and men became more inter-
ested in discussing and improving
the situation of women at MIT. These
discussions often revealed men were
not being insensitive out of malice;
many had blind spots when it came
to gender diversity. Today, GWAMIT
has more than 80 active members
running two annual conferences and
a mentoring program; we also have
more than 1,500 mailing list mem-
bers, many of whom are men. This
has made me hopeful that content
like what is in this issue, and follow-
up discussions about diversity, can
significantly improve how welcom-
ing our field is to women and other
underrepresented groups.
THIS ISSUE
We have chosen 10 feature articles
to empower you with a deeper understanding of current issues and
solution ideas. In this issue, our authors examine how social factors are
keeping people who do not look like
the quintessential, boy genius “
hacker” out of computing. We remind
our readers that diversity is not just
about gender, but also about socioeconomic factors and culture. For instance, in this issue, we have a piece
on teaching computational thinking
through hip-hop. The space of what
we learn and how we teach becomes
so much richer when we include diverse perspectives.
So go ahead. Enjoy your enriched
perspective on diversity and your
newfound cocktail party popularity.
— Jean Yang, Issue Editor
The space
of what we
learn and
how we teach
becomes so
much richer
when we
include diverse
perspectives.
10 out of 10 of the top
U.S. computer science
schools have initiatives
to promote diversity.