CRA-W Career Mentoring Workshops
The Computer Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is an action oriented organization dedicated to increasing the number of women participating in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) research and education at all levels.
In addition to increasing the number of women involved, CRA-W also seeks to increase the degree of success women experience and to provide a forum for addressing problems that often fall disproportionately within women’s domain. CRA-W is hopeful that the committee activities will also have a positive impact for other underrepresented groups in CSE and is committed to improving the working environment for Computer Scientists and Engineers of both genders.
CRA-W is sponsoring three sessions. The sessions will be held from 1-5 pm on Wednesday, September 30th with breaks for networking and getting to know one another, and will be followed by a reception until 5:30 pm.
CRA-W is offering 3 tracks - select a link below. CRA-W is also providing reviews of graduate school applications throughout the conference at the CRA-W booth. Stop by to have your applications reviewed!
Undergraduate students
Graduate students
Early research careers
Three Wednesday Afternoon Sessions Especially for Undergrads
CSE is for You: Innovation, Flexibility and Exciting Opportunities. Innovation is central to many jobs in computer science and engineering. You get the opportunity to create new technology that helps others. The creativity, innovation, and fast pace of CSE mean that life will never be boring. Jobs are quite varied, so there’s a place for someone who wants to work alone or in small teams, and for someone who wants to spend most of her time working with people to make the world a better place. Work location, hours, and travel tend to be flexible, so you can often find a job that fits your goals and style. This session highlights various career paths, along with strategies for successful preparation for them.
Presenters: Soha Hassoun (Tufts University) and Tessa Lau (IBM Almaden Research Center)
Soha Hassoun is an associate professor at Tufts University in the Department of Computer Science. She earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, a Master’s degree from MIT, and a BSEE from South Dakota State University. Her research interests are Bio Design Automation and Computer-Aided Design for integrated circuits. Dr. Hassoun is an NSF CAREER award recipient. She received the ACM/SIGDA Distinguished Service award, and is a Tau Beta Pi Fellow. She is a member of ACM, a senior member of IEEE, and Eta Kappa Nu.
Tessa Lau is a Research Staff Member at IBM Almaden Research Center. Dr. Lau’s research integrates techniques from artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction to build systems that enhance human productivity and creativity; areas of interest include programming by demonstration, collaboration, and social software. She has served on organizing and program committees for major AI and HCI conferences and journals. She also serves on the board of CRA-W, the CRA committee on the status of women in computing research. Dr. Lau holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington.
The Road to Graduate School. What are the options for pursuing advanced degrees in computer science and engineering? How do you choose the right graduate school for you? Is there anything you can do during college to improve your chances of being admitted? How do you apply? What is the time line for completing the application process? What are the best kinds of recommendations? Does work experience help? How can you fund graduate school? Find out the answers to these and other questions in this session which will tell you all you need to know to apply successfully to graduate school.
Presenters: Jodi Tims (Baldwin-Wallace College) and Shannon Steinfadt (Kent State University)
Dr. Jodi Tims is Professor of Computer Science at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, OH where she serves as Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. She earned a M.S. in Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh and the Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh with an emphasis on programming languages and compilation for distributed memory parallel systems. Dr. Tims is a member of ACM and SIGCSE. She recently served as Program Chair for the 3rd Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing held in February, 2009 and will continue in that role for OCWIC 2011.
Shannon Steinfadt is a Ph.D. candidate at Kent State University of Ohio and a recent intern from Los Alamos National Lab with the Performance and Architectures Lab. Her research focus is parallel and high-performance computing applications in bioinformatics. Shannon received her B.A. in Computer Science at Hiram College and an M.A. in Computer Science at Kent State University. Shannon has been teaching and researching at Kent State since 2000. She is a past recipient of the Ohio Board of Regents Research Assistant at Kent State, as well as a past five-time intern with the NASA Glenn Research Center.
The Graduate School Experience. Is graduate school in computer science and engineering for you? What’s it like to pursue a Masters or PhD degree? What benefits do you get once you have the degree? This session will help you understand what it’s like to be in graduate school, and the exciting options you’ll have when you finish. Graduate students, faculty, and graduates will share their experiences with you.
Presenters: Eleni Stroulia (University of Alberta), Andrea Danyluk (Williams College), Ramya Raghavendra (UC Santa Barbara)
Eleni Stroulia is a Professor and iCORE Industrial Research Chair on Service Systems Management with the Department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta. She holds M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research addresses industrially relevant software-engineering problems with automated methods, based on artificial-intelligence techniques. She was the program co-chair for the Canadian AI in 2001, WCRE in 2003 and 2004, CASCON 2006 and ICPC 2007. She serves on the editorial board of the Computational Intelligence Journal and on the NSERC Discovery Grant adjudication committee 330 (2006-2008). She is a member of ACM and IEEE.
Andrea Danyluk is a professor of Computer Science at Williams College. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1992 and was a researcher at NYNEX (now Verizon) before coming to Williams. Andrea’s research interests are focused on applications of machine learning. She has published book contributions, journal and conference articles in this area. She regularly serves on AI and Machine Learning conference committees and is currently General Chair of ICML 2009. Andrea is active in CS education. She is co-author of a textbook, Java: An Eventful Approach. She joined CRA-W in 2008 and co-directs the CREU program.
Ramya Raghavendra is a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara since 2005, pursuing her PhD with Prof. Elizabeth Belding. Her research interests are in the area of wireless networking, with an emphasis on monitoring and measurements. She obtained her undergraduate degree in CS in 2004 and has successfully completed internships in HP Labs, Microsoft Internship and Intel Research since then. With a keen interest in increasing diversity in Computer Science, she has headed the Women in CS group at UCSB as well as served as the graduate representative on the diversity committee. In recognition, she has been awarded the Outstanding graduate student award and Google Anita Borg scholarship.
These graduate school sessions will be augmented during the conference with an opportunity to have your application to graduate school reviewed by members of the Computing Research Association Committee on Women in Computing (CRA-W) at the CRA-W booth.
Three Wednesday Afternoon Sessions Especially for Graduate Students
Graduate School Survival Skills. This session will address strategies for surviving and, in fact, thriving in graduate school and developing the necessary knowledge, experience and skills for a successful career. Topics include setting realistic goals and expectations, the differences between getting a M.S. and Ph.D. degree, selecting advisors and mentors, setting research goals, working as part of a research team, tracking and maintaining your research and academic progress, and building self confidence. This session will include the importance of carefully choosing advisors and mentors and the differences between the two, how to get the most out of your interactions with your advisor/mentor, responsibilities of both student and advisor/mentor in making the graduate research experience successful, and working through problems with the advisor/mentor relationships.
Presenter: Yvonne Coady (University of Victoria)
Yvonne Coady is an associate professor of computer science at the University of Victoria. Together with her research group, the Mod(ularity) Squad, her research goal is to understand software engineering challenges in modern system infrastructure software. She applies and evaluates techniques from traditional system evolution and maintenance, emerging avenues of advanced modularity across the software stack, new programming paradigms, and future pedagogical directions in concurrent environments.
Networking and Professional Development. This session will help you find a community, meet people in the field, and promote your research and yourself. You will learn how to present your ideas in a concise and appealing way to the people you meet. You will gain skill in making technical and business connections with others, and leveraging them for success in graduate school and your later career.
Presenter: Susanne Hambrusch (Purdue University)
Susanne Hambrusch is currently a professor of computer science at Purdue University. She served as the Department Head from 2002 to 2007. Her research interests are in query and data management in mobile environments, parallel and distributed computation, and analysis of algorithms. She also leads an interdisciplinary project on “Science Education in Computational Thinking.” She is a member of the editorial board for Parallel Computing and Information Processing Letters, and she is a co-chair for CACM’s Viewpoints section. She currently serves on the board of directors of the CRA and the CRA-W.
Publishing Your Research. Publishing is not as hard as it seems. This session discusses strategies for publishing your first and subsequent papers. It covers some patterns that research papers follow, and the ethical concerns of publishing such as plagiarism, dual submissions, and author ordering. You will learn about the different kinds of publications, and the procedures for being published there. We will also share some tips for how to stick to it, despite challenges like writer’s block.
Presenter: Lori Clarke (University of Massachusetts)
Lori A. Clarke is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a Fellow of the ACM and a board member of the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W), which she co-chaired from 2005-2008. Dr. Clarke’s research is in the area of software engineering, primarily focusing on finite-state verification of concurrent systems and requirements engineering. Recently she has been investigating technologies to detect errors and vulnerabilities in complex processes in domains such as medicine, scientific workflow, and digital government.
Wednesday Afternoon Sessions Especially for Early Career Researchers
Growing Your Research Program. Whether you are in academia or a research lab, growing your research program means tapping into resources that help you be more successful. Funding can enable you to attract more students, or work on larger projects. Collaboration enables you to work with people outside your area of expertise, initiate new projects, and have a lot of fun. Networking builds those relationships with people inside and outside your institution that can help you get things done. With representatives from both academia and research labs, this session will cover strategies for identifying the resources that are available to you and how best to take advantage of them.
Speakers: Cecilia Aragon (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and Justine Cassell (Northwestern University)
Cecilia Aragon is a computer scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in Berkeley, California. Her research interests include scientist-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, and visual analytics. She earned her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley and her B.S. in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology. In 2009, she won the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers who are beginning their independent careers. She has received four Best Paper awards in the past five years, and was recently named one of the Top 25 Women of 2009 by Hispanic Business Magazine.
Justine Cassell holds the AT&T Research Chair and is a full professor in EECS, and Communication Studies at Northwestern, with courtesy appointments in Linguistics, Psychology, and Learning Science. She also directs the Center for Technology and Social Behavior. Before coming to Northwestern, Cassell was a tenured professor at the MIT Media Lab. In 2001, Cassell was awarded the prestigious MIT Edgerton Faculty Award; in 2008 she was awarded the Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Leadership Award; in 2009 Cassell was made an ACM Distinguished Lecturer. Her current research explores systems that look, act, and respond like humans, and therefore can act as sensitive, effective learning partners and guides.
Work/Life Balance. There is never enough time for all the things we want to have in life: a successful career, good relationships with spouse and family, hobbies and outside interests. When we spend time on one of these things, we feel guilty about letting the other areas down. The key is to have a balance — panelists in this session will tell you about what they have done to achieve balance in their lives. Is it possible to turn off the email for a few hours? Should you hire a housekeeper or a nanny? How do you best set work priorities and schedule your time? Where can you trim your time commitment, and what efforts should never be cut? Can you live with being less than perfect in your work?
Speakers: Carla Ellis (Duke University) and Andrea Danyluk (Williams College)
Carla Schlatter Ellis is a Professor Emerita of Computer Science at Duke University. She received her Ph.D. degree from the University of Washington in 1979. She has served on the board of the Computing Research Association (CRA), is a member of the CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W), past Co-Chair of the Academic Alliance of the National Center for Women & IT (NCWIT), and Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Computing Systems. Her research interests are in operating systems, mobile computing, and sensor networks. She is married with a grown-up son and two dogs.
Andrea Danyluk is a professor of Computer Science at Williams College. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1992 and was a researcher at NYNEX (now Verizon) before coming to Williams. Andrea’s research interests are focused on applications of machine learning. She has published book contributions, journal and conference articles in this area. She regularly serves on AI and Machine Learning conference committees and is currently General Chair of ICML 2009. Andrea is active in CS education. She is co-author of a textbook, Java: An Eventful Approach. She joined CRA-W in 2008 and co-directs the CREU program.
Preparing for Promotion. Do you know what steps you need to take to prepare for your next promotion? Whether this is preparing a tenure case, climbing the technical ladder, or stepping into a management role, this session will teach you what you can be doing now to prepare yourself for that next big promotion.
Speakers: Dilma da Silva (IBM T. J. Watson Research Center) and Nancy Amato (Texas A&M University)
Dilma da Silva is a researcher at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, in New York. She manages the Advanced Operating Systems group. She received her Ph.D in Computer Science from Georgia Tech in 1997. Prior to joining IBM, she was an Assistant Professor at University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. She has published more than 60 technical papers. Dilma is a member of the board of CRA-W (Computer Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research) and a co-founder of the Latinas in Computing group. She regularly enjoys hours of reading and knitting.
Nancy Amato is a professor of computer science and engineering at Texas A&M University where she co-directs the Parasol Lab and is chair of the university-level Alliance for Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Systems Biology. She received undergraduate degrees in Mathematical Sciences and Economics from Stanford University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and UIUC. Nancy is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, a Distinguished Speaker for the IEEE and ACM Distinguished Speakers Programs, a member of the CRA-W and CDC boards, and co-director of the CRA-W/CDC Distributed REU (DREU) and Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS) projects.
A special thanks to our generous sponsors!
and The Henry Luce Foundation