Artemis Project

On June 28th, we kicked off the 15th year of the Artemis Project here at Brown University.  The Artemis Project is a free, five-week summer day camp for rising 9th-grade girls in the Providence area that teaches computer skills, programming, and computer science concepts through engaging activities, therby encouraging young women to join the field of computer science.

The Artemis Project is coordinated by undergraduate women from Brown University in connection with Brown's Computer Science Department. This year, Artemis also has a coordinator from Boston University. We are pleased to be working with 21  talented rising 9th-grade girls from all around Rhode Island.

During the first week of the camp, we worked with the girls to teach them about a few Adobe design products, such as Photoshop and Illustrator. In the second week, we helped  the girls design and build their very own web pages. We also have had a number of guest speakers come and talk to the girls -- including representatives from Adobe and Google, as well as professor Andy van Dam and post-doc Suzanne Sindi of Brown University -- about a wide range of computer science-related topics.

This week we've been working with the girls to learn Java. They will be using Java to code their very own Tic-Tac-Toe games. They will also be using Java to program the new Finch robots that we are introducing this year.

Besides our work in the computer lab, we also have classroom activities covering a wide range of topics that are essential for all computer scientists to know. We taught the girls about binary numbers and Boolean logic, some graph theory (breadth first search and depth first search), and some computational linguistics. We have also gone on two field trips so far: the Wheeler School Ropes Course and the Boston Museum of Science.

At the Artemis Project, the girls get along well and have had their own bonding experiences. The coordinators are developing friendships with the girls and the mentoring experience has proven rewarding for both the undergraduate coordinators and the high-school girls.

The Artemis Project is sponsored in part with support from an NCWIT Academic Alliance Seed Fund award, with Amy Greenwald as its PI. You can find out more about the Artemis Prject at its website.

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Search for Potential Research Study Participants

"Women hold 46.7% of the U.S. labor force -- but they account for only 3% of top executive positions (Catalyst, 2010). An even more alarming statistic, women account for only 1.1% of the average number of executive officers in the Information Technology industry."

Catalyst. (2010). Women in U.S. Management.
Catalyst. (2009). 2009 Catalyst Census: Fortune 500.

Hello, I’m Tamara Mumford, a student at the University of Phoenix where I’m actively seeking my Doctoral Degree (Doctor of Management in Organizational Leadership with a Specialization in Information Systems and Technology).

As a doctoral student, my written dissertation is entitled: Women Overcoming Gender Imbalance in Information Technology. In finalizing my dissertation, I’ll need to conduct a study on the experiences of executive level female workers in the field of Information Technology in the U.S. workforce. Therefore, I’m seeking female volunteers who hold or have held an executive level position in the field of Information Technology. An executive level position is defined as one where an individual is a manager of managers and devises strategies or formulates policies to ensure that the goals and objectives of their company or department are met. Executive level positions may include titles such as Sr. Manager, Director, Chief Data Officer (CDO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Chairman, Vice Chairman, Vice President, and President.

Participation will be voluntary. Complete confidentiality will be maintained and after initial contact the participant’s name, email, phone number, or any other identifying information will be removed from all gathered information. An alphanumeric code known only by the researcher will be attached to the participant’s information. A consensual form along with additional details in regards to the study will be provided to the participant. Please note there is no known risk attached to participating in this study or no direct benefit is attached to participating in this study.

I will interview participants at their conveniences, anticipating interviews to last approximately 1 to 1 ½ hours and consisting of questions related to their IT experiences in the workforce such as:

1. What motivated you to enter the field of Information Technology (IT)?
2. What motivated you to pursue a leadership or executive level position in the IT field?
3. What characteristics do you feel you possess that enable you to sustain your position?
4. What strategies do you feel have contributed to your success?

The information provided by participants may assist future and/or current females in the field of Information Technology, IT organizations or IT leaders develop strategies to more effectively aid in the advancement of women in IT to positions of leadership.

If you’d like to participate in or have any questions regarding this study, please contact me at 513-435-4020 or tlmumford@email.phoenix.edu. Your response will be greatly appreciated.



Tamara Mumford
Doctoral Candidate
University of Phoenix-Online

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News Roundup

In the news this week ...

Do women shun STEM careers because they perceive these careers to be incompatible with “communal” goals, or engaging in work that helps others? 

That’s the finding of a research study recently published in the journal Psychological Science. The researchers surveyed over 300 male and female psychology students about their career interests, academic abilities, and personal objectives.  These personal objectives were divided into “agentic goals” (such as power, recognition, mastery, success) and “communal goals” (helping others, serving humanity, intimacy, spirituality). The researchers found the more strongly a participant endorsed communal goals, the less likely he or she was to express interest in a STEM career. Not surprisingly, women were more likely than men to endorse these care-oriented objectives.

“There’s a certain irony at work here; as the researchers point out, advances made by scientists ‘hold the key to helping many people.’” Nevertheless, such careers ‘are commonly regarded as antithetical (or at best irrelevant) to such communal goals.”

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

In looking at the number of women-led companies at Silicon Valley startup incubator Y Combinator, the San Jose Mercury News this week touches on the nature vs. nurture debate and the idea that “Maybe the paucity of female tech entrepreneurs has something to do with what has been called the soft bigotry of low expectations.” 

The piece is one of several mentioned by NCWIT’s board chair, Brad Feld, in a blog post about how the women-in-tech “meme” has gotten much attention in the last few days; his piece was itself picked up in Fast Company and MIT Technology Review.  Meanwhile venture capitalist Fred Wilson, entrepreneur Tereza Nemessanyi, and others are debating the idea of an “XX Combinator”, in conversations that got picked up by The Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch.  The meme takes flight!

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal this week both reported on new research from Barnard that underscores an age-old problem for many women academics: the incompatibility of motherhood with tenure.  They report that the average female doctorate is awarded at 34, “an age when many college-educated women are starting families...Tenure, a defining moment in a professor's career, is decided roughly seven years later, just as the parenting window is closing.” Working fathers, on the other hand, have been shown in research to benefit from parenthood in their academic careers.

Does your institution have policies in place to assist women – and men, for that matter – who want to have both a family and an academic career? Are there strategies you would share with young women who are thinking about pursuing a PhD in computing?

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

This week we enjoyed reading an interview with Moira Hardek, founder of Best Buy’s Geek Squad Summer Academy.  We had the opportunity to meet Moira in person recently when she and the Geek Squad Summer Academy rolled through Denver on its nationwide tour, and we can tell you that she is doing amazing work.  Not only did she create the Summer Academy program – out of her own desire to see more girls and women opt to be tech gurus among her Geek Squad peers -- but she’s expanded the program into a fully-funded initiative to serve both girls and boys.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) this week released the results of its Summer 2010 Salary Survey, which puts computer science and computer engineering in the third ($61,112) and fourth ($59,917) spots among the top five highest-paying starting salaries for grads. A NACE representative confirms that “All of the top five earners are in short supply,” with each accounting for “less than 1 percent of the degrees granted.”

The disconnect between supply and demand here underscores the need for efforts to raise awareness among young people and their parents, teachers, and guidance counselors about how rewarding a computing-related career can be.

Interestingly, during one of the world’s worst petroleum-related disasters, petroleum engineers received the highest starting salary offers at an average of $74,799.  It makes us think that broad efforts to change the image of STEM careers overall might leverage not only the earning potential of these careers, but their capacity to have a world-changing impact on science that tackles the world’s major challenges and could better the lives of millions of people.

Have a great weekend!

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Improving Science and Technology Innovation in the United States at the Brookings Institution

On June 8, the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. hosted a forum entitled, “Improving Science and Technology Innovation in the United States”.   The forum’s goal was to bring leaders together from the fields of government, higher education, and business to discuss the need for increasing both innovation and investment in science and technology.  Participants in the program included Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer; Vivek Kundra, Federal Chief Information Officer; Phil Weiser, Senior Advisor to the National Economic Council Director for Technology and Innovation; Robert Braun, Chief Technologist of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology.

The panel acknowledged some troubling signs in science and technology innovation in the U.S.  Last year was the first year that non-U.S. innovators filed more patents than did U.S. innovators, and the United States also is falling behind other nations in the percentage of GDP spent on the critical area of research and development.

However, the panel acknowledged that there are promising signs for the future of science and technology innovation in the United States.  The House recently passed the America COMPETES Act, which was designed to foster research, spur innovation, create jobs for the 21st century economy; and  create, educate, and train a suitable workforce for those jobs.  Additionally, President Obama has made a commitment to utilizing technology in a wide range of initiatives, from online games to encouraging children to eat healthily to the digitization of federal records and the promotion of STEM education through Educate to Innovate.

The importance of STEM education for the future of American innovation was emphasized throughout the program. The Honorable Paula Stern, representing NCWIT, posed a question to members of the administration in the panel regarding what is being done to increase the participation of women specifically in information technology and engineering, and what their participation might mean for the future of American innovation.  Phil Weiser, Senior Advisor to the National Economic Council Director for Technology and Innovation answered the question by citing NCWIT as a great example of social innovation and a coalition built to tackle current public policy challenges. 

Weiser noted NCWIT’s work to change the demographics of the IT workforce, which presently is predominantly white and male.  This homogeneity does not reflect the great diversity of the United States.  Thus STEM education needs to be emphasized in the early stages so as to provide diverse individuals with the opportunity to pursue careers in information technology and scientific fields more broadly.  Phil Weiser pointed to Educate to Innovate as an example of a White House program designed to create a generation passionate about science and mathematics, thus contributing to continued U.S. innovation.

The importance of STEM education, particularly for women and minorities, was addressed again later on in the program when The Honorable Paula Stern questioned Congressman Bart Gordon, Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology regarding the extent to which the America COMPETES Act will address the issue of limited female participation in computer science education.  Congressman Gordon responded by saying that the best place to make progress in the science and technology workforce and in the STEM education area is with women and minorities as they are currently the most underrepresented groups.  Gordon stated, “And so just by bumping them up, you know, again, that’s the best bang for our buck”.  He continued by describing some of the incentives in the America COMPETES Act to encourage women and minorities to pursue STEM education.  Gordon conceded that the initiatives were not currently calibrated specifically to computer science, but that this should be a step to consider moving forward.

The forum ended by emphasizing the importance of passing the America COMPETES Act in the Senate.  You can show your support for this important piece of legislation by signing this petition at www.usinnovation.org.  In conclusion, the “Improving Science and Technology Innovation in the United States” forum provided an insightful arena for the discussion of technology and the future of innovation in the United States.  The promotion of STEM education, especially among women and minorities, is a crucial component of this initiative, one which NCWIT will continue to fight for and support.

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