ITHACA, N.Y. — The Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science (Cornell Bowers CIS) has recently been awarded a three-year, $300,000 grant from the Clare Boothe Luce Program for Women in STEM to boost the number of undergraduate women pursuing research in computer science. The Clare Boothe Luce Program for Women in […]
ITHACA, N.Y. — The Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science (Cornell Bowers CIS) has recently been awarded a three-year, $300,000 grant from the Clare Boothe Luce Program for Women in STEM to boost the number of undergraduate women pursuing research in computer science.
The Clare Boothe Luce Program for Women in STEM is a program of the Henry Luce Foundation, an 85-year-old New York City–based foundation that supports projects at universities, policy institutes, media organizations, museums, and other organizations advancing public knowledge.
The grant will fund three groups of eight undergraduate women, who will be called Clare Booth Luce Research Scholars. The funding will support the students’ research and participation in conferences, according to a news release on the Cornell Chronicle website.
“Cornell Bowers CIS is an ideal place to make this investment; we are nearing gender parity for our incoming undergraduate class,” Kavita Bala, dean of Cornell Bowers CIS, said in the release.
Women comprise 38 percent of Cornell Bowers CIS undergraduate computer-science majors (43 percent of all computing and information-science majors), well above the national average of 20 percent, according to Bala.
“This grant could make a critical difference in increasing the pipeline of women enrolling in computer science graduate programs, entering the professoriate and pursuing careers in research,” she contended. “Further, research teaches open-ended thinking, a critical skill for leadership in any field, whether inside or outside academia. Increasing our students’ exposure to research makes for a better educational experience for them all around.”
Each Clare Boothe Luce Research Scholar will be advised by both a faculty member and a graduate student trained in mentoring. Scholars will start the program by engaging in a summer-research experience, while participating in a weekly series of “enrichment talks” on technical and career topics, and social events with other scholars and mentors, Cornell said.
Funded research will continue through the next academic year. Scholars will also attend an academic conference in the student’s research area.
Cornell Bowers CIS, the first college at Cornell to be named after a woman (Ann S. Bowers, a 1959 graduate), engages undergraduate women in research through activities such as its Women in Computing at Cornell, a student club founded in 2013.
