Encouraging Diversity

In February, the Computer Science and Engineering Department hosted two events to encourage diversity in computing. Professor Chengkai Li, Assistant Dean Carter Tiernan, and Assistant Professors Ming Li and Shirin Nilizadeh led the effort. OurCS@DFW was a Google-funded, three-day weekend featuring hands-on research workshops for undergraduate women from North Texas. It was kicked off by a Google TensorFlow workshop for under-represented students. A day after that event ended, a new one, the Student Computing Research Festival, began. Funded by Microsoft Research and the National Center for Women and Information Technology, the festival allowed UTA students of any major to showcase their computing-related work, learn from professional role models, and engage with leaders of industry and society.