Women in Tech

Fall 2018 State of the Department

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The USF Computer Science department is thriving with four new tenure-track faculty members, two new research labs, a new graduate “Bridge” program that readies graduates from other majors for a Master’s in CS, and graduate enrollments that have doubled since 2016 and undergraduate enrollments that have tripled since 2013. The department is the largest and most diverse it has ever been in terms of both faculty, students, and expertise.

New Faculty

The new faculty members include Beste Yuksel who just started her third year and works in Human- and Brain-Computer Interfaces, Matthew Malensek (2nd year) who works in Big Data, David Guy Brizan (2nd year in CS) who works in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning, and Vahab Pournaghshband (1st year) who works in Networks and Security. Hiring in CS is a huge challenge and we are thrilled to have added these terrific teachers and researchers to our department, and to have broadened our areas of expertise. Continue reading “Fall 2018 State of the Department” →

USF Computer Science Sends Largest Cohort to Grace Hopper

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The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is the largest celebration of it’s kind in the world. It provides attendees with an unforgettable experience, filled with amazing opportunities and exceptional content focused around women in technology. Women from all across the world come to network, learn, and discuss their experiences and wisdom from the tech industry.

This year, the Department of Computer Science sent our largest cohort of 32 students, two faculty, and two staff to the conference in Houston, Texas. This was made possible through the generous support of the Craig Newmark Foundation. We asked the students to share their experience at this year’s conference. Continue reading “USF Computer Science Sends Largest Cohort to Grace Hopper” →

$100,000 Gift Supports Goal of Achieving Gender Parity in Tech

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CS StudentsThe mission of the Computer Science Department’s Women in Tech (WiT) initiative is to increase the number of female undergraduate and graduate students in the Computer Science and Data Science programs. That mission just received a big boost in the form of a $100,000 gift from one of tech’s leading entrepreneurs — founder of craigslist, Craig Newmark. Read more…

USF CS Sends 21 Women to the Grace Hopper Celebration

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In early October, nearly 18,000 women in tech converged on Orlando, Florida for the 2017 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing . With the generous support of alumni and friends, this year USF’s Department of Computer Science sent 21 students (our largest cohort ever) to participate, learn, and make connections. The Grace Hopper experience is unlike any other event in the tech world, and the experience left a lasting impression on our amazing students. In their own words, here was 2017’s Grace Hopper Celebration:

Continue reading “USF CS Sends 21 Women to the Grace Hopper Celebration” →

WiT & ACM Host Empowerment Hackathon

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Students at Empowerment Hackathon
Students at Empowerment Hackathon

Introduction by Professor Beste Yuksel

We are very proud to announce that we held a hackathon on the theme of ‘Empowerment’ at the University of San Francisco in the department of Computer Science this year. This hackathon was sponsored by the very generous donations of Craig Newmark Philanthropies. It was organized by the Women in Tech (WiT) and ACM Student Chapter organizations. We had 53 students take part, 43% of which were female or non-binary! This is a huge coup for Computer Science where women generally make up 20-25% of classrooms and traditionally do not attend hackathons as much as men.

Continue reading “WiT & ACM Host Empowerment Hackathon” →

Yuksel’s New HCI Lab Applying Machine-Learning to Tutoring, VR to Social Justice

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CS Faculty The first thing Professor Beste Yuksel did when she came to USF’s computer science department in Fall 2016 was create a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) lab. Today, the lab is equipped with fully-immersive virtual reality (VR) and brain-computer interfacing (BCI), with which Yuksel and her students have been putting to use on research in areas of tutoring and social justice. Read more…

Changing the Tech Industry From Here

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CS studentsTop tech leaders at LinkedIn and Craigslist have joined a USF effort to reduce the tech industry’s gender gap.

Sarah Clatterbuck ’97, senior director of engineering at LinkedIn, and Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, paid for about two dozen female computer science students and faculty to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in October. The conference is the largest gathering of women technologists in the world. Several  students also received prestigious scholarships from the Anita Borg Institute. Read more…