JU represented well at annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

Dr. Xenia Mountrouidou, assistant professor in Computing Sciences; and Rachael Jenkins, senior in Computing Sciences, recently represented Jacksonville University in one of the largest diversity conferences in the field: the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (http://gracehopper.org/2013/).

Jenkins, vice president of the Women In Computer Science Society, earned a full scholarship to participate in the event.

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, held Oct. 2-5, is a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. It is the world’s largest gathering of women in computing. The Grace Hopper Celebration is presented by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and the Association for Computing Machinery. This year’s event took place in Minneapolis and gathered 4,800 industry and academia participants from all over the world.

The event focused partly on boosting the numbers of majors, especially women, in computer science. The first keynote speaker, Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, recently started her own revolution of bringing women to high end careers after releasing her first book, “Lean In:  Women and the Will to Lead.”

“You are witnessing the new industrial revolution, she said.

The second keynote speaker was the CEO of the Anita Borg Institute, Dr. Telle Whitney. Dr. Whitney is another role model who has received numerous awards for her work promoting women in computing, including: ACM Distinguished Service, Women’s Venture Fund Highest Leaf, and San Jose Business Journal Top 100 Women of Influence.

In 2011, Dr. Mountrouidou, the JU adviser to the Women in Computer Science Society, received a grant from the Anita Borg Institute to create a workshop to attract high school girls to Computer Science. The workshop has been successful for the past three years and continues to grow in the Jacksonville community.

The third keynote was Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd, a liberal arts college that has achieved the unthinkable in computer science: to grow the number of women majors from 10% to 40%.

“I have never attended or taught a college class with 40% women,” said Mountrouidou. “I think this is inspiring, and we should strive at JU to achieve even higher numbers. The fact that another liberal arts college has achieved this, paired with what we do here at JU, being personable and close to our students makes me think that we can do this. One of the most important factors to attract and retain women in CS is to be close to them and provide role models. I think we can actually achieve the 50-50 percent of men/women in CS here at JU.”

She added that she plans to mentor more computer science majors and those interested in computer science to earn grants in order to participate at the annual event.

The event also included a large career fair with industry exhibitors such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Microsoft, Amazon and many other  technology companies, gathering resumes and trying to attract young talented women to work with them.