GK-12 Graduate Fellow: January 2014 – December 2015
Job Responsibilities
Identified and implemented methods to integrate computer science principles into humanities courses through computational thinking activities.
Ywic: August 2009 – December 2013
Program Overview
“Young Women in Computing (YWiC) is an outreach initiative developed with the vision to increase the participation in computer science activities and exposure for all students in New Mexico. YWiC is housed in the Department of Computer Science at New Mexico State University and focuses on multidimensional program components such as in-school presentations, after-school programming, summer programs, state-wide competitions, social networking, forums and conferences, plus teacher-program collaborations that will leverage the available resources across opportunities.”
Undergraduate Research Assistant – YWiC
Job Responsibilities
Identified core concepts to be infused in middle and high school curricula to enable the development of computation thinking skills of Latino/Latina students
Identified the different in the learning impact of different computer science pedagogical technologies
Engaged underrepresented youth in computing
Retained, recruited, and advanced female computer science majors
Orchestrated community outreach activities and presentations
Numbers That Matter.
Over the course of its now 7-year lifespan, YWiC has grown and matured to be a huge success and has reached over 7,000 students in New Mexico. Among other awesome statistics, YWiC proud to boast that the YWiC alum who have graduate high school have a 100% matriculation rate into a 4-year institution. Now that is impact.
I joined the YWiC team in the fall of 2009, and my favorite part of the day is helping students realize their potential. In the 2010-2011 school year YWiC reached a total of 1956 students, which was a 430% increase in the number of students that had been reached the previous year (455).
Since then, YWiC has seen a steady increase of students reached per year, and as long as I have been part of the team, I’ve been determined to get more women into computer science.
My History With YWiC
My first interaction with YWiC was in high school. In the summer 2008, I attended the 5-week YWiC summer camp, and it completely changed my career plan. The YWiC curriculum was perfectly tailored to our level, and offered the right balance of challenging and easy-to-understand material. The best part was that I was able to take the concepts we learned in lecture and create something that was all my own. I felt empowered.
When school came around in the fall, I decided that I wanted to take a programming class. Out of the 30 students in the class, there were only 2 women, including me. It was very uncomfortable, and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized that computer science might be a “boy thing”. I really enjoyed learning Java, my first programming language, and I always wondered why there weren’t more women taking that class.
In Summer 2009, I participated in the YWiC summer camp again, except this time, I returned as a camp assistant. My job was to attend lectures and help answer camper questions during open lab sessions, and to plan fun team-building events. Even though I was not a camp instructor, I was a near peer, and I was still able to make a difference. My passion for computer science, solving problems, and helping others really stood out to the YWiC staff and I was offered a position as a Undergraduate Research Assistant in Fall 2009.
I was an Undergraduate Research Assistant for four and a half years. Over the course of each year I gave presentations, conducted workshops, planned and developed curricula, compile research, traveled to conferences, presented posters, and more, but my favorite part was inspiring students. For me, it was about giving back and leading by example to help students gain the confidence to know that they can do great things with Computer Science too!
Publications
IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 2015
DISSECT: Exploring the Relationship Between Computational Thinking and Literature in K-12 Curricula – Benjamin Dasher Best Paper Award
Programming Design Process: Providing K-12 Students with a Structure to Attain Programming Goals
Young Women in Computing: Creating a Successful and Sustainable Pipeline (with Janie Chen and Nicole Ray)
New Mexico State University
LilyPad Arduino vs. App Inventor: Effects of Software Development Tools on Female Interest in Technology (with Janie Chen), October 2012
YWiC: Expanding into a Multifaceted Outreach Program (with Janie Chen), October 2012
LilyPad Arduino: Sparking Interest in Information Technology Among Young Women, November 2011
Programming Impact of Diversity – Eclipse vs. App Inventor in Secondary Outreach (with Janie Chen), November 2011
Research
Job Responsibilities
Program Overview
“Young Women in Computing (YWiC) is an outreach initiative developed with the vision to increase the participation in computer science activities and exposure for all students in New Mexico. YWiC is housed in the Department of Computer Science at New Mexico State University and focuses on multidimensional program components such as in-school presentations, after-school programming, summer programs, state-wide competitions, social networking, forums and conferences, plus teacher-program collaborations that will leverage the available resources across opportunities.”
Undergraduate Research Assistant – YWiC
Job Responsibilities
Numbers That Matter.
Over the course of its now 7-year lifespan, YWiC has grown and matured to be a huge success and has reached over 7,000 students in New Mexico. Among other awesome statistics, YWiC proud to boast that the YWiC alum who have graduate high school have a 100% matriculation rate into a 4-year institution. Now that is impact.
I joined the YWiC team in the fall of 2009, and my favorite part of the day is helping students realize their potential. In the 2010-2011 school year YWiC reached a total of 1956 students, which was a 430% increase in the number of students that had been reached the previous year (455).
Since then, YWiC has seen a steady increase of students reached per year, and as long as I have been part of the team, I’ve been determined to get more women into computer science.
My History With YWiC
My first interaction with YWiC was in high school. In the summer 2008, I attended the 5-week YWiC summer camp, and it completely changed my career plan. The YWiC curriculum was perfectly tailored to our level, and offered the right balance of challenging and easy-to-understand material. The best part was that I was able to take the concepts we learned in lecture and create something that was all my own. I felt empowered.
When school came around in the fall, I decided that I wanted to take a programming class. Out of the 30 students in the class, there were only 2 women, including me. It was very uncomfortable, and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized that computer science might be a “boy thing”. I really enjoyed learning Java, my first programming language, and I always wondered why there weren’t more women taking that class.
In Summer 2009, I participated in the YWiC summer camp again, except this time, I returned as a camp assistant. My job was to attend lectures and help answer camper questions during open lab sessions, and to plan fun team-building events. Even though I was not a camp instructor, I was a near peer, and I was still able to make a difference. My passion for computer science, solving problems, and helping others really stood out to the YWiC staff and I was offered a position as a Undergraduate Research Assistant in Fall 2009.
I was an Undergraduate Research Assistant for four and a half years. Over the course of each year I gave presentations, conducted workshops, planned and developed curricula, compile research, traveled to conferences, presented posters, and more, but my favorite part was inspiring students. For me, it was about giving back and leading by example to help students gain the confidence to know that they can do great things with Computer Science too!
Publications
IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 2015
New Mexico State University