Jane Margolis, a social scientist who has worked to bridge the gender and minority gap in computer science and co-author of the widely acclaimed book, "Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing," will be the inaugural speaker in the ATLAS Speaker Series at the University of Colorado at Boulder at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15, in room 100 of the new ATLAS building.
Her talk is titled "Out of the Loop: Why So Few African-American, Latino/a and Female High School Students Are Learning Computer Science and What To Do 暗网禁区 It." It will include references to her recent research in inner-city Los Angeles high schools.
The ATLAS Speaker Series brings distinguished visitors to the Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society Institute at CU-Boulder. Speakers are selected to embody the ATLAS Institute's multidisciplinary concentration in technology, learning and society, and will span and combine technical, societal and digital art and media issues.
Margolis is a researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Her recent research concerns the underrepresentation of minority students and females in high school computer science courses. She has taken an active, research-based role in creating programs for high school teachers, administrators and students aimed at increasing computer science enrollments for women and minorities.
She also has been awarded several National Science Foundation grants aimed at broadening participation in computing, especially for women and minorities. "Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing" was published in 2002 and was based on research she conducted while at Carnegie Mellon University with co-author Allan Fisher. The book documents how males tend to dominate computing, the societal dangers of the underrepresentation of women in computing, and what can be done to recruit and retain more women in computer science.
Margolis received her doctorate in education from Harvard University in 1990. She is a member of the Social Science Advisory Board of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, a national organization housed in the ATLAS building. NCWIT's mission is to ensure that women are fully represented in the world of information technology and computing.
ATLAS is an innovative, campuswide institute that broadens the benefits of the information age by providing multidisciplinary curricular, research and outreach programs that integrate information technology with a wide variety of disciplines, people and communities, both inside and outside the university. ATLAS places special emphasis on areas and communities that are less commonly partnered with information technology.
The ATLAS building serves as a technology beacon for CU-Boulder. Located in the heart of campus near the University Memorial Center, the $31 million, 66,000-square-foot facility features instructional spaces designed to encourage creative uses of in-class and distance learning technologies and engaged student learning practices.
The ATLAS Speaker Series is supported by a generous gift from ATLAS Institute Board member Idit Harel Caperton, CEO and founder of MaMaMedia Inc., and her daughter, Anat Harel, a 2003 CU graduate who was an ATLAS Technology, Arts and Media student.
For more information on ATLAS and the new building go to the Web site at . Directions to the building can be found at .