Women of Color in Computing Research Collaborative

Women of Color in Computing Research Collaborative

CGEST and the Kapor Center partnered earlier this year to create the Women of Color in Computing collaborative. The collaborative includes researchers and practitioners who develop, test, and scale strategies, programs, and interventions to increase the participation and persistence of women of color in tech.

This project will fund and disseminate research on the following priority topic areas:

• Entry, Persistence, and Degree Completion in Computing in Higher Education

• Participation and Retention of Women of Color in the Technology Workforce

• Participation of Women of Color Across the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Ecosystem

The WOCCC has awarded three nonresidential fellowships to support senior scholars in disseminating their research

Over the next three months we will introduce each of the fellows and showcase their work.

Our first fellow is Dr. Leyva. He is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education in the Peabody College of Education & Human Development at Vanderbilt University. Leyva uses intersectionality, a theoretical perspective and methodological approach from Black feminist thought, to examine how members of historically marginalized groups, including women, students of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, construct their identities while navigating institutional and interactional contexts of mathematics education as aspiring STEM majors. He presently serves as the Principal Investigator for a three-year collaborative grant project funded by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education entitled Challenging, Operationalizing, and Understanding Racialized and Gendered Events (COURAGE) in Undergraduate Mathematics. His work has been published in the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, and The Journal of Mathematical Behavior. Leyva’s research was distinguished with a Dissertation Fellowship from the National Academy of Education and Spencer Foundation in 2015 and, more recently, the 2018 Early Career Publication Award from the Research in Mathematics Education special interest group of the American Educational Research Association.

Dr. Leyva’s work as it relates to the Collaborative is tilted Intersectionality as a Methodological Tool for Understanding Undergraduate Women of Color’s Experiences as Computing and Engineering Majors. The project examines intersectionality as a methodological tool for better understanding the experiences of women of color women of color pursuing majors in computing and engineering. I draw on data sets from two lines of inquiry in my research: (i) detailing the construction of mathematics identities among undergraduate college students pursuing STEM majors; and (ii) documenting features of undergraduate mathematics instruction that first-year students perceive as potentially marginalizing or supportive in their education. Insights from this project will illustrate the methodological potential of intersectionality to advance equitable opportunities in STEM higher education in efforts to increase rates of entry, persistence, and degree completion among women of color in computing and engineering fields.

Featured image courtesy of #WOCinTech Chat wocintechchat.com