Director's Message to UMIACS

While glancing through the news this past weekend, I noticed that a filly, the term for a 3-year-old female horse, had won the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. While not a horseracing fan (our house is all about soccer), it's worth noting this was only the sixth time in the 145-year-history of the race that a female horse has beaten the boys.

Quite a cause for celebration in the sporting world.

In our world of computing and technology, we have a lot to celebrate as well. Reading through this issue of the newsletter, I was thrilled to see the leadership roles taken by UMIACS women faculty on several large multidisciplinary projects.

Vanessa Frias-Martinez in leading a multi-institutional effort to improve public transportation options for people in lower-income areas of Baltimore. (Four of the five co-PIs on the $2.35M National Science Foundation grant are women.)

Cornelia Fermüller is principal investigator of another large NSF award—this one joins engineers, computer scientists and others to form a global network that will develop AI systems that can mimic biological nervous systems.

Leila De Floriani is also featured in her role as president of the IEEE Computing Society, an international organization of more than 50,000 members dedicated to advancing computing and engineering.

You’ll also see news about our Center for Machine Learning and their exciting Rising Stars in Machine Learning program, which brings underrepresented doctoral candidates to our campus (virtually this year) to present their work and meet with our faculty and students.

And last but certainly not least, I urge you to read the excellent feature story on Rita Colwell that was just published in the university’s Terp alumni magazine. The article covers Rita’s journey from a doctoral student to one of the world’s leading experts on cholera, while also highlighting her steadfast resolve to stand up to sexism in science.

These are the types of activities and accomplishments that we can all be proud of. They’re also a good benchmark on what is possible with a solid commitment toward increasing the pipeline for women computer scientists—and then strongly supporting them in their careers.

As most of of you know—and if you don't know I will reaffirm it here—one of my top priorities as director of UMIACS is to increase the diversity within our institute and on our campus. A culture of inclusion and mutual support coupled with a broad diversity of ideas, backgrounds and experiences are key catalysts that propel new discoveries and bring about robust innovation.

We will continue to support ideas and organizations dedicated to advancing women and other underrepresented groups in computing. This includes the Iribe Initiative for Inclusion and Diversity in Computing, the UMD student-run Technica hackathon, and other efforts like the recent Grace Hopper Celebration or the ACM Richard Tapia Conference.

If you have an idea on this topic our would like to assist in efforts already underway, please reach out to me.

Mihai Pop, UMIACS Director