Computing to Change the World for the Better: A Research-Focused Workshop for Women

Women's underrepresentation in Computer Science (CS) can be attributed to various factors including lack of self-efficacy, role models, encouragement, awareness of the discipline and existing research pathways. In February 2019, we hosted a Google-sponsored research-focused workshop at California State University, Long Beach to raise female undergraduates' awareness and confidence in CS research pathways and careers. Forty-six students from several universities in Southern California participated in the workshop. Over the course of three days, students worked on research problems with clear real-world applications in teams led by faculty and assisted by graduate students. Additional sessions were held to inspire female undergraduates, increase their confidence and enrich their knowledge about research and graduate programs. In this paper, we report about our experience and the lessons we learned. We also present evidence of success in strengthening the research interests of our participants based on the results of the pre- and post-surveys that were designed and administered by the evaluators of our funding agency (Google Inc.) to better understand the impact of these workshops.