(Before the covid-19 presence in New Mexico we were going to have this event on March 31st in Santa Fe. It has been postponed, but we will have it once restrictions on public events lift up.)
The Santa Fe Institute and the Institute for Computing in Research will be showing the documentary CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap which addresses some of the barriers facing women entering computer science fields. We will follow this screening with a panel discussion with four panelists who work on or are affected by the issue of women in computer science.
The documentary synopsis is:
Tech jobs are growing three times faster than our colleges are producing computer science graduates. By 2020, there will be one million unfilled software engineering jobs in the USA. Through compelling interviews, artistic animation and clever flashpoint in popular culture, CODE documentary examines the reasons why more girls and people of color are not seeking opportunities in computer science and explores how cultural mindsets, stereotypes, educational hurdles and sexism all play roles in this national crisis. Expert voices from the worlds of tech, psychology, science, and education are intercut with inspiring stories of women who are engaged in the fight to challenge complacency in the tech industry and have their voices heard. CODE aims to inspire change in mindsets, in the educational system, in startup culture and in the way women see themselves in the field of coding.
A link to the documentary preview is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VVb6M8pTvE
Here are links to information about the panelists:
- Leina Gries, Pomona College
- Melanie Mitchell, Portland State University and Santa Fe Institute
- Ashley Teufel, Santa Fe Institute
- Amanda Ziemann, Los Alamos National Laboratory
From their biographical paragraphs at the Institute:
Leina Gries is a student at Pomona College, where she plans to study computer science and biology in pursuit of a career in computational biology. Leina has a strong interest in researching the connections between computing and the natural sciences and has been a co-developer of the “Serious programming – small courses” curriculum and textbook with Mark Galassi. A graduate of Santa Fe’s Desert Academy, Leina is the recipient of the Los Alamos National Laboratory foundation Gold Scholarship, and is also Desert Academy’s 2019 Valedictorian. When not doing scientific work, Leina can be found volunteering with an equine therapy program, dancing, tutoring, or caring for her many fish. Leina is a co-founder and alumna of the Institute for Computing in Research.
Melanie Mitchell is the Davis Professor of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, and Professor of Computer Science (currently on leave) at Portland State University. Her current research focuses on conceptual abstraction, analogy-making, and visual recognition in artificial intelligence systems. Melanie is the author or editor of six books and numerous scholarly papers in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems. Her book Complexity: A Guided Tour (Oxford University Press) won the 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Award and was named by Amazon.com as one of the ten best science books of 2009. Her latest book is Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). Melanie is a lecturer and mentor at the Institute for Computing in Research.
Ashley Teufel is a biologist, computer scientist and mathematician at the Santa Fe Institute
All of biological life is the result of simple biochemical reactions and the diversity of life that we see today has been ~3.5 billion years in the making. Although, over most of this time the biosphere was dominated by prokaryotic and unicellular species. A dramatic shift in the complexity of life occurred ~0.55 billion years ago, and all the major groups of multicellular animals begin to appear in the fossil record. The goal of Ashley’s research is to uncover how the physio-chemical laws that govern all biochemical reactions led to the emergence and expansion of complex life. Using a combination of computational and theoretical approaches Ashley’s research is focused on the functional diversification of biological systems across multiple layers of organization. Thus far her research has centered on the evolution of proteins, duplicated genes, and metabolic pathways. In her future work, she plans to continue to study these molecular systems while also extending her work to examine how changing environments and ecological interactions further shape functional diversification.
Prior to joining SFI, Ashley was a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Integrative Biology. She holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from The University of Wyoming, and B.S. degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from New Mexico State University. Ashley is a lecturer and mentor at the Institute for Computing in Research.
Amanda Ziemann is a research scientist in the Space Data Science and Systems Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Her main areas of research are data science and signal detection, primarily applied to multispectral and hyperspectral remote sensing of the earth. Amanda holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, a master’s degree in Applied and Computational Mathematics, and a Ph.D. in Imaging Science, all from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her most recent research has focused on data fusion using remote sensing imagery along with non-traditional data streams (like social media and weather) for applications ranging anywhere from mosquito-borne disease forecasting to national security. Amanda is a lecturer at the Institute for Computing in Research.
Since the event has been postponed we will have the full information and flyer once we know our screening date.