ATLANTA — The National Society of Blacks in Computing held its inaugural conference in Atlanta, with the goal of increasing the numbers of Blacks in the computer science field within the academy.
The conference, which included three tracks focused on undergraduates, graduate students and future faculty/research scientists, attracted more than 90 participants from across the country.
Although the number of Black Ph.D.s in computer science has steadily increased over the past few years, experts say that a lot more work still needs to be done.
“I’m very much encouraged by the numbers and the trajectory that we are on,” says Dr. Juan E. Gilbert, the Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor and Chair of Computer & Information Science & Engineering at the University of Florida.
Still, when he graduated with a Ph.D. in computer science in 2000, he was among nine other African-Americans who earned the doctoral degree that year. Last year, there were 15 Blacks who earned a Ph.D. in the field.
“Although the bare numbers have increased, the percentage didn’t move,” says Gilbert, who was one of the conveners of this weekend’s gathering. He said that, at Ph.D.-granting institutions throughout the United States, there are currently more than 400 African-American undergraduates who are pursuing computer science degrees.
“There’s a pool out there that we can draw from,” says Gilbert, who formed the Institute for African-American Mentoring in Computing Science (IAAMCS), a resource for African-American computer science students and faculty, thanks to a grant that he received from the National Science Foundation.
