WiE Newsletter - July 2021 - ISSUE 21

Front and Center

News from the Director

George Gershwin wrote “It’s Summertime and the living is easy.” This Summer, as we enjoy a bit of success over the COVID-19 pandemic. GW has posted the following:

“GW is requiring students, faculty, and staff who will be on campus (in GW owned or operated facilities) this Fall to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 prior to being on campus. Vaccination is the best and fastest way to move us closer to our pre-pandemic campus experience and the end of the pandemic.”

We, in the Center, have all received our vaccine doses and hope you have as well.

The 6th GW GenCyber Middle School Student Cybersecurity Day Camp was a great success. Our virtual NSA-sponsored camp worked with 32 young women form around the Greater Washington area and as far away as South Carolina, Newport News and Baltimore (Oh outreach, the positive aspects of online learning!). I encourage you to check out our short video, as well as our virtual reality camp HUB.

When I was in high school (and yes, we did chisel our homework on tablets!), I was fortunate to have Dr. Lewinson, a chemistry teacher, who served as my role model. Her influence is, in part, why I majored in chemistry (why am I not in chemistry any more? That’s a story for another time). So, while you are watching great videos online, we urge you to review this one on the power of Role Models in STEM, created by the National Academy of Sciences. linkIt features WiE's own Board Member Vivian Pinn. (Spoiler alert: if you just want to focus on Vivian - scan forward to about 10 minutes in).

We are thinking ahead to the Fall programming. We are delighted to announce our first Meet the Faculty presentations. Mark your calendar for Wednesday, October 13 at 12:00 pm Eastern time. Professor Leila Farhadi has agreed to present a review of her work and her pathway to a career in civil engineering.

Stay safe, enjoy the Summer!

Shelly Heller
WiE Director

Faculty You Should Know

Dr. Kinga Dobolyi

Dr. Kinga Dobolyi is joining GWU this fall as an Associate Professor of Practice in the Computer Science department. Previously, she taught Introductory Programming and Software Engineering at George Mason University for eight years.

More recently, she worked as a Data Scientist at a startup, and as an applied Deep Learning researcher at the non-profit In-Q-Tel, specializing in biomedical applications of computer vision and NLP.

She earned her PhD from the University of Virginia in 2010, focusing on testing web applications. She's excited to be joining GWU to return to teaching, including focusing on increasing the number of women and underrepresented groups in computer science and other STEM fields.

Yasemin Acar

Yasemin Acar's research centers on humans, their comprehension, behaviors, wishes and needs. She aims to better understand how software can enhance users’ lives without putting their data at risk. Her recent focus has been on human factors in secure development, investigating how to help software developers implement secure software development practices. Her research has shown that working with developers on these issues can resolve problems before they ever affect end users.

She currently leads the Human Factors in Security and Privacy research group at the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy. She was a visiting scholar at the National Institute for Standards and Technology in 2019, where she researched how users of smart homes want to have their security and privacy protected. She received the John Karat Usable Security and Privacy student Research Award for the community’s outstanding student in 2018. Her work has also been honored by the National Security Agency in their best cybersecurity paper competition 2016.

Dr. Rachael Jonassen

Dr. Rachael Jonassen (Director, Climate Change EEMI) serves the Asian Development Bank as Senior Adaptation Expert and member of their Adaptation Advisory Panel. In this role, she recently helped to develop Build Back Better guidance for the transport and energy sectors to improve climate change adaptation and disaster risk resilience in response to natural disasters.

Dr. Erica Gralla

Dr. Erica Gralla (EMSE), master’s student Finley Wetmore, doctoral student Megan Peters, and their collaborators have published the following paper: C. Blair, E. Gralla, F. Wetmore, J. Goentzel, and M. Peters, “A Systems Framework for International Development: The Data-Layered Causal Loop Diagram,” Production and Operations Management. (Published June 6, 2021)

What We Are Reading

Speaking of role models, the presence of new students in STEM may be bucking the tide of new undergraduate enrollment decreases.

This current article titled Undergraduate Enrollment is Down, but Trends are Encouraging for Women in STEM, from Diversity Education explains that the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released a study of Spring 2021 enrollment, which showed a dramatic decrease in total undergraduate enrollment.

There were significant losses in programs associated with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This is particularly alarming, given that jobs in the STEM industry have traditionally been underrepresented by women and people of color. In fact, a Georgetown University 2019 study found that racial equity for Black and Latinx workers in engineering could take 76 years to achieve, or 256 years if only counting Black workers.

The downward trend in undergraduate enrollment impacted diverse and underserved populations across the board, including Latinx enrollment, which had been exponentially growing before the pandemic. “Latinx were often the only ethnic group who was growing in enrollment pre-pandemic. (Sic) But all those gains got lost.”

The article was able to “point to some bright spots hidden in the overall data. Transfer students moving from two to four year institutions actually increased. And despite an overall loss in STEM programs, women’s enrollment didn’t actually dip. Male enrollment did.”

Issues women face in their career are not limited to STEM! Our WiE Advisory Board member Cathy Mavriplis shared this story about a young Canadian woman carpenter and her charges against the offensive remarks that were made on the Toronto-based podcast The Construction Life, which bills itself as shedding light on "the good, the bad, and the ugly" parts of the industry, with the goal of improving the sector.

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