Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Information Technology

Programs and Initiatives

• Tapia Conference. The Association for Computing Machinery Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing is a leading conference for celebrating diversity in computing. Tapia 2019 conference demographics included 30% African American, 20% Hispanic, 52% Women, and 12% people with disabilities. The Tapia Conference is sponsored by Association for Computing Machinery and presented by CMD-IT.
• Academic Career Workshops for Underrepresented Participants. In these workshops, underrepresented assistant- and associate-level faculty, senior doctoral students, and post-docs are mentored in areas related to the academic career ladder. The workshops include panels of diverse senior faculty focused on areas such as the tenure and promotion process, launching a research program, effective teaching, and proposal writing. The workshops have been funded by NSF since 2007.
• Newsletter. The organization newsletter is distributed monthly to over 8000 students, faculty, and professionals. It includes a calendar of events from different organizations and groups focused on the target groups and two to three important articles about current news or initiatives related to minorities and people with disabilities in IT.
• Graduation Statistics of Underrepresented Groups in Computing. This project utilizes multiple databases, including WebCASPAR and CRA Taulbee Survey, to gather statistics about the graduation rates for the different computer science degree levels for ethnic minorities and where possible, people with disabilities.
• CMD-IT University Award for Retention of Minorities and Students with Disabilities in Computer Science. CMD-IT recognizes academic institutions for success in retaining underrepresented groups in computer science. The awards are presented at the ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing conferences. Recent recipients include Georgia Tech in 2017, University of North Caroline Charlotte in 2018, and University of Texas El Paso in 2019.
• Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing. CMD-IT recognizes distinguished scientists and engineers for their contributions and service. Recent recipients include Dr. Cristina Villalobos of UTRGV in 2019 and Dr. Ayanna Howard, JPL's "Bionic Woman" in 2018.