“Cultural-Centric Computational Embroidery,” Coauthored by Megumi Kivuva ’22, Wins Best Paper at SIGCSE TS 2024
How does one combat disparities in access to computer science classes for historically marginalized populations? One answer, proposed in a paper coauthored by Bard alum Megumi Kivuva ’22, could be embroidery. “We’ve come a long way as a country in offering some computer science courses in schools,” Kivuva said to the University of Washington. “But we’re learning that access doesn’t necessarily mean equity. It doesn’t mean underrepresented minority groups are always getting the opportunity to learn.”
“Cultural-Centric Computational Embroidery,” Coauthored by Megumi Kivuva ’22, Wins Best Paper at SIGCSE TS 2024
How does one combat disparities in access to computer science classes for historically marginalized populations? One answer, proposed in a paper coauthored by Bard alum Megumi Kivuva ’22, could be embroidery. “We’ve come a long way as a country in offering some computer science courses in schools,” Kivuva said to the University of Washington. “But we’re learning that access doesn’t necessarily mean equity. It doesn’t mean underrepresented minority groups are always getting the opportunity to learn.” Using Turtlestitch, an open-source coding language, Kivuva and their coparticipants worked with 12 students from demographically diverse backgrounds, using a unique pedagogical approach “where the students had a say each week in what they learned and how they’d be assessed,” the University of Washington reports. “We wanted to dispel the myth that a coder is someone sitting in a corner, not being very social, typing on their computer,” Kivuva said. The subsequent paper on their findings, “Cultural-Centric Computational Embroidery,” won Best Paper at the inaugural technical symposium of Special Interest the Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE).
Kerri-Ann Norton ’04, assistant professor of computer science, has been awarded $31,657 as part of a larger study funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study uses computer models to investigate the potential success of novel drug combinations for clinical cancer treatment.
Bard College Professor Kerri-Ann Norton ’04 Awarded $31,657 by the National Institutes of Health to Study Cancer
Bard College is pleased to announce that Kerri-Ann Norton ’04, assistant professor of computer science, has been awarded $31,657 as part of a larger study funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study uses computer models to investigate the potential success of novel drug combinations for clinical cancer treatment. Led by professor Trachette Jackson at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the goal is to improve the effectiveness of immunotherapy drugs by using computer models to help characterize the dynamics between malignant tumors and the body’s immune responses and to improve clinicians’ ability to select the most promising combinations of drugs in clinical trials.
Professor Norton will address some of the challenges associated with analyzing and calibrating agent-based models (ABMs) in order to develop an approach that leverages ordinary differential equation (ODE) models to bridge the computational gap between ABMs and experimental data at the cellular level. Norton’s research expertise is in multiscale agent-based modeling of tumor microenvironments and she will lead the development, simulation, and analysis of the agent-based cancer model. She will also help design the tumor-immune interactions within the ABM.
The NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. The NIH has 27 member institutes, including the NCI, which leads the national effort to eliminate the suffering and death due to cancer. The NCI conducts and supports research that will lead to a future in which we can prevent cancer before it starts, identify cancers that do develop at the earliest stage, eliminate cancers through innovative treatment interventions, and biologically control those cancers that we cannot eliminate so they become manageable, chronic diseases.
Three Bard College alumni/ae—Beatrice Abbott ’15, Megumi Kivuva ’22, and Tobias Golz Timofeyev ’21—have been awarded competitive National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships for the 2023 award year. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) aims to “ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States” and “seeks to broaden participation in science and engineering of underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans” through selection, recognition, and financial support of individuals who have demonstrated the potential to be high achieving scientists and engineers early in their careers.
Three Bard Alumni/ae Awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
Three Bard College alumni/ae—Beatrice Abbott ’15, Megumi Kivuva ’22, and Tobias Golz Timofeyev ’21—have been awarded competitive National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships for the 2023 award year. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) aims to “ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States” and “seeks to broaden participation in science and engineering of underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans” through selection, recognition, and financial support of individuals who have demonstrated the potential to be high achieving scientists and engineers early in their careers.
Beatrice Abbott ’15, who majored in political studies at Bard, has won a fellowship for the field of social sciences. She is a master’s student in geography at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include evidence/forensics, critical migration studies, critical cartography and geographic information systems (GIS), and visual culture.
Megumi Kivuva ’22, who majored in Spanish studies and computer science with a concentration in Experimental Humanities at Bard, has won a fellowship for the field of STEM education and learning research. Kivuva is a PhD student in computing education at the University of Washington. Their research “aims to broaden participation in computing education for Black and refugee students,” and they “use community participatory research to understand the barriers to accessing computing education and codesign interventions to make computing education more accessible to these communities.”
Tobias Golz Timofeyev ’21, who majored in mathematics at Bard, has won a fellowship for the field of mathematical biology. He is a PhD student in mathematical sciences at the University of Vermont. The fellowship will allow him to focus on his research project, "Decoding Parallel Processing in the Brain using the Connectome Eigenfunctions."
As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the GRFP has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers. The five-year fellowship period provides a three-year annual stipend of $37,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees, as well as access to opportunities for professional development. NSF Fellows are anticipated to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering. Each year, the NSF receives more than 12,000 applications to the GRFP program, which has awarded fellowships to its selected scholars since 1952.
Post Date: 05-02-2023
Computer Science Events
4/21
Sunday
Thursday, April 18, 2024 RKC Computer Lab7:00 pm – 11:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 A great place to study computer science, meet with your study group, and consult with a computer science tutor. Drop in!