Author: Chassidy Cook

On Tuesday October 1st, Morehouse College hosted the Fall STEM Symposium. As a part of the symposium a poster session was held where two of the CRCL researchers, Tristian Pittman, Post-bacc researcher, and Chase Christmas Undergrad Research Assistant had the opportunity to present their posters.

The Tapia conference is the premier venue to acknowledge, promote, and celebrate diversity in computing. The goal of the Tapia Conference is to bring together undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, researchers, and professionals in computing from all backgrounds and ethnicities to: celebrate, connect, obtain, and be inspired. This year's theme was entitled "Diversity: Building a Stronger Future." The STARS celebration was co-located with the Tapia conference as well.

The STARS program features sessions on best practices in broadening participation in computing, hands-on training workshops for conducting computer science outreach programs for K-12 students, professional development sessions for both faculty and students, and a student poster session highlighting computing research, outreach, and service projects.  This year from the CRCL undergrad researchers Chase Christmas, Darren Giles, and Research Scientist David Cherry attended the conference where they were able to network with other researchers, and see ways in which Tapia and STARS push for diversity in computer science.

Twitter recruiter, Lejorne Lyes and several of his colleagues hosted a tech talk informational session for Clark, Morehouse, and Spelman students. During this talk students learned about the various internship opportunities Twitter offers, and the overall working environment at Twitter.

Karen Quintos, Dell Technologies' Chief Customer Officer met with the CRCL to find out more about the current projects students are working on in the lab, and to discuss possible collaboration opportunities between Dell and the CRCL.

This fall semester the CRCL will be patterning with Dell Technologies to instruct a Special Topics course in Sales Engineering. The course will give students a wide perspective of what sales engineering is, what are the responsibilities /duties of a sales engineer, and how students can improve their skills to become successful in this role. This course will rely on a group of field experts from Dell , as well as experienced faculty members in sales and computer science. The learning process will be helped with practical sessions and laboratories where students are expected to participate in real life situations.

On Wednesday August 21, 2019 the first class was taught by the Senior Vice-President of Global Enterprise Systems Engineering for Dell EM KC-Choi, the topic was, " What is Sales Engineering". As the Senior Vice-President of Global Enterprise Systems Engineering KC leads a global team of over 3,000 world wide class technology professionals that provide solutions advisory to help customers transform their digital enterprises.

Dr. Kinnis Gosha, Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor and Director of the Culturally Relevant Computing Lab (CRCL), has joined Dell, Inc. as a Diversity and Inclusion Summer Research Fellow to lead a study to uncover how companies can be successful with hiring and retaining diverse candidates. This research will help to inform the direction of strategic investments made by companies to empower and enable the workforce of the future. 

Through his expertise in designing conversational agents, Dr. Gosha will lead the development of Dell’s Bias Check Embodied Conversational Agent prototype. In doing so, Dr. Gosha will work closely with Dell’s Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion, Nitcelle Emmanuels, and the CRCL’s very own post-baccalaureate researcher and recent Morehouse graduate, Tristian Pittman, to complete this project.  

Dr. Kinnis Gosha has recently been named the Division Chair of Experiential Learning and Interdisciplinary Studies, a new division at Morehouse College. With this new position, Dr. Gosha will have the opportunity to work closely with Academic Program Directors (APDs) to facilitate programmatic, budgetary, and other decision-making within the division. He will also be responsible for participating in student recruitment activities and fundraising for the division. In addition, he will be expected to promote a collegial work climate, facilitate and lead the division towards improved productivity and relevancy.  

The CRCL attended a collegiate planning workshop co-located with the 41st Annual National Black Data Processing  (BDPA) Tech Conference & Career Fair held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel Atlanta on August 1-3, 2019. Currently, no notable student organization focuses on increasing the number of Black computing professionals at the undergraduate level. The workshop was used to develop collegiate chapters (primarily at HBCUs and predominantly Black institutions) to serve this purpose. The workshop also included BDPA board members, government agency representatives, and industry professionals. In addition to forming student chapters, the group also examined best practices and seek to articulate strategies for collaborating with the IT industry.

From June 3rd -27th the CRCL was a part of  a summer workshop program known as Xandu (X Capp), which involved gifted  6th-8th grade students from Atlanta Public Schools. The summer program included CRCL undergraduate  students teaching middle schoolers STEM by using and programing Sphero balls.

The CRCL Sphero team gave a Morehouse campus tour to middle schoolers who participated in their summer workshop associated with Atlanta Public Schools Xanadu summer camp. While touring, the students encountered Morehouse's President, Dr. David A. Thomas.