Category: Member Accomplishments

Recent CRCL accomplishments

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Morehouse Computer Science Student Presenting at the  2019 Emerging Researchers National Conference

Leron Julian, a Morehouse Computer Science major, abstract, “Using SMS as an Interface For a Virtual Mentoring System,” was accepted for presentation during the 2019 Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in STEM February 21st through the 23rd in Washington DC.

Mr. Julian developed a tool to research SMS virtual conversational mentoring. The SMS conversational agent is constructed to be used as a virtual mentor, to mentor undergraduate computer science majors at a Historically Black College (HBCU) who are considering pursuing a graduate degree in computing. The study is designed to compare the effectiveness of the SMS conversational agent to the original conversational agent, an embodied conversational agent (ECA).

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CRCL Presents Research Paper at the RESPECT 2018 Conference

 

 

 

 

 

The research paper entitled "Awareness and Readiness for Graduate School of African American Male Computer Science Students" was accepted into the 3rd Annual Conference for Research on Equity & Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, & Technology (RESPECT) hosted in February 2018 in Baltimore, MD.  Congratulations to the authors Earl Huff Jr. and Dr. Kinnis Gosha on their achievement. The paper provided significant insight into African American computer science students' confidence levels, academic and technical capabilities,  limitations of assistance, and likelihood in pursuing graduate education.  Below is the abstract:

"This paper investigates the preparedness, knowledge, and confidence of African American male undergraduate Computer Science students in applying to graduate school. Recent data has shown a gross underrepresentation of African Americans and other minority groups in computing and technology at the Masters and Doctoral levels. With a greater demand for diversity within the field of computing, it becomes more prevalent to find the causes for a lack of participation of such populations at the post-secondary level and find solutions to help increase the numbers. The study conducted looked at students’ knowledge and experience in conducting and presenting research as well as their academic capabilities and programming experience. The study also probed the students about their knowledge and confidence in applying to graduate school and if they feel their inner circle was sufficient in preparing to apply. Our findings from the survey revealed that although the participants appeared to meet the academic requirements and had some level of research experience, they indicated that they did not possess much knowledge about nor feel confident in their ability to get into a graduate program. Findings also showed that the students know of people they can seek out to learn about graduate school, but most of them do not hold a Ph.D. At the end of the paper, current practices that help to provide students with the knowledge, confidence, and ability to pursue graduate studies in computing are reviewed."

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Mays High School and CRC Lab Award Grant from State of Georgia

The Culturally Relevant Computing Lab and Benjamin E. Mays High School were selected as one of the six partnerships to receive the Innovation Fund Tiny Grant for 2017, with the award received being $6998.  The goal of the Innovation Fund Tiny Grant was to develop programs in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM). With this grant students will be provided mentors to help guide them through their virtual AP Computer Science courses. In addition to those students participating in the program, student enrolled in Georgia Virtual AP Computer Science and AP Computer Science Principles courses will also benefit from the Tiny Grant through tutoring and assistance.

 

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NSF Awards Data Science Grant to Morehouse and Spelman

A grant award was made on August 15th, 2016 to Morehouse College and Spelman College titled Targeted Infusion Project: Data Science eXtension (DSX): Incorporating data science fundamentals in computing curriculum at Spelman and Morehouse Colleges. The total amount of the grant is of $399,903 over three years. The idea behind the grant is to infuse data science concepts throughout multiple classes at Morehouse and Spelman Colleges, create two new data science courses that students at both institutions can take and submit a proposal to develop a minor in Data Science at both Morehouse and Spelman Colleges. Drs. Brandeis Marshall (Spelman College) and Kinnis Gosha (Morehouse College) are  the Principal Investigators on the grant. Data science is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary field focused on processes and systems that extract knowledge and relevant information from either structured or unstructured data (Baker et al, 2011; Chang et al, 2008; Naur 1974). According to the McKinsey Report (Manyika et al, 2011), there will be almost 200,000 positions requiring “deep analytical skills”. The report further outlines the additional job responsibilities of nearly 1.5 million managers and analysts who will need to analyze and interpret data findings in order to make decisions. Given that HBCUs account for only 3% of the higher education institutions, HBCUs are producing nearly 26% of all Black STEM bachelor’s recipients each year with smaller institution endowments and restricted institutional resources (Upton and Tanenbaum 2014). The continued STEM bachelor’s recipient production hinges on sufficient faculty and student exposure and training in emerging fields such as data science. Says Gosha, “This award sets the groundwork to make both Morehouse and Spelman College the national leaders in producing African-Americans data scientist, which will adds to the overall push by both colleges to prepare students for outstanding career and graduate school opportunities after graduation.” More information about the award can be found on the National Science Foundation’s website.