Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

James “Jim” Larus is a Professor and former Dean of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Switzerland. Earlier in his career, Larus was a researcher, manager, and director in Microsoft Research for over 16 years and a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was recently named Editor-in-Chief of Communications of the ACM (CACM), ACM’s flagship magazine. In his interview, Larus discusses his work as Director of the Very-Large Scale Computing Lab (VLSC), creating the MIPS processor simulator SPIM, and his goals as EiC of CACM.

danah boyd (stylized) is a Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research. In 2013, she founded Data & Society, a non-profit research organization that studies the development and governance of new technologies. She is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. Her honors include receiving the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s EFF Pioneer/Barlow Award and being named as one of Forbes America’s “Top 50 Women in Tech.” In her interview, she discusses her research on social media networks and their effect on teens, equity in data, and the role of governance in technology.

David A. Bader is a Distinguished Professor and a founder of the Department of Data Science and Director of the Institute for Data Science at New Jersey Institute of Technology. Bader serves as Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Parallel Computing (TOPC). Bader was selected as an ACM Fellow for contributions to high-performance computing systems, graph analytics, and technical leadership in parallel computing. In his interview, Bader discusses his work in high-performance computers, leading a team to develop streaming algorithms for graph data, and graphic analytics.

ACM-W is the ACM Community of Support for Women in Computing. ACM-W supports, celebrates, and advocates internationally for the full engagement of women in all aspects of the computing field, providing a wide range of programs and services to ACM members and working in the larger community to advance the contributions of technical women.

Ruth Lennon, current chair of ACM-W Europe, has been appointed the next Global Chair of ACM-W. Ruth is the director of Craobh Technology Consulting, an organization that provides personalized solutions to industry problems. She is also a lecturer with 20 years of experience in the Department of Computing at Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Ireland, and has been a member of ACM for over 20 years.

Read more about Ruth Lennon's selection as Global Chair on the ACM-W website.

The open exchange of ideas is central to ACM’s mission. This requires an environment that embraces diversity and provides a safe, welcoming environment for all. ACM's Policy Against Harassment applies to all ACM activities, defines expected behavior and explains how to report unacceptable behavior.

ACM's Technology Policy Council and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council sponsored a free screening and public discussion of the film "Coded Bias" and how those in computer science fields can address issues of algorithmic fairness. The discussion, held on March 29, 2021, has been archived, and "Coded Bias" is now viewable on both PBS and Netflix.

ACM SIGACCESS has developed a new free guide to help committees organizing and executing accessible virtual conferences inclusive for people with disabilities. The guidance is based on accessibility standards such as the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and user experiences with virtual meetings, and provides a central resource for both best practices and links to other resources. Check out the guide at https://www.sigaccess.org/accessible-virtual-conferences/.

ACM Fellow Timothy Pinkston organized and moderated a panel on "Valuing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Our Computing Community" held as a joint session of several co-located virtual conferences in March 2021. The panel included John Hennessey, David Patterson, Natalie Enright Jerger, Margaret Martonosi, Bill Dally and Kim Hazelwood. Watch a recording of the session and read a recap in CACM.