Women in Theory 2016

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

The PIs are organizing the 5th Biennial Women-in-Theory Workshop. This workshop is to take place at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing in May 2016. The intended audience of the workshop is graduate students in the field of theoretical computer science (TCS). Motivated by the low overall number of female faculty members, researchers, and students in TCS world wide, the workshop has two goals. The first is to deliver an invigorating educational program to the student participants by inviting leading female researchers to present tutorials of their research topics. The second is to provide an outstanding opportunity to bring together women students from different institutions across the country and internationally, so as to foster a sense of kinship and camaraderie, and to provide access to role models in this area by having senior and junior faculty members and industrial researchers present. The format of this workshop consists of technical tutorials, a non-technical talk, a student rump session, and a panel discussion. The first four Women-in-Theory workshops were greeted with great enthusiasm both from the participants and from the TCS research community at large. Since the first workshop in 2008, the PIs have received overwhelmingly positive feedback and many participants have matured to be successful researchers. These serve as testimonials that the workshop is accomplishing its primary goal of helping women become more successful in TCS.