Nationwide, women make up about 14 percent of all bachelor’s degree recipients in computer science. Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh is one of the nation’s premier institutions of higher education in information science and technology. The university’s School of Computer Science has had a long-standing commitment to increase the number of women in computer science.
This fall, women will make up 40 percent of the incoming class at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science. That is the highest percentage in the school’s history.
Lenore Blum, professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, stated, “Women need the same things that have always been available to men — mentors, networks and role models, as well as friends who are also computer science majors. What we have shown is that making these opportunities explicit for the minority in a population ends up working to the advantage of everybody. We see that women and men exhibit similar spectra of interests, ranging from coding to designing computer systems to developing applications of computer science.”
Professor Blum is a graduate of Simmons College in Boston. She earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.