Alicia Nicki Washington facts for kids

Alicia Nicki Washington is an American computer scientist, author, and professor. She teaches at Duke University. She wrote a book called Unapologetically .... In 2005, she made history. She was the first Black woman to earn a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) in Computer Science from North Carolina State University. A PhD is a very high university degree.

Early Life and Learning

Alicia Nicki Washington grew up in Durham, North Carolina. Her mother was a programmer at IBM. This means her mother wrote computer code. Her mother taught her how to code when she was young.

Washington has shared some tough experiences from her school days. When she was 12, a teacher said something hurtful to her. Later, as a college professor, she faced unfair comments from students. These comments were sometimes about her race.

Washington went to Johnson C. Smith University for her first college degree. She earned a Bachelor of Science in mathematics in 2000. She then continued her studies at North Carolina State University. There, she earned her Master of Science degree in 2002. In 2005, she completed her PhD in Computer Science.

Her Career Journey

First Teaching Roles

In 2006, Dr. Washington became a professor at Howard University. She was the first Black woman to be a Computer Science professor there. At Howard, she helped create a special program with Google. It was called "Google In Residence." This program helped students learn from Google experts. In 2015, she moved to Winthrop University. She became an associate professor of Computer Science there.

Working at Duke University

In June 2020, Dr. Washington joined the faculty at Duke University. She is a professor of Computer Science there.

Dr. Washington, along with Dr. Shaundra Daily and Cecilé Sadler, started an important program. It's called the Cultural Competence in Computing (3C) Fellows Program. This program helps people understand how culture and identity fit into computing.

In 2021, Dr. Washington and Dr. Daily received a large grant. It was $10 million from the National Science Foundation. They used this money to create the Alliance for Identity-Inclusive Computing Education (AIICE) at Duke University. This alliance works to make computer science more welcoming for everyone.

Important Writings

• Washington, Alicia Nicki, Cecilé Sadler, and Shaundra Daily. “Identity-Inclusive Computing: Paving the Path Forward.” In Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2, 1730–1730. ACM, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1145/3641555.3705086.

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