Carol Frieze facts for kids
Carol Frieze is a very important person at Carnegie Mellon University. She works in the School of Computer Science. She helps lead groups like Women@SCS and SCS4ALL. These groups support students in computer science. Carol Frieze also wrote a book about how Carnegie Mellon successfully brought more women into computer science. In fact, by fall 2018, half of the new students in computer science there were women! She has received special awards for her work, like the A. Nico Habermann Award.
Contents
Carol Frieze's Education and Career
Carol Frieze first studied English literature at the University of London. Later, she moved to Carnegie Mellon University to study cultural studies. She earned her Ph.D. there, focusing on how culture and environment affect women's involvement in computer science. Her research looked at why more women might not choose computer science.
Before working in computer science, she taught at a school in England. She also taught English at Carnegie Mellon. Now, she works to make computer science a more welcoming place for everyone.
Helping Students at Carnegie Mellon
One of the main groups Carol Frieze leads is Women@SCS. This group works to make sure that young women in computer science get the same chances as their male classmates. They help with social events, networking, and finding mentors. This way, everyone has a fair chance to succeed.
She also works on a program called BiasBusters@CMU. This program helps people understand and reduce unconscious bias. Unconscious bias means having feelings or ideas about people without even realizing it. This program helps make the campus a fairer place for all students.
Books by Carol Frieze
Carol Frieze co-wrote a book with Jeria Quesenberry called Kicking Butt in Computer Science: Women in Computing at Carnegie Mellon University. This book came out in 2015. It explains how Carnegie Mellon managed to attract and keep more female students in computer science. The book shows that changing the culture of computing was more important than just changing what was taught in classes. It's all about making the environment more supportive and inclusive.
Awards and Recognition
In 2017, Carol Frieze received the A. Nico Habermann Award from the Computing Research Association. This award recognized her for spending almost 20 years helping to make computing more diverse and welcoming. The award also praised her for her research, which helped people understand the challenges faced by different groups in computer science. Thanks to her efforts, the number of women studying computer science at Carnegie Mellon reached almost 50%, which is much higher than the national average.
Carol Frieze's Personal Life
Carol Frieze grew up in a small coal mining village in Nottinghamshire, England. She was the first person in her family to go to college. She is married to a mathematician named Alan M. Frieze. They have two grown-up children and four grandchildren.
