Cherri M. Pancake facts for kids

Cherri M. Pancake is a fascinating scientist. She is an ethnographer, which means she studies different cultures. She is also a talented computer scientist.

Cherri Pancake works as a professor at Oregon State University. She is known for making powerful computers easier for people to use. This is called usability engineering for high performance computing. In 2018, she became the president of a very important computer group, the Association for Computing Machinery.

Cherri Pancake's Journey and Studies

Cherri Pancake started her education at Cornell University. There, she earned a degree in environmental design. Later, she studied anthropology at Louisiana State University. Anthropology is the study of human societies and cultures.

Working with Cultures

After her studies, Cherri Pancake joined the Peace Corps. She worked in Peru, helping communities there. Then, she spent ten years living in Guatemala. During this time, she studied the Maya peoples. For over six years, she was a curator at a museum. This museum was called the Ixchel Museum of Indigenous Textiles and Clothing. She helped care for and display ancient Maya textiles.

Switching to Computers

In the early 1980s, things became difficult in Guatemala. So, Cherri Pancake returned to the United States. She decided to go back to school. She became a graduate student in engineering at Auburn University. She was the first woman to join that program. In 1986, she earned her PhD in Computer Engineering.

Her Work in Computer Science

For ten years, Cherri Pancake worked in two places. She was a professor at a university and a visiting scientist at the Cornell Theory Center. She started doing special studies called usability testing. This means she tested how easy software tools were to use. She focused on tools for very powerful computers.

Making Computers Easier to Use

Cherri Pancake found ways to make these computer tools better. She used her knowledge of how people see colors. She also considered how quickly computers respond. She thought about how much information people can remember at once. And she looked at common programming errors. Her goal was to make complex software simple for users.

Leading in the Computer World

For more than twenty years, Cherri Pancake has been very active. She has worked with the ACM/IEEE Supercomputing Conference. This is a big meeting for computer experts. She was the main leader for the SC99 conference. She also started the Parallel Tools Consortium in 1993. This group worked on making computer software standards.

In 2011, she created a group called SIGHPC. She led this group until 2016. Then, she became the vice-president of the Association for Computing Machinery. In 2018, she became its president. She also worked with Intel Corporation to create special fellowships. These fellowships help increase diversity in the computer field.

Awards and Special Recognition

Cherri Pancake has received many honors for her work. In 2001, she became a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. This award recognized her leadership in making high-performance computing tools easier to use. In 2003, she also became a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. In 2006, she was honored as one of the Oregon Women of Achievement.