What We Do

The CSC hosts monthly workshops on computational topics across a variety of disciplines. Currently, all workshops are hybrid, run for 2 hours from 12-2pm ET on Fridays in Milstein 516 and via Zoom. To join us at an upcoming workshop, visit Upcoming Events and register!

Past workshops have included:

• Consentful Software Design (with artist and organizer Xin Xin)
• Spatial Data Visualization Using Python
• Introduction to Machine Learning Using Python
• Fundamentals of Version Control Using Git and GitHub
• Make a Personal Website Using HTML and CSS
• Computing Across Disciplines

As part of the Year of Science at Barnard College, the CSC is running a Diversity in Computing Speaker Series. During the 2021–2022 academic year, we host monthly talks with scholars and practitioners in computational fields who explore what DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) looks like in STEM.

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There is an urgent need to more fully consider the ethical and social implications of computing and its applications: for example, in designing addictive social media platforms or in using AI for facial or name recognition, which can lead to housing discrimination, racial biases in job hiring, or restrictions on personal freedoms through public and private surveillance.

To better understand how to counter these biases, this series rethinks STEM disciplines from the inside out. We invite one leader in a STEM field every month to speak about the work they are doing to diversify and broaden inclusion in their fields by either sharing their research, their experiences and initiatives in industry or academia, or their thoughts on how power structures within computing disciplines should be transformed to create more equitable systems.

Fall 2021 Speakers:

• Dr. Theodore Kim, Assc. Prof., Yale: "Anti-Racist Computer Graphics Research"
• Dr. Casey Fiesler, Asst. Prof., University of Colorado Boulder,"Three Lessons Toward Ethical Tech"
• Dr. Jiahao Chen, CTO, Parity AI: "Practicing What You Publish: From Academia to an Anti-Racist AI Startup"
• Saba Gul, Technologist and Entrepreneur: "One-Size-Fails-All: Building Socially Scalable Tech"

To keep up to date with Diversity in Computing speaker events, check out Upcoming Events.  To watch recordings of past Diversity in Computing events, check out our Youtube channel.

Computing Fellows are undergraduate peer academic leaders who assist in the development and execution of computational projects. Computing Fellows are "attached" to Barnard courses or programs that may or may not have a computational component. Computing Fellows can lead workshops on computational methods or hold one-on-one meetings with students to help them incorporate computing into their projects. For more information about the program please visit our Computing Fellows page.

Barnard BEARS (Better, Enhance, and Advance Research Series) is an exciting program that aims to show Barnard students what a career in Computer Science research looks like through mentorship and community. Participants are grouped into "pods" of peers that are paired with a PhD student based on research interests and can also attend faculty round tables where they hear from faculty about their research and experiences in Computer Science. More information about the program can be found under the BEARS tab.