African-American women in computer science were among early pioneers in computing in the United States, and there are notable African-American women working in computer science.
History
African-American women were hired as mathematicians to do technical computing needed to support aeronautical and other research. They included such women as Katherine G. Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan, who had careers of decades at NASA. Among Johnson's projects was calculating the flight path for the United States' first mission into space in 1961. She is credited as co-author of 26 scientific papers. The practice in 1960 was to list only the head of the division as author. The crediting of Johnson as an author in a peer-reviewed NASA report is significant.
Black women were also among the ENIAC programmers, who programmed the first digital computer for the US Army. Their stories have not been documented. Given the dearth of information regarding the contributions of women in early computer science, it is likely that other Black women have made significant contributions to computer science and society.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) was founded in 1947, but computer science developed later as an academic field. In 1969, Clarence "Skip" Ellis became the first Black man to earn a doctorate degree in computer science. In 1981, Deborah Washington Brown became the first Black woman to earn a doctorate degree in computer science (then part of the applied mathematics program) from Harvard University. A year later, in 1982 Marsha R. Williams further integrated the field when she earned her doctorate degree in computer science.
In the mid-1980s, the representation of women in computer science peaked at approximately 40%. The decline in the representation of women has been attributed by some analysts to the increased marketing of personal computers and video games to boys.
There has been a decline in women of all races in computing in the United States; the representation of Black women in the field has continued to be lower than that of white female peers. For example, in 1985 when the number of women in computing was at a high, 77% of the related degrees were earned by White women, while fewer than 8% were earned by Black women. In 2002, 1.3% of the computer science doctorate degrees earned were awarded to Black women. In 2017, two female computer scientists Timnit Gebru and Rediet Abebe founded the workshop Black in AI, in order to help increases the presence and inclusion of Black people in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
Statistics
The representation of black women in computer science has been historically low. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) reports the following data:
| Year | Black Women (degrees) | White Women (degrees) |
|---|---|---|
| 1977 | 139 (BS), 26 (MS), 0 (PhD) | 1,275 (BS), 364 (MS), 18 (PhD) |
| 1987 | 1,536 (BS), 81 (MS), 1 (PhD) | 9,388 (BS), 1,488 (MS), 40 (PhD) |
| 1997 | 1,179 (BS), 182 (MS), 1 (PhD) | 3,599 (BS), 965 (MS), 66 (PhD) |
| 2007 | 1,624 (BS), 345 (MS), 12 (PhD) | 3,620 (BS), 1,141 (MS), 81 (PhD) |
Between 1977 and 2013 (the years in which data has been recorded by the NCES), the greatest number of Black women to earn a doctorate degree in computer science in one year was 10 (2008).
In 2012, the Computing Research Association (CRA) Taulbee Survey reported there were "merely 56 Black/African American computer science tenure-track faculty members at PhD-granting institutions, which includes 12 (or 0.6%), 21 (or 1.4%), and 23 (or 3.0%) Full, Associate, and Assistant Professors, respectively."
Notable persons
This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.The following is a list of notable Black women in computer science, in alphabetical order by last name:
- Rediet Abebe
- Monica Anderson
- Donna Auguste
- Erica Baker
- Carlotta Berry
- Aisha Bowe
- Khalia Braswell
- Meredith Broussard
- Deborah Washington Brown
- Kimberly Bryant
- Joy Buolamwini
- Marian Croak
- Shaundra Daily
- Tawanna Dillahunt
- Annie Easley
- Carol Espy-Wilson
- Timnit Gebru
- Evelyn Boyd Granville
- Ayanna Howard
- Mary Jackson
- Katherine Johnson
- Miriam D. Mann
- Brandeis Marshall
- Yeshimabeit Milner
- Melba Roy Mouton
- Victoria Chibuogu Nneji
- Andrea Grimes Parker
- Kristen Ransom
- Lyndsey Scott
- Nashlie Sephus
- Window Snyder
- Cheryl Swanier
- Latanya Sweeney
- Valerie Taylor
- Dorothy Vaughan
- Talitha Washington
- Alicia Nicki Washington
- Gladys West
- Marsha Rhea Williams
Representation in other media
- Margot Lee Shetterly's book, Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race (2016) recounts the achievements of Katherine Johnson and other African-American women at NASA. It was adapted as a feature film, Hidden Figures, released in 2016. It stars Taraji P. Henson as Katherine G. Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan, and Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson, an engineer. Kevin Costner has a supporting role.
See also
- Black in AI
- Baddies in Tech
- Data for Black Lives
- List of computer scientists
- List of African American women in STEM fields
References
- "Katherine Johnson - NasaCRgis". crgis.ndc.nasa.gov. Archived from the original on May 3, 2016. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- Howard, Jenny. "Meet Katherine Johnson, the computer who helped send men to the moon". Massive Science. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
- "ENIAC Programmers Project". ENIAC Programmers Project. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- "Focus on Women of Color |". www.cdc-computing.org. Archived from the original on April 15, 2015. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- Zewe, Adam (June 24, 2020), Alumni profile: Deborah Washington Brown, Ph.D. '81, Harvard School of Engineering, retrieved February 15, 2023
- Williams, Marsha Rhea (1982). "The design of the Computer Assisted Query Language (CAQL) System". OCLC 12957337.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - "Marsha Rhea Williams (1948- ) •". January 27, 2018. Retrieved March 7, 2022.
- "The Forgotten Female Programmers Who Created Modern Tech". NPR. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- ^ "ncsesdata.nsf.gov – WebCASPAR|Home – US National Science Foundation (NSF)". ncsesdata.nsf.gov. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- "Black AI Workshop Becomes Latest Flashpoint in Techs Culture War". Bloomberg. October 20, 2017. Archived from the original on October 20, 2017. Retrieved August 22, 2021.
- Walton, Abriana (March 3, 2021). "Meet Rediet Abebe, the Ethiopian Computer Scientist Using AI to Fight Socioeconomic Inequality". AfroTech. Retrieved August 22, 2021.
- Hodari, Apriel; Ong, Maria; Ko, Lily T.; Kachchaf, Rachel R. (2014). "New enactments of mentoring and activism". Proceedings of the tenth annual conference on International computing education research. Icer '14. pp. 83–90. doi:10.1145/2632320.2632357. ISBN 9781450327558. S2CID 9241684. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- Ong, Maria (July 2011). "The status of women of color in computer science". Communications of the ACM. 54 (7): 32–34. doi:10.1145/1965724.1965737. S2CID 26535427.
- Frenkel, Karen A. (1990). "Women and computing". Communications of the ACM. 33 (11). ACM: 34–46. doi:10.1145/92755.92756. S2CID 18384629.
- Dryburgh, Heather (2000). "Underrepresentation Of Girls And Women In Computer Science: Classification OF 1990s Research" (PDF). J. Educational Computing Research. 23 (2): 181–202. doi:10.2190/8ryv-9jwh-xqmb-qf41. S2CID 146393660. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 16, 2015. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- Taylor, Valerie. "Women of color in computing". Vol. 34, no. 2. ACM. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
- "2011 Taulbee Survey: continued increase in undergraduate CS degree production; slight rise in doctoral production" (PDF).
Further reading
- Borum, Viveka, and Erica Walker. "What makes the difference? Black women's undergraduate and graduate experiences in mathematics." Journal of Negro Education 81.4 (2012): 366–378.
- Charleston, LaVar J., et al. "Navigating underrepresented STEM spaces: Experiences of Black women in US computing science higher education programs who actualize success." Journal of Diversity in Higher Education 7#3 (2014): 166–76.
- Cheryan, S., Drury, B.J., & Vichayapai, M. "Enduring influence of stereotypical computer science role models on women’s academic aspirations." Psychology of Women Quarterly (2013) 37:72–79 doi:10.1177/0361684312459328
- Hanson, S. L. "African American women in science: Experiences from high school through the postsecondary years and beyond". NWSA Journal (2004) 16:96–115. JSTOR 4317036
- McCurdy, Eric R. "Discrimination as a Barrier to Diversity: Sexism and Microaggressions against African American Women in Computer Science and Engineering" (PhD. Diss. University of Akron, 2020), bibliography pp 135–145.
- McGee, Ebony O., and Lydia Bentley. "The troubled success of Black women in STEM." Cognition and Instruction 35.4 (2017): 265–289.
- Morton, Terrell R., Destiny S. Gee, and Ashley N. Woodson. "Being vs. Becoming: Transcending STEM Identity Development through Afropessimism, Moving toward a Black X Consciousness in STEM." Journal of Negro Education 88.3 (2020): 327–342.
- Sanders, Yolanda. "Voices of African American Women in Computer Science: Implications for K-12 Stem Education and Beyond" (PhD. Diss. Loyola University Chicago, 2020) excerpt.
- Solomon, Amber, et al. "Not Just Black and Not Just a Woman: Black Women Belonging in Computing." 2018 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT) (IEEE, 2018).
- Yamaguchi, Ryoko, and Jamika D. Burge. "Intersectionality in the narratives of black women in computing through the education and workforce pipeline." Journal for Multicultural Education (2019).
