It’s the most wonderful time of the year

It’s late September, which can only mean one thing around these parts:  I’m already hopelessly far behind in the term.  No, wait, that’s not right.  Well, ok, it is right, but I digress.  Late September can mean only one OTHER thing:

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing!  My absolute favorite conference of the year.

This year it’s in Atlanta, which is exciting for me because I’ve never been to Atlanta.  (Also, because it’s a Delta hub which means cheap direct flights from the MSP.)  It’s also exciting because on Friday night I’m going to be touring the GVU Center at Georgia Tech, which is their HCI/human-centered computing lab.  Those of you who have read this blog for a bit know that increasingly, my research is touching the boundaries of HCI (human-computer interaction), so this field trip is doubly exciting for me.

Also exciting (how many times can I use that word in this post), and nerve-wracking, is the fact that I’ll be speaking on a panel this year!  Our panel (Friday morning, 10am, Dunwoody, if any attendees are reading this!) is titled “Building Bridges and Breaking Barriers: Panel on Diversity and Inclusion in Computer Science Education”.  We have a superstar panel lined up and I’m very psyched to be facilitating what should be a very interesting discussion with my fellow panelists!  I’m going to be discussing some of the things we’ve been doing in our Intro classes and beyond to make our CS classes less scary and more inclusive without sacrificing rigor.

I’ll be blogging throughout the conference, as I usually do, sharing my thoughts and some of the interesting things I’ve heard.  I may even use this opportunity to start tweeting in earnest—we’ll see.  Look for the updates throughout the week, and possibly into next week.