The Center for Inclusive Computing is a center within the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. ¹ The center, which was funded with a grant from Pivotal Ventures, a funding group founded by Melinda French Gates, has the goal of increasing the number of women majoring in computer science and related technology disciplines. The center was founded in 2019 by Carla Brodley, a computer science professor who was the dean of the Khoury College of Computer Science from 2014 until stepping down in 2021 to lead the center. ²

The center accepts applications from community colleges and four-year colleges that grant computer science degrees to receive funding for “implementation of evidence-based approaches that quickly and significantly increase the representation of women in undergraduate computing.” ^{3 4}

Background

The Center for Inclusive Computing was founded in 2019 by Carla Brodley, who was then the dean of the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University and a longtime advocate for increasing the number of women majoring in computer science. ⁵ The center was founded with seed money from Pivotal Ventures, a funding organization founded by Melinda Gates that has funded a variety of programs attempting to increase the number of women in computer science and other science and technology fields. ⁶

The main activity of the center is to use its funds, which mostly stem from Pivotal Ventures, to create partnerships with colleges and universities (including both two-year community colleges and four-year institutions) to “materially increase the representation of women computing graduates.” The center’s partnerships “focus on addressing and removing the institutional barriers that exclude women of all races and ethnicities from discovering and thriving in computing programs.” ⁷

In addition to providing grants to the institutions with which the center partners, the center also provides technical advising by making computing faculty from other institutions available to provide advice on the implementation of the grant, and collects data from partner institutions regarding student performance and demographics. ⁸

Grantmaking

The Center for Inclusive Computing provides grants to colleges and universities with over 200 annual computing graduates. Grant timelines can range from two to five years and the grants range from $500,000 to $1 million. The center offers smaller institutions diagnostic grants of $60,000 to fund data collection and analysis on student retention. ^{9 10}

In 2023, the center announced a grant program to help institutions increase the number of female transfer students. ¹¹

Grantees highlighted by the organization include Barnard College, Columbia University, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Colorado State University, University of Wisconsin, University of South Florida, Dartmouth, and Cal State Fullerton. ¹²

Leadership

Carla Brodley is the founder and executive director of the Center for Inclusive Computing. Brodley was previously Dean of the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University from 2014 until 2021, when she became the “dean of inclusive computing” at Northeastern and executive director of the center. She was previously a computer science professor at Tufts University and Purdue University. ¹³ She co-chaired the 2014 conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and from 2008 through 2011 co-chaired the Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research. She received a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1994. ¹⁴

1. “About Us.” Center for Inclusive Computing. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://cic.northeastern.edu/about-us/
2.  “About Us.” Center for Inclusive Computing. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://cic.northeastern.edu/about-us/
3. “Transfer Pathways.” Center for Inclusive Computing. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://cic.northeastern.edu/grants/transferpathways/
4. Kim, Yunkyo. “NU Center for Inclusive Computing puts female narratives first.” The Huntington News. August 29, 2019. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://huntnewsnu.com/59451/campus/nu-center-for-inclusive-computing-puts-female-narratives-first/
5. “Home.” Center for Inclusive Computing. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://cic.northeastern.edu/
6. Kim, Yunkyo. “NU Center for Inclusive Computing puts female narratives first.” The Huntington News. August 29, 2019. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://huntnewsnu.com/59451/campus/nu-center-for-inclusive-computing-puts-female-narratives-first/
7. “Home.” Center for Inclusive Computing. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://cic.northeastern.edu/
8. “Home.” Center for Inclusive Computing. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://cic.northeastern.edu/
9. “Grants.” Center for Inclusive Computing. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://cic.northeastern.edu/grants/
10. “Home.” Center for Inclusive Computing. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://cic.northeastern.edu/
11. “Transfer Pathways.” Center for Inclusive Computing. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://cic.northeastern.edu/grants/transferpathways/
12. “Celebrating Grantees Archive.” Center for Inclusive Computing. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://cic.northeastern.edu/news/celebrating-grantees-archive/
13. “Carla Brodley.” LinkedIn profile. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlabrodley/details/experience/
14. ^[1] “Carla Brodley Appointed Dean of the College of Computer and Information Science at Northeastern University.” Northeastern News. Accessed September 11, 2023. https://cra.org/cra-wp/carla-brodley-appointed-dean-of-the-college-of-computer-and-information-science/