Carla E. Brodley, PhD

Carla E. Brodley is the founding executive director of the Center for Inclusive Computing (CIC) at Northeastern University, an $80M initiative that works with presidents, provosts, deans, chairs and faculty at over 100 U.S. universities to remove institutional barriers that impact students’ discovery, retention and persistence in computing. Previously, she served as dean of Khoury College of Computer Sciences (2014-2021) and as department chair of Computer Science at Tufts University. 

A fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Dr. Brodley’s interdisciplinary machine learning research led to advances in computer science, remote sensing, neuroscience, digital libraries, astrophysics, content-based image retrieval of medical images, computational biology, chemistry, evidence-based medicine and predictive medicine.

For the last two decades professors, non-profits, philanthropists, the national science foundation, and other agencies have been working to broaden participation in computing (BPC) in higher-ed. Some progress has been made, but often it is incremental and takes place in small pockets. To accelerate the rate of progress in diversifying computing (and AI) nationally requires that we as a field understand and remove institutional barriers, and that we rethink the invitation to create systemic, sustainable change. Launched in 2019 with funding from Pivotal Ventures LLC, an investment and incubation company created by Melinda French Gates, the Center for Inclusive Computing (CIC) at Northeastern is working in partnership with 100+ universities across the country to ensure that students of any intersectional demographic identity can discover, thrive, and persist in computing. In her talk, Dr. Carla Brodley, the CIC’s Founding Executive Director and former dean of Northeastern’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences, will explore the most common institutional barriers. She will discuss the concrete measures that can be taken to address these barriers to retention and the need to open new pathways to computing, such as handling the distribution of prior computing experience in the intro sequence, rethinking the placement of math requirements, and creating interdisciplinary computing BS/BA degrees. She will present the results of the CIC at 5 years and conclude with which of the CIC’s recommended systemic, sustainable changes can be applied to other areas of STEM.

November 7, 2-4pm “Broadening Participation in Computing and AI”