CRA-WP (Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research)

CRA-WP (Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research)
Name	CRA-WP
Full name	Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research
Formation	1991
Type	Professional committee
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Parent organization	Computing Research Association
Purpose	Advancement of women in computing research

CRA-WP (Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research) is a standing committee that addresses the representation, retention, and advancement of women in computing research. Founded within the Computing Research Association, the committee organizes mentoring, workshops, and research-practice translation to influence policy and practice across academic and industrial institutions. Its activities intersect with many universities, companies, and professional societies to shape participation in computing fields.

History

CRA-WP traces its origins to discussions among faculty and researchers associated with the Association for Computing Machinery, IEEE Computer Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Science Foundation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Early collaborators included advocates from Carnegie Mellon University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The committee's formation in 1991 followed precedent efforts by groups linked to Association for Women in Computing and initiatives at Bell Labs and Hewlett-Packard aimed at addressing attrition documented by reports from National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and panels convened by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Over subsequent decades CRA-WP partnered with conferences such as Grace Hopper Celebration, SIGCSE Technical Symposium, International Conference on Machine Learning, and NeurIPS to develop targeted interventions. Funding and evaluation collaborations involved agencies and organizations including the National Institutes of Health, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Google, Microsoft Research, Intel, IBM Research, and philanthropic entities like the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Mission and Goals

The committee's mission aligns with strategic objectives promoted by the Computing Research Association and echoes recommendations from commissions such as the Committee on Women in Science and Engineering and reports by the National Science Board. Primary goals include increasing the proportion of women in tenure-track positions at institutions like Princeton University, University of Michigan, Cornell University, and University of Washington; improving retention in research labs at companies such as Apple Inc., Amazon.com, Facebook (Meta Platforms), and NVIDIA; and enhancing leadership representation in organizations such as ACM, IEEE, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. CRA-WP emphasizes evidence-based practices popularized by researchers at University of California, San Diego, University of Toronto, ETH Zurich, and University of Cambridge and seeks to influence policy at funders like the European Research Council and national agencies.

Programs and Initiatives

CRA-WP runs mentoring and career-development events modeled after programs at University of California, Los Angeles, Yale University, and Columbia University and collaborates with conferences such as SIGIR, CHI, FAccT, KDD, and ICLR. Notable initiatives include workshops inspired by practices from MentorNet and peer-support networks akin to programs at University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, and Northwestern University. CRA-WP's resources and syllabi draw on materials from National Center for Women & Information Technology, AnitaB.org, AAAS Entry Point!, and curricula used in diversity training at Harvard University and Oxford University. Evaluation partnerships have involved researchers from University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Maryland, College Park, Purdue University, Texas A&M University, University of Texas at Austin, and Georgia Institute of Technology. The committee also organizes dissemination through venues such as Communications of the ACM, IEEE Spectrum, Science, Nature, and panels hosted at SXSW and AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

Impact and Outcomes

CRA-WP's efforts contributed to measurable changes noted in longitudinal studies by teams at Rutgers University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Minnesota, Boston University, and Michigan State University. Outcomes include increased recruitment at departments in University of California, Santa Barbara, University of California, Irvine, Ohio State University, and Virginia Tech; higher retention rates in research groups at Salesforce Research, Adobe Research, Siemens, and Samsung Research; and policy adoptions at universities such as Brown University, Rice University, Vanderbilt University, and University of Chicago. CRA-WP materials influenced tenure-and-promotion guidelines referenced in deliberations at the American Council on Education and incorporated into professional development at LinkedIn and Coursera. External evaluations by analysts associated with RAND Corporation and the Brookings Institution have highlighted contributions to mentorship infrastructure and cultural change in departments that participated in CRA-WP programs.

Organization and Governance

CRA-WP operates as a committee within the Computing Research Association with a rotating leadership model and an advisory board composed of academics and industry researchers from institutions such as Imperial College London, ETH Zurich, University of Edinburgh, Seoul National University, Tsinghua University, and Peking University. Governance includes liaisons to professional societies like ACM SIGACCESS, ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM SIGPLAN, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and Women in Machine Learning. Funding and sponsorship coordination involves partnerships with National Science Foundation Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, corporate partners including Cisco Systems, Qualcomm, ARM Holdings, and support from non-profits such as The Simons Foundation.

Notable Members and Leadership

Leadership and participants have included faculty and researchers affiliated with Princeton University, Harvard University, Stanford University School of Engineering, Cornell Tech, UC Berkeley School of Information, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Caltech, Columbia Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto Department of Computer Science, and industry labs such as Google DeepMind, Microsoft Research Redmond, Facebook AI Research, IBM Watson, and Amazon Lab126. Prominent figures who engaged with CRA-WP programming or leadership roles have also been associated with awards and institutions like the Turing Award, National Medal of Technology and Innovation, MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Sloan Research Fellowship, and election to the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering.

Category:Professional committees Category:Women in computing