* Click on member's name to read their bio.*

CRA-W Co-Chairs:

  • Carla Brodley - Co-Chair

    Department of Computer Science, Tufts University

  • Kathleen Fisher - Co-Chair, Industry Programs, CAPP-L

    AT&T Labs Research

CRA-W Members and Projects:

  • Nancy Amato - Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU), Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS)

    Department of Computer Science, Texas A&M University

  • Cecilia R. Aragon - Communications
    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  • Carla Brodley - Co-Chair

    Department of Computer Science, Tufts University

  • Tracy Camp - Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU)
    Colorado School of Mines

  • Sheila Castañeda - Career Mentoring Workshops, Multidisciplinary Research Opportunities for Women (MRO-W)

    Computer Science Department, Clarke College

  • Lori Clarke - Grad Cohort Program
    University of Massachusetts

  • Joanne Cohoon - Evaluation
    University of Virginia

  • Andrea Danyluk - Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates (CREU)

    Williams College

  • Dilma Da Silva - Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS)
    IBM Research

  • Carla Ellis - Steering Committee, Fundraising Committee, NCWIT hub co-director, Grace Hopper liaison

    Computer Science Department, Duke University

  • Kathleen Fisher - Co-Chair, Industry Programs, CAPP-L

    AT&T Labs Research

  • Joan Francioni - Advanced Career Mentoring Workshop (CAPP)
    Department of Computer Science, Winona State University

  • Maria Gini - Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU)
    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota

  • Susanne E. Hambrusch - Career Mentoring Workshops (CMW-R), Advanced Career Mentoring Workshop (CAPP)

    Purdue University

  • Mary Jean Harrold - Steering Committee, Communications Committee (Newsletter editor)

    School of Computer Science, College of Computing
    Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the College of Computing

  • Julia Hirschberg
    Computer Science, Columbia University

  • Mary Jane Irwin - Steering Committee member, Awards and Nominations, Governments Affairs member

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Penn State University

  • Susan Landau - ResearcHers, Booklist, Advanced Career Mentoring Workshop (CAPP)

    Distinguished Engineer, Sun Microsystems Laboratories

  • Tessa Lau
    Staff member at IBM's Almaden Research Center

  • Margaret Martonosi - Co-Chair, Discipline-Specific Workshops

    Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University

  • Renée J. Miller - Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS)

    Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto

  • Joann Ordille

    Avaya Labs

  • Lori Pollock - Grad Cohort Program

    Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Delaware

  • Mary Lou Soffa - Affilites DMP Program, Grad Cohort Program, Cohort of Associate Professors Project (CAPP)

    Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia

  • Manuela Veloso
    Computer Science Department, Carnegie Mellon University

  • Telle Whitney - Liaison with the Institute for Women in Technology

    Institute for Women in Technology

CRA-W Emerita Members:

Emerita status is bestowed upon retired members who made major contributions to CRA-W during their membership.

CRA-W Staff:



Joan Francioni: Advanced Career Mentoring Workshop (CAPP)
Department of Computer Science
Winona State University

Joan is currently a Full Professor of Computer Science at Winona State University, a state university in southeastern Minnesota. She began teaching in 1983, two years after receiving the first Computer Science Ph.D. degree awarded by Florida State University. Although teaching has always been her main interest in academics, she served as the Department Head at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette for five years and has enjoyed doing research throughout her career as well.

One of the very exciting parts about her work these days is a research project that combines teaching with the study of a particular computer-human interface. Specifically, she is working on an NSF-sponsored project to figure out effective ways to teach computer science to students who are blind or have severe visual disabilities. As part of this project, Joan and Ann Smith, the Co-PI of the grant, are developing an assistive software tool for learning to program, called JavaSpeak. Basically, JavaSpeak is an editor with aural feedback designed to provide a user with useful information about a program’s structure and semantics. It is designed to parse the program and "speak" the program’s structure to a blind user, much in the same way that separate lines and indentation and color help "show" the structure of the program to a sighted user. A prototype of the tool has already been built, and tests with blind programmers will begin as early as the summer of 2000.

Outside of work, Joan enjoys as much time as she can outdoors. It's been a little tricky in the winter in Minnesota for her (Joan is originally from New Orleans, Louisiana) but with the help of snowshoes and cross-country skis, she's adapting. During the summer, she and her partner spend lots of time gardening and bicycling. In the summer of 1999, they did a cross-country bike trip with the American Lung Association, which in her words was "a blast and a great adventure."