In 2019 Morehouse College launched the first and only undergraduate Software Engineering Program at an HBCU. This February, Morehouse was awarded a grant from Boeing TMCF HBCU Strategy Team to fund the growth and development of the Software Engineering Degree program. This grant will provide funding for accreditation fees, a robust tutorial program, student organization support, and classroom enhancements.
The CRCL partnered with The Lee County Youth Development Center in Opelika, AL and the Razor Foundation in a three-day workshop that used Sphero robotics to introduce students to basic coding concepts using block programming and Java Script. The workshop ran from January 11-13 where there were 27 participants, a mix of boys and girls ranging from junior high to high school age. The lab had undergraduate students from Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University teaching the coding concepts. A competition was held on the last day, which gave participants an opportunity to showcase everything they had learned.
The National Science Foundation Recently awarded a trio of investigators, including Culturally Relevant Computing Lab Director Dr. Kinnis Gosha, $100,000 ( Award Abstract # 1903909) to host a workshop that assists in the development of strategies that address fairness, ethics, accountability, and transparency (FEAT) in computing based research, practice, and educational effects. The workshop will be developed to bring together diverse researchers with FEAT-related expertise to explore best practices and integrate disparate approaches. The workshop will be hosted at Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center on August 29th-30th. Click here to read more about the grant.
The CRCL attended a collegiate planning workshop co-located with the 41st Annual National Black Data Processing (BDPA) Tech Conference & Career Fair held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel Atlanta on August 1-3, 2019. Currently, no notable student organization focuses on increasing the number of Black computing professionals at the undergraduate level. The workshop was used to develop collegiate chapters (primarily at HBCUs and predominantly Black institutions) to serve this purpose. The workshop also included BDPA board members, government agency representatives, and industry professionals. In addition to forming student chapters, the group also examined best practices and seek to articulate strategies for collaborating with the IT industry.
Dr. Kinnis Gosha, Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor and Director of the Culturally Relevant Computing Lab ( CRCL), has joined Dell, Inc. as a Diversity and Inclusion Summer Research Fellow to lead a study to uncover how companies can successful with hiring and retaining diverse candidates. This research will help to inform the direction of strategic investments made by companies to empower and enable the workforce of the future.
Through his expertise in designing conversational agents, Dr. Gosha will lead the development of Dell’s Bias Check Embodied Conversational Agent prototype. In doing so, Dr. Gosha will work closely with Dell’s Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion, Nitcelle Emmanuels , and the CRCL’s very own post-baccalaureate researcher and recent Morehouse graduate, Tristian Pittman, to complete this project.
Dr. Kinnis Gosha has recently been named the Division Chair of Experiential Learning and Interdisciplinary Studies, a new division at Morehouse College. With this new position, Dr. Gosha will have the opportunity to work closely with Academic Program Directors (APDs) to facilitate programmatic, budgetary, and other decision-making within the division. He will also be responsible for participating in student recruitment activities and fundraising for the division. In addition, he will be expected to promote a collegial work climate, facilitate and lead the division towards improved productivity and relevancy.
Dr. Kinnis Gosha, an Assistant Professor and Director of the Culturally Relevant Computing Lab at Morehouse College, has been awarded a grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct a study on virtual mentorship and how it impacts underrepresented minority students in the computer science and engineering fields. This grant award is for $299,882 and will span a two-year period. The central purpose of this research is to develop and evaluate a virtual mentoring system that uses a group of embodied conversational agents (i.e., think avatars) to mentor underrepresented doctoral students, majoring in engineering and computer science and who are pursuing a career as a college professor. This NSF award positions the Culturally Relevant Computing Lab to conduct research that can potentially transform the landscape of engineering and computer science, by providing the foundation and support needed to foster diversity through virtual mentorship.
Dell Technologies has recently started focusing on new and innovative ways to reduce unconscious bias in the workplace. In doing so they reached out to Dr. Kinnis Gosha, Director of the Culturally Relevant Computing Lab, to leverage new technology options generated in his research lab. Dr. Gosha was recently featured in a video that was showcased at the 2019 Dell Technologies World Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Link to video coming soon.
Dr. Kinnis Gosha, Culturally Relevant Computing Lab (CRCL) Director, manuscript submission titled, “Improving Computing Science Instruction for African American Secondary School Students: A Focus Group Exploration of Computing Identities of African American Teachers” was accepted into the 2019 ACM SIGMIS Computers and People Research (CPR) Conference. This conference will be held June 20-22 in Nashville, Tennessee.
The ACM Special Interest Group (SIG) on Management Information Systems (MIS) promotes best-practice and research in the management of information systems and technologies in management commerce. SIGMIS is a founder of ISWorld Net at http://www.isworld.org, and a sponsor of several conferences on information systems and technology. As one of the oldest of ACM’s SIG’s, SIGMIS traces its beginnings back to 1961, and for forty years has been instrumental in defining and developing the field of management and information systems.
Researchers from the Culturally Relevant Computing Lab (CRCL) in the Computer Science Department at Morehouse College recently submitted an abstract titled, “Exploring the Needs and Preferences of Underrepresented Minority Students for an Intelligent Virtual Mentoring System” to the 2019 HCI International Conference. Their abstract was accepted as a poster for publication in the conference proceedings and presentation. The authors of this abstract are Naja A. Mack, Research Scientist; Earl W. Huff Research Scientist; Robert Cummings, Postbaccalaureate Researcher; and Dr. Kinnis Gosha, Hortenius I. Chenault Endowed Associate Professor and Director of Non-Traditional Academic Initiatives.
The HCI International 2019 is the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. It will take place July 26th-30th at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Orlando area, Florida, USA, under the auspices of 18 distinguished international boards.
Kinnis Gosha, PhD 