When Laney Strange began her career in computer science as an undergraduate student at Simmons College, a womens college, she almost forgot she was entering into a male-dominated field.

Laney Strange, associate teaching professor in Khoury College, was recently honored with the University Excellence in Teaching Award. Photo by Ruby Wallau/Northeastern University

My first four years of computer science were collaborative and not competitive, says Strange, an associate teaching professor of computer science at Northeastern. I never felt excluded.

But classes full of female coders are anomalies, even with so many initiatives to include more women in computer science. After moving on to graduate school, Strange was often the only woman in the classroom.

Its intimidating to be the only one, she says. And then you hear the comments that every underrepresented person has heard: You must be here to fill some diversity quota.

Strange has dedicated her career to creating inclusive environments for underrepresented people in computer science through her teaching style and her involvement in diversity advocacy groups. This year, she is one of two professors to receive the Excellence in Teaching Award from Northeastern for her accomplishments, an honor professors must be nominated for by their students.

Missy McElligott, associate teaching professor and director of undergraduate studies for biology, was recently honored with the University Excellence in Teaching Award. Photo by Ruby Wallau/Northeastern University

Missy McElligott, associate teaching professor of biology, is this years other recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award for her comprehensive teaching approach that reaches beyond the fundamentals of biology.

Being a successful teacher in biology means teaching students how to learn, she says. Teaching isnt magic. Theres evidence behind effective teaching strategies. Realizing that really opened up the world for me.

McElligott prioritizes the skills students will need to continue learning throughout their lives, a requirement for any career in biology.

The information a student learns in a first-year biology class might not stick forever, she says. But, for example, teaching students the ability to read and comprehend primary literature and original research papers, which is the focus of one of McElligotts classes, can serve students well beyond graduation.

Many of McElligotts students who have started careers in science have written back to her saying how thankful they are to have acquired these skills, she says.

McElligotts interest in teaching developed while she was completing her doctorate in biology at Northeastern. During this time, she noticed she liked science in the classroom more than in the lab.

It dawned on me that the educational aspect was the exciting part for me, she says. Being in a lab felt solitary compared to the classroom, which felt collaborative. I really appreciate the community aspect.

Reflecting on the award, McElligott feels flattered and full of gratitude for her students.

Im so thankful they recognized the effort and the commitment that goes into teaching, she says. I know how busy my students are, so even the fact that they took the time to fill out the evaluations, Im so grateful.

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They inspire women to code and teach lifelong learning skills - News@Northeastern

Gregory Abowd, who joined Northeastern as the new dean of the College of Engineering this month, was trained as a computer scientist and mathematician; he comes to Northeastern as a former professor and endowed chair in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech.

The distinctions between engineering, science, and computer science have continued to blur and Gregorys work certainly spans all three, says David Madigan, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.

At Georgia Tech, Abowd conducted groundbreaking research in ubiquitous computingthe concept that computing is anywhere and everywhere, omnipresent in our lives in a way that traditional desktop computing isnt. Internet-connected watches, refrigerators, and vehicles are just the start, and part of Abowds research is understanding the social impacts of such technology.

Hell continue that research at Northeastern with the same interdisciplinary approach hes used throughout his career. After all, in order to imbue something like a Post-It note with computing capabilities, computer scientists and engineers and scientists would have to work together to create a self-sustaining material to replace the silicon chip that supports most computing today. And societal needs and concerns from disciplines as varied as design and social science must inform these radical ideas of such computational materials.

The future of computing absolutely relies on fundamental engineering innovations, Abowd says. Whats driven computing, arguably, is the engineering capability of being able to produce better, faster, smaller, cheaper computing capability. So, you cannot expect the future of computing to keep advancing without having the right kind of engineering ingenuity, and the research and innovation to drive that engine.

Well, in general, when I got to Georgia Tech, I was a particular kind of researcher and I changed rather drastically. Within a year, I was very much influenced by the writings and vision of [computer scientist] Mark Weiser, who is considered the founding father of ubiquitous computing.

His vision was a form of computing that was off the desktop, that included a sensor-based exploration of what our world might be like. And this was a vision that he expressed in the late 1980s! It was a vision of what our world might be like if computers became more prevalent than they were at that time, if they were more than just desktops and personal devicesif they became more part and parcel of our everyday activity and were embedded in our physical environment in such a way that we didnt even notice where they were all the time.

I was revisiting that vision around 2015-2016, in the context of new technological capabilities, particularly in additive manufacturing, and in the development of nano-electronic devices.

Yeah, so lets take the phrase internet of things. So, when we say internet of things today, its typically about taking existing pieces of technology and adding a network capability to them so they can connect with other pieces of technology. We are not talking about say, a Post-It note, or a cup, or a shirt, or a pair of glasses; were not thinking about what comes to mind for most people when you say thing.

Im interested in making thingsentities that we are familiar with in our everyday physical worldthat have the capabilities of sensing, computing, and communicating, so that you can achieve Weisers vision.

He had two very eloquent sentences at the beginning of his book, The Computer for the Twenty-First Century. He writes, The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life, until they are indistinguishable from it.

He meant that metaphorically, but you can actually start to think about that more literally, by manufacturing computational capabilities into things; by literally weaving them in or manufacturing them as part of how you produce a piece of paper or Post-It note. Thats what I mean, thats what weve been exploring in my lab, and its starting to grow around the world, this whole notion of computational materials.

Oh, theres a ton of them. Data engineering is a huge industry, the cloud, and Big Data, and all that. And big companies are investing a lot of money, to the tune of maybe a billion dollars a month, to maintain and build data centers. And this is projected to be something like 20 percentof the worlds energy supply to feed the power needs of these data centers.

So that is seriously an engineering challenge to say, How can we reduce the energy reliance for what appears to be an insatiable desire to get more data, and to handle that more data and to infer more things from that data? Thats why Im so interested in these kinds of self-sustaining computational solutions.

But more important is what this allows us to do. In parts of the world where power is not an assumed resource, you need self-sustainable capabilities. And, the price of computers, as much as its gone down, is still not inexpensive. So to address those kinds of grand-scale problems, you really do need very cheap, self-sustaining solutions to gather that kind of information.

Additionally, any time were talking about collecting data, we need to be thinking about the kind of world we want to enablehow we put the right kinds of checks on it.

On the more humanist perspective, Im very fortunate to be raising two boys on the autism spectrum. That has infused in me a kind of compassion and understanding of neurodiversity. People are wired differently, they think about the world differently. And it is almost always the case that you cannot discern how someone is wired by just observing them or talking to them.

So, if someone does something that seems odd to you, or unnatural or inappropriate, our initial reaction is to think negatively about them, as opposed to considering that they just might think differently about the world.

Well, Ive talked quite a bit about my research and computation materials, and its true that I will remain as much as possible a very active researcherthat curiosity doesnt die, you know.

But I realized that you cannot be selfish in this kind of position, you have to be thinking about whats good for the College of Engineering, whats good for Northeastern. This is something thats influenced by my upbringing. Im the 10th of 12 children in my family, so being in a large family, I understand that its never just about me, it has to be about the community.

Im coming to Northeastern to help it continue to thrive and to help it to strive to be better.

Lets start with co-op.

When you are trying to learn something, it helps a lot to learn in a variety of different modes. You have theoretical, foundational learning that you do in the classroom, but then to understand how those lessons are relevant outside the classroomthats what the co-op experience is all about, to me. You learn how your skills apply to other parts of the world in useful ways, and when youre exposed to other parts of the world, you recognize what else you still need to learn.

So I would hope what really comes out of a co-op experience is that people realize that for the rest of your life, youre going to be doing both of these things: Youre going to be learning new things, and youre going to be understanding how it matters in the context.

And that never ends; you dont end your education, then go into the workforce, and never learn any new things. So, to me, thats really the strength of this kind of experiential learningthis play between learning and doing and understanding how the things you learn are relevant not only to enriching yourself intellectually, but helping you be a connected player in the world.

Yes, so clearly its important from the experiential learning perspective to have partnerships with industry leaders, but Ill also be a little broader than just talking about industry. You have to take into account your local situation, and build off the strengths of whats local.

So when you talk about industry, particularly with regard to Northeasterns Boston campus, you look at what the strengths are locally. In Boston, there are tons of industries: Medical, robotics, biotechnology, the list goes on. My view is not to ignore the local expertise and industry, eventhough were in this highly connected world where we have access to people and ideas everywhere.

Of course, we just spent a year in a pandemic where weve been forced to be remote, but I think fundamentally, it is easier and more natural for us to work face-to-face with people. And when people are closer to you, you have more of an affinity with them.

All this is to say, understand your local environment and take advantage of its strengths.

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I have a personal experience with neurodiversity, which, I think, is a particularly interesting form of diversity, because its for the most part invisible. And when it makes itself visible, its usually highlighting differences that people have negative reactions to. But, having raised two boys who are neurodiverse, Im highly attuned to, and very sympathetic about, peoples neurodiversity.

And thats crucial because having different perspectives really helps you think through tough problems. When I was talking earlier about being an out-of-the-box thinkerbecause I was never in the boxthats just admitting that diverse perspectives help you come up with different ways to attack problems. And there are problems that have been with us for a long time, and are begging for different perspectives. Clearly, if a problem still persists, then it requires different kinds of thinking to solve. And people who come from different backgrounds, different experiences, a different part of the world, different cultural experiences, different religious experiences, have a different way theyre wired. All those can all help think creatively about particular problems.

One way to nurture a diverse environment is to ensure that there are appropriate role models. So, you need faculty who represent all these different perspectives, and you also need faculty who are excellent and feel supported. And youve got to balance all of these things.

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Gregory Abowd is a computer scientist. That's what makes him a great fit as new dean of the College of Engineering. - News@Northeastern

The Daily Beast

Ingo Wagner/APIts very cold here, mutters Eva Schloss in her thick Austrian accent.The 91-year-old author and activist is holed up in her London home, where shes spent the past year-plus riding out the coronavirus pandemic. Despite receiving both doses of the vaccine, Schloss is effectively trappedsince the city is still under strict lockdownand growing very impatient. She has, after all, already had several years of her life stolen from her.As a child, Schloss family fled Vienna when the Nazis took over. After a stop in Belgium, they landed in Amsterdam and lived on the same block as Anne Frank, who was two years younger than Eva. The two struck up a friendshipthat is, until the Nazis forced both their families into hiding. In 1944, Eva, her parents, and her brother Heinz were revealed to the Nazis by a Dutch double agent, and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the notorious concentration camps. By the time Russian troops arrived to liberate the camps in January of 1945, only Eva and her mother remained among the living.They returned to Amsterdam, where Evas mother eventually married Otto Frank, the father of Anne, making them stepsisters (Anne died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945). In the years since, Eva married and raised a family, co-founded The Anne Frank Trust UK to preserve her diarist-stepsisters memory, and educates students on the horrors of the Holocaust at colleges across the world.I heard in America that Asian people are being attacked now suddenly, she tells me. We need to teach people that were all human beings. It doesnt matter what color or what religion we are. We are all human beings, and we have to be treated equal. The Nazi Hunter Taking On Mark ZuckerbergIn honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, I spoke with Eva Schloss about her incredible story of survival, Trumps neo-Nazi dog-whistles, and more.Youve seen and been through so much. How has the past year been for you?At first, I didnt mind so much, you know? But now, Im getting very impatient, because I used to go four months a year to the States, and in each trip, I would talk to thousands of people. It was very rewarding, because people were very interested, and I felt like I was doing something very positive to try to change peoples attitudes.I recently saw that a number of Republicans were comparing vaccine passports to the stars Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust, which seems particularly crazy.[Laughs] That is silly.I wanted to discuss your history a bit.I was born in Viennain Austriaand thats where my family lived for generations. When the Nazis came, my father realized we cant stay there, so eventually we got out, first to Belgium and then we settled in Amsterdam. And then of course, Hitler followed us. After we had been there just three months, Holland was invaded as well. We tried to escape to England, but it was too late. Germany had to find a scapegoat for why they lost the First World War, and it became the Jewish people. Its always the fault of the Jewish people if things go wrong.Why do you think that isthat Jews are constantly scapegoated?Well, it is amazing. I always tell kids: we are only 16 million Jews, spread out all over the world. Thats nothing. And nevertheless, we are all over the place. We invent thingshave ideas in medicine, science, and everything. Through the religion, starting with the Talmud, the people are very sharp and very educated, because Jewish people value education very much, so even if they start very poor in Poland or Russia, they can achieve wonderful things. Throughout history, we have always been persecutedeven from the beginning, we were persecuted for believing in one God. People ask, how can you live in London with this anti-Semitism? I say, yes, theres anti-Semitism. Its in the language, and even Shakespeare used it, but Ive seen worse. A young Eva Schloss Handout Youre one of a small group of people who spent time with Anne Frank. What was she like as a person, and why do you feel its so important to preserve her memory?We were both 11 years old when I met hershe was just one month younger than Iand she went to a different school, to a Montessori school, and her sister didnt. I later asked Otto why she went, and he said, She was actually a difficult child. She was very stubbornshe knew what she wanted. She always wanted to draw the attention of people, she liked telling stories, and in school she was called Mrs. Quack-Quack, and she always had to stay behind because she didnt stop talking in class. She was very self-filled, and knew which direction she wanted to go, even at age 11. And of course, later, when we were in hiding, she had a bad relationship with her motherI dont know whybut she adored her father. In hiding, Otto read with her, from Dickens to all the Greek mythology, and, knowing Otto very wellhe was married to my mother for 27 years and was the grandfather to my childrenI can see Otto in Annas writing. Womens rights, equality, and all that was Otto, and Anna definitely inherited that. She was hiding and it was frightening, but she enjoyed spending time with her beloved father.What was the atmosphere like in the lead-up to the Holocaust, where the anti-Semitic temperature was rising rapidly?People disappeared. People were arrested. And then after two years, in 1942, about 10,000 young people got a call-up notice to be deported to Germany. By that time, the concentration camps and death camps existed already, and the world knew about it. They pretended not to know. I think the world was quite pleased with what Hitler was doingto get rid of the Jews. In Germany, the posters said that Jews had all the good jobs, and featured Jews with big bags of money, so the people believed that. Neighbors knew when the Jewish people were being taken away, and they were very quick to go into those apartments and take things out. Suddenly, those people had valuable possessions and if their apartments were empty, they could move in there. They didnt care.What was the experience at Auschwitz-Birkenau like? I cant even imagine.We were not treated like humans. We were not given proper water to drink, any hygiene, and you could go once in the morning or once in the evening in a toilet in a separate block. If you had to go [to the bathroom] at night, you would have to walk ten minutes in the dark in the freezing cold. We were treated like animals. They even tattooed us and said, You are now marked like a sheep or a cow with a stamp. Forget you have a name. And they really, really intended to kill everybody. Birkenau was the womens camp, which was built much later.What was it like to be separated from your family?We were separated at arrival, because the women were in Birkenau and the men were in Auschwitz, which were a few miles apart. At the first selection, when the men were going, we didnt even know if my father and brother survived, or if they were immediately taken to the gas chambers. We had no washing ever. Once a week we had a shower and we were deloused, because we were full of lice. And our clothesone garment, no underwearwas taken and deloused as well. We would come out naked in front of [Dr. Josef] Mengele, and he would conduct an inspection. We got there in May, and then in October my mother was selected. Those were the hardest times for me, because I thought Id lost my mother and had no idea if my father or brother were still alive. It became winter, and there was snow, and sometimes Id lose my shoes in the snow, because you had no laces. I had open toes, and at night, rats would try to suck the blood from my toes. I thought, I cant carry on. I was nearly at the point of giving up.Wow.And then a miracle happened. I was working, and one of the supervisors said, Someone wants you outside. And I went outside, and there stood my father beside an SS man. We fell into each others arms, and I asked, Where is Heinz? Is he OK? and then he asked me, And where is Mutti?my Mom. And I burst into tears. I told him, She has been selected. She has been gassed. Ive never seen my father in such a state, but he told me I must hold on and that well be together again. That gave me a bit of hope. We didnt know the Russians were approaching. All we knew is that whole barracks were empty, and people would disappear. We would learn later that those were called the death marches. One day, some people from a Dutch transport came to look for friends. I saw them, they saw me, and they said, Eva! Im glad youre still alive. Ive seen your mother. I said, I know she has been gassed. They said, No! Get to this barracks. I went there, and indeed she was there.Your mother was still alive.Theres another story. I got an attack of typhus, and my mother said I had to be taken to the hospital. And the hospital at Birkenau is where Mengele operated on women. He would take out organs without antiseptic and all kinds of terrible things. It was called a hospital but there were no cures there, you were just used as an experiment. But we didnt know that. We go there, and a woman comes out, and my mother stops, and they just fall into each others arms. It was my mothers cousin, and her husband was a skin specialist who worked as a doctor treating the Nazis. He told them his wife was his nurse, so she got a job there, and she was able to give me some medication. Later, when my mother was selected, I took a big risk and slipped past a guard with a searchlight and told my cousin that my mother Mutti had been selected by Mengele, please see if you can save her. In the morning, she went to Mengele and said that her cousin had been selected by him, but shes actually very strong, so see if you can look at her again. And he did. He went to this barracks where about 40 naked women were waiting to be gassed, he called her number, because we were only known by our numbers, and he said, OK, you can go back and carry on with work. [Starts weeping] Its very emotional for me, you know, to tell that. A photo of women deemed fit for work, taken in May 1944 in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, in Oswiecim, after the camp absorption process. AFP via Getty I completely understand.We were very weak and illand had to get out of the barracks and get ready for marching. Then there was an air raid, so they sent us back. My mother was very weak, and she said, If they call us out again, I cant go. I just have to stay here. We fell asleep, because we were exhausted, and woke up in the morning, and the Nazis had gone. Then a few days later, the Russians came. We got wonderful greasy cabbage soup that went right through us. Ive never spent so much time on a bucket as that time, because we couldnt digest food. In the morning, a lot of people had died because their bodies didnt have the strength to digest any food. Then the Russians were gone, and I decided to go to Auschwitz at night to see if I could find my father and brother. There were about 500 people left from the thousands of them. I came across a man that looked slightly familiar, I looked at him and I said, I think I know you. And he said, Im Otto Frank, Annes father. Have you seen my girls or my wife? I said no. Have you seen my father and Heinz? He said, They were here but they left three weeks ago with the Nazis. They were taken on a death march to Mauthausen, and then Ebensee.I cannot even fathom that level of evil. I know there is no comparison to the Holocaust camps, but I wanted to ask how you feel about the border detention camps in the U.S. imprisoning immigrant families. We should be far better than that.Of course. But after the war, the motto was: Never again, Auschwitz. Weve learned our lesson. And people wanted to create a better world. When we got back to Holland, they said, There will be no more discrimination. But we were not looked after. We had to manage on our own again. Eventually, we got notice from the Red Cross that my father and brother had died, and then I became extremely depressedmore depressed when I was in the camp, because in the camp, I didnt want to die there, so I always said, Im going to make it, Im going to make it. When I realized we would never be a family again, because we had no relatives in Holland and my mother had never worked before, I realized it would never be normal. I really wanted to commit suicide. I found a little note where I said, Life is out. My brother and father are gone. Id like to kill myself. I didnt do it, obviously, but I was playing with this idea. I was miserable for many, many years. For forty years, I did not speak [about the Holocaust]not to my children, not to nobody. It was too hard. I had nightmares for many years. Eva Schloss and her mother Elfriede Handout There was a noticeable uptick in anti-Semitic hate crimes during the Trump administration. And there was a president in Trump who described neo-Nazis chanting Jews will not replace us as very fine people.Trump wasnt just against the Jewshe was against the Mexicans, and many others. He was a racist. Full-stop, he was a racist. His son-in-law is a Jew, and his daughter converted to Judaism. You know, hes said so many silly things. Ive compared him to Hitler. I even heard that he studied Hitlers speeches and things like that, so he obviously admired Hitler and just copied him with his anti-Semitism. The Muslims are hated as well. This is whats so wrong in our societywhite supremacy. We should all treat each other as equal. Were just one human racedifferent colors, different religions, different opinions, but all human beings who should have the same opportunities and should be measured equally.Something Ive found disturbing is there are two prominent members of Congress in the U.S. whove dabbled in anti-Semitism. There is Madison Cawthorn, who visited Hitlers Nazi retreat on vacation and said complimentary things about it, and then theres Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has spread a number of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. She even claimed that the Jews control the weather with a space laser.Anti-Semitism is nothing new, and Im afraid it will always be there. I dont know why it is, but it is a factever since Jewish people became a people, there has been prejudice. We have to be alert and try to give the message that it is wrong. But the Black people are suffering as well. We have to shake hands with anyone who is racist against anybody and try to change the attitudes of people. But the internet is dangerousnot just against Jews. A lot of terrible, wrong messages are given, and people dont know what is true anymore and what is false.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Computer Science Teacher Builds Robotic AI From Waste Materials and Public Domain Libraries - Yahoo News

Powerful things can happen when you combine Quaker testimonies with computer science. The 2021 Germantown Friends School Quackathon (the GFS version of a Hackathon) proved just that.

Led by GFS juniors Amelia Otto, Marissa Shaffer, and Martina Kiewek, this years Quackathon, held March 5-6, challenged middle and high schoolers from the Philadelphia areaas well as one team from Indiato Hack the SPICES: develop programming solutions inspired by simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. In addition to asynchronous time to code in teams, the two-day event welcomed inspiring speakers, including Ari Weinstein 12, who sold his software company to Apple in 2017, and two female coders who are addressing gender disparity in STEM: Archika Dogra, founder of Innoverge, and Caeley Looney, Founder and Editor of Reinvented Magazine.

Over the two-day event, students collaborated on programs designed to create community and promote peace, including first place winner Quakerism Discord Bota Python-based bot designed to reduce cyberbullying in text-based forums developed by GFS freshmen Jackson Rodgers and Finn Jamieson. Second place went to 4Ward, a platform where community members can anonymously express concerns relating to mental health and injustice, developed by GFS sophomores Maria Ramos, Allessandra Fusaro, and Amelia Scott.

Jamieson shared insights into his teams process. The day before the Quackathon, Jackson and I brainstormed ideas that could address cyberbullying. With a lot of trial and error, we built a program using Python code that identifies and deletes cyberbullying in text-based forums and replaces the text with kinder, more Quakerly comments.

It was exciting to work on a project out of our comfort zone and have the flexibility to try new things, he added. We are excited to continue to work on this project.

Student organizer Otto was proud of the events success despite the challenging circumstances. Though our event was virtual due to COVID-19, we were still able to come together, welcome many participants and speakers, and host an inspiring weekend for all. We cannot wait until next year.

Visit quackathon.devpost.com/project-gallery to learn about four projects developed during this years Quackathon.

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GFS 'Quackathon' inspired thoughtful technology solutions - Chestnut Hill Local