Smart managers have long recognized the importance of diversity in the workplace. They know from experience what empirical research has shown: diverse teams outperform those made up of individual “all stars,” particularly when it comes to innovation.
The value of diversity is why Microsoft Research (opens in new tab) is pleased to join with other groups across the company to support the 2015 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing (opens in new tab) (the Tapia Conference), the Association of Computing Machinery’s premier diversity event. The Tapia Conference brings together undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, researchers, and computing professionals of all backgrounds and ethnicities.
This year’s theme, “Diversity at Scale,” celebrates efforts that move beyond conversation and study into full implementation of diversity in all aspects of computing. Befitting our commitment to this goal, Microsoft attendees are a culturally and professionally diverse group of women and men representing different ethnicities, nationalities, and computing careers, including researchers, engineers, interns, and business executives.
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What’s Your Story: Jacki O’Neill
Jacki O'Neill saw an opportunity to expand Microsoft research efforts to Africa. She now leads Microsoft Research Africa, Nairobi (formerly MARI). O'Neill talks about the choices that got her there, the lab’s impact, and how living abroad is good for innovation.
Among the Microsoft leaders playing prominent roles in the conference are Microsoft Vice President Jacky Wright (opens in new tab), who will deliver a keynote address on the power of data, and Jennifer Chayes (opens in new tab), director of our New England and New York research labs, who will be participating in a fireside chat on big data (opens in new tab). In addition, a number of Microsoft employees—including Jessica Lingel (opens in new tab), Bhavini Soneji (opens in new tab), and Fernando Diaz (opens in new tab)—will join me in supporting the career mentoring workshops, plenary sessions, poster presentations, and career fair.
Participants of the 2014 Microsoft Research Data Science Summer School
Personally, I’m most excited about the poster session (opens in new tab) presentations from the diverse undergraduate students (opens in new tab) who attended the 2014 Microsoft Research Data Science Summer School (opens in new tab) (DS3). Designed to encourage participation from New York City area college students who are women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities, DS3 is a hands-on, eight-week introduction to data science. DS3 includes coursework in data science, taught by leading scientists (opens in new tab) from Microsoft Research’s lab in New York. The students study tools and techniques for acquiring, cleaning, and utilizing real-world data for research purposes, and are introduced to concepts in applied statistics and machine learning. DS3 students also participate group research projects, two of which will be represented at the poster session:
- An Empirical Analysis of Stop-and-Frisk in New York City (opens in new tab) looks at the social cost of the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk program and develops a simple predictive model to aid officers in making better decisions about whom to stop and under what circumstances.
- Self-Balancing Bikes (opens in new tab) explores a simple re-routing scheme to improve the availability of bikes while simultaneously reducing operating costs in the United States’ largest bike-sharing program.
If you are a college student from the New York area, you are welcome to apply for the 2015 Summer School. We will be accepting applications soon, online (opens in new tab).
On the last day of the conference, I’ll join academic and industry leaders for a one-day summit (opens in new tab) where we will map out strategies for graduating more students who are ethnic minorities, women, and people with disabilities in the field of computing. We will also discuss methods for increasing their rate of advancement once they have entered the workplace. I’m looking forward to brainstorming some great initiatives for attaining diversity at scale!
—Rane Johnson-Stempson (opens in new tab), Principal Research Director, Microsoft Research
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