Mary Beth Rosson, professor of information sciences and technology, hosted two undergraduate students this summer as part of the Distributed Mentor Project (DMP), a program run by the Computer Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W).
Working as visiting research interns were Eva Shon, a senior majoring in computer science at Mills College, and Lauren Wilcox, a masters student in computer science at Columbia University.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the mentoring project matches women undergraduate students majoring in computer science and engineering with professors at research institutions. The goal is to increase the number of women entering graduate studies in computer science and information technology.
The two students, who were at Penn State for about 10 weeks, worked on separate projects. Shon was assigned to the Computer-Supported Collaboration and Learning Lab where she worked on the planning and design of a collaborative map editing tool. For multiple users, the tool will be interactive and synchronous and capable.
Wilcox helped develop a tutorial and games for Alice—a software that enables virtual-world building— that teach players basic object-oriented paradigms and design strategies. She also worked on one of Rosson's ongoing community computing projects involving a knowledge management system used by middle and high school teachers.
"With this program, mentors work with top-notch students who are smart and motivated," said Rosson, a first-year participant in the mentoring program. "It's a huge advantage for the students, too, as they have a broad exposure to a research experience."
