ACM-W is the ACM committee on Women in Computing. It celebrates, informs and supports women in computing, and works with the ACM-W community of computer scientists, educators, employers and policy makers to improve working and learning environments for women.


Dr. Anita Borg, 1949-2003, was a wonderful friend and supporter of ACM-W and we all miss her greatly. You can read more about Anita's extraordinary life and achivements at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology site.


The Association for Computing Machinery's Committee on Women in Computing (ACM-W) has named Shafi Goldwasser of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Weizmann Institute of Science as the 2008-2009 Athena Lecturer for her outstanding research contributions to cryptography, complexity theory, and number theory. Her research includes the development of zero-knowledge proofs, which enable proving the possession of a particular property or piece of information without revealing the information, fast primality tests, and fundamental results on the hardness of approximating certain NP-complete problems. Goldwasser is the RSA Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and a professor of computer science and applied mathematics at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

The Athena Lecturer is invited to present a lecture at an ACM event. Goldwasser will address the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT), in Washington, DC in May 2009. The award, which celebrates women researchers who have made fundamental contributions to computer science, includes a $10,000 honorarium, which is provided by

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Pipeline...supports students and educators throughout the pipeline.
           Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences
           Leveling the CS1 Playing Field
           Student Impact Career Exploration and Competition
           Computer-Girl Website - for high school girls in computer science
           High-School Chapters
           Pathways - a program of the Math/Science network for women
           Propagating K-12 Outreach Programs (Outreach KIT)

Celebration ...celebrates women in computing past and present.
           Ada Lovelace - biography and ongoing research
           ENIAC Programmers Oral Histories
           Grace Hopper Celebrations of Women in Computing (2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008)
           Small and Large Regional Celebrations Project
           Athena Lectures: honors women who have made fundatmental contributions to research. (Past Lectures)

International...strategic international activities.
           Ambassador program - international resources for women in computing
           OII symposium - ACM/BCS symposium on international activities, Oxford, England, June 2004

 Policy...strategic policy activities.
           Database project - search and update our comprehensive collection of articles on women in computing
           Online Resources - links to organisations and resources for women in computing

Community...information and community to support ACM-W.
           Computing Educators Oral History Project
           ACM-W Student Chapters - student organisations for women in computing
           SIGCSE working committee - a joint initiative with ACM SIGCSE
           The Ada Project (TAP) - a website of resources for women in computing
           ACM-W News and Information
          
Completed Projects - archive

ACM-W Documents and Reports
           Annual Report 2003 (pdf)
           Annual Report 2002 (html)
           Annual Report 2001 (html)
           The Incredible Shrinking Pipeline survey paper by Tracy Camp, 1997 (html)
           The Incredible Shrinking Pipeline full report by Denise Gürer Tracy Camp, 1997 (pdf):
               A review of issues surrounding women in computing
           Inroads, the SIGCSE Bulletin, Special Issue on Women and Computers, June 2002








Website last updated on 6th March 2006