Centering Women of Color in STEM (CWCS) is a research project funded by the National Science Foundation, designed to address the underrepresentation of women of color in physics, computer science, math and related fields. We analyze STEM departments at different institutions where these women are thriving in order to identify common approaches among these departments. We are working to promote the collaboration of STEM departments committed to adopting and expanding these findings. CWCS highlights the importance of departmental and institutional elements of success because we believe it will allow women of color in STEM to have more positive experiences. Prior research has shown that many women of color faced pointless extra challenges in completing undergraduate physics, engineering, and computer science degrees; while their peer students did not have to grapple with these same difficulties. We, the CWCS research team, are devoted to discovering how to systemically diminish the microaggressions, discrimination, and feeling of isolation that women of color in STEM experience due to their race and gender.
CWCS Data (CWCS: Data-Driven Opportunities for Inclusion) extends our work by addressing the need for accurate measures allowing STEM professionals to monitor their inclusion performance and identify already-successful institutions as exemplars. We will analyse US (IPEDS) and UK (HESA) national data to calculate indices of inclusion for each institution that grants bachelor’s degrees in computer science, mathematics, and physics. STEM stakeholders will be able to access our results via a portal we create as part of PhysPort, through which users will find indices of their own departments, construct customized comparison groups, and create visualizations of their results.