CRA-W Co-Chairs:

• Lori A. Clarke - Co-Chair
  
  Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts
  

• Lori Pollock - Co-Chair
  
  Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Delaware
  

CRA-W Members and Projects:

• Nancy Amato - Distributed Mentoring Project (DMP)
  
  Department of Computer Science, Texas A&M University
  
• Cecilia R. Aragon - Communications
  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  
• Carla Brodley
  
  Department of Computer Science, Tufts University
  
• Tracy Camp - Distributed Mentoring Project (DMP)
  Colorado School of Mines
  
• Sheila Castañeda - Career Mentoring Workshops, - Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates (CREU)
  
  Computer Science Department, Clarke College
  
• Joanne Cohoon
  University of Virginia
  
• Carla Ellis
  
  Computer Science Department, Duke University
  
• Faith Ellen - Canadian Distributed Mentoring Project (CDMP)
  
  University of Toronto
  
• Kathleen Fisher
  
  AT&T Labs Research
  
• Joan Francioni
  Department of Computer Science, Winona State University
  
• Maria Gini - Distributed Mentor Project (DMP)
  Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota
  
• Susanne E. Hambrusch
  
  Purdue University
  
• Mary Jean Harrold
  
  College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Jessica Hodgins - Distributed Mentor Project (DMP)
  
  School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
  
• Mary Jane Irwin - Steering Committee member, Awards and Nominations, Cohort of Associate Professors Project (CAPP), Governments Affairs member
  
  Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Penn State University
  
• Susan Landau - ResearcHers, Booklist
  
  Distinguished Engineer, Sun Microsystems Laboratories
  
• Tessa Lau
  Staff member at IBM's Almaden Research Center
  
• Margaret Martonosi - Editor of the Expanding the Pipeline Column
  
  Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University
  
• Renée J. Miller - Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS)
  
  Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
  
• Joann Ordille - Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS)
  
  Avaya Labs
  
• Mary Lou Soffa - Affilites DMP Program, Grad Cohort Program, Cohort of Associate Professors Project (CAPP)
  
  Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia
  
• Telle Whitney - Liaison with the Institute for Women in Technology
  
  Institute for Women in Technology
  

CRA-W Emerita Members:
Emerita status is bestowed upon retired members who made major contributions to CRA-W during their membership.

• Anne Condon
  
  University of British Columbia
• Fran Berman
  San Diego Supercomputer Center at UCSD
• Leah Jamieson
  
  Purdue University
• Marie Klawe
  
  Harvey Mudd College
  
• Nancy G. Leveson
  MIT
  

CRA-W Staff:

• Carla Romero - Director of Programs
  
  Computing Research Association
  
• Sarah Poon - Web Designer
• Aimée Vargas - CRA-W Webmaster
  

Joan Francioni - Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates in Computer Science and Engineering(CREU);
Department of Computer Science
Winona State University

Joan is currently a Full Professor of Computer Science at Winona State University, a state university in southeastern Minnesota. She began teaching in 1983, two years after receiving the first Computer Science Ph.D. degree awarded by Florida State University. Although teaching has always been her main interest in academics, she served as the Department Head at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette for five years and has enjoyed doing research throughout her career as well.

One of the very exciting parts about her work these days is a research project that combines teaching with the study of a particular computer-human interface. Specifically, she is working on an NSF-sponsored project to figure out effective ways to teach computer science to students who are blind or have severe visual disabilities. As part of this project, Joan and Ann Smith, the Co-PI of the grant, are developing an assistive software tool for learning to program, called JavaSpeak. Basically, JavaSpeak is an editor with aural feedback designed to provide a user with useful information about a program’s structure and semantics. It is designed to parse the program and "speak" the program’s structure to a blind user, much in the same way that separate lines and indentation and color help "show" the structure of the program to a sighted user. A prototype of the tool has already been built, and tests with blind programmers will begin as early as the summer of 2000.

Outside of work, Joan enjoys as much time as she can outdoors. It's been a little tricky in the winter in Minnesota for her (Joan is originally from New Orleans, Louisiana) but with the help of snowshoes and cross-country skis, she's adapting. During the summer, she and her partner spend lots of time gardening and bicycling. In the summer of 1999, they did a cross-country bike trip with the American Lung Association, which in her words was "a blast and a great adventure."