diversity and inclusion

08/15/2023 - For the past two decades, The University of Texas at Austin's Computer Science Academies have been at the forefront of providing pre-collegiate computer science education. Starting with the inception of First Bytes, a summer camp aimed at high school women, the program has undergone a remarkable evolution, expanding opportunities to diverse students from across Texas and the United States substantially.

08/19/2021 - UT Computer Science alum Natalie Berestovsky struggled to speak English at the level of her peers as a sophomore in high school when she first migrated to Texas from Moscow. Coincidently, this hardship is what pushed her to begin her journey in computer science. The high school she went to offered computer science classes to its students which gave Natalie more confidence as they evened the language playing field between her and her classmates. Suddenly they were all learning a new language, Java, and no student was more proficient than the others.

07/13/2021 - Dr. Chand John graduated from UT as a math and computer science dual major in 2003 and then went on to earn his CS master’s and PhD from Stanford. He noticed that CS textbooks are often “grey” and not visually appealing, so he decided to try his hand at CS art. Now, Dr. John creates computer science-based comics and is the creator of an animated lesson on sorting that has amassed over 3 million views on YouTube.

05/11/2021 - The Department of Computer Science is proud to announce that seven of our students were recently awarded the 2021 Aspire Award. The Aspire Award recognizes undergraduate students from underrepresented groups in the sciences and celebrates their achievements in research, service and leadership.

09/14/2020 - Barbara Jones is no stranger to perseverance: the Texas Computer Science (TXCS) alumna, who graduated from the university in 1998, earned her degree at a time where “there were probably four Black people in the whole computer science department.” With over 20 years of experience in the technology industry, Jones has witnessed massive shifts in how the world grapples with diversity, new technologies, and how businesses operate.

11/18/2019 - Education is powerful — it’s a means to inciting progress in the world, empowering individuals and transforming lives. Education’s role in facilitating positive change is a major theme in Texas Computer Science student Dora Gurfinkel’s life. She’s so aware of it, in fact, that she is using her education to elicit real change within the university while paying homage to her family’s unique history.