Linda Torczon's Rice Women's Resource Center Nomination
As a Rice University alumna with degrees in Computer Science and Chemical Engineering, Linda Torczon is a powerful role model to young women pursuing careers in non-traditional fields. Her participation in student activities at Rice University includes her service as
- Resident Associate for Brown College from 1984 to 1989
- Faculty Liaison to the student organization Rice Women in Computing
As Executive Director of the Center for Research on Parallel Computation (CRPC), a National Science Foundation-funded Science and Technology Center headquartered at Rice University, Linda has worked to raise the community's awareness of both her profession and gender equity issues. In specific,
- Linda serves on the CRPC's Women's Programs steering committee, which designs programs to increase the number of women pursuing coursework and careers in science, mathematics, and engineering.
- At the 1995 Expanding Your Horizons in Math and Science Conference, Linda worked with young women from Rice to deliver a presentation on the field of computer science and how to navigate the Internet. Some 500 Houston-area middle school girls and their teachers attended this American Association of University Women-sponsored conference.
- Linda is a steering committee member for GirlTECH '95, a teacher training program that has trained more than 150 primary and secondary school teachers on the effective use of the Internet and how to design lessons that will appeal to girls.
- Linda has presented at GirlTECH '95 events, the 1995 Rice University School Mathematics Project Fall Workshop, and the Galveston Bay Project.
- Linda recently submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation to establish funding for the "Girl Games Prototype CD-ROM Project." If funded, this project will allow middle school girls to work with multimedia experts to design prototypes of the ideal interactive software for girls. This could have a dramatic impact on the number of girls using computers.
Finally, as an educated professional woman with an active family life that includes a husband and two children, Linda is proof to the women and men who work around her that women can successfully have both a family and a career. It is my pleasure to nominate Linda for this award.
[CRPC Outstanding Rice Women Awards Page - CRPC Home Page - Search the CRPC Web Site]
Updated by Debbie Campbell (dcamp@cs.rice.edu) and the CRPC Web Support Team
Posted February 12, 1996.
http://www.crpc.rice.edu/CRPC/WhatsNew/nominationLinda.html