ARCHIVED: iAAMCS
From 2017-2020, Dr. Waisome served as Project Manager for the Institute for African American Mentoring in Computing Sciences or iAAMCS (pronounced, “I Am C.S.”). iAAMCS serves as a national resource for computer science students, faculty, and industry professionals. iAAMCS incorporates resources from nationally recognized programs and projects, including mentoring strategies from past NSF Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Alliances and Demonstration Projects. The goals of the project include:
Increasing the number of African Americans receiving Ph.D. degrees in computing sciences
Promoting and engaging students in teaching and training opportunities, and
Adding more diverse researchers into the advanced technology workforce.
Some of Dr. Waisome’s contributions to iAAMCS consist of overseeing the following iAAMCS activities and products:
Organizing the 2017 iAAMCS Black Women in Computing Summit
Co-creating/hosting Modern Figures Podcast
Presenting at national conferences and events:
GEM Annual Conference
BlackTechWeek - Miami
NCWIT Summit
ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing
Grace Hopper Celebration
Co-authoring publications:
Waisome, J.A.M., Jackson, J.F.L, & Gilbert, J.E., (2020). The iAAMCS Ecosystem: Retaining Blacks/African-Americans in CS PhD Programs, In Proceedings of the 2020 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT) Conference, Portland, OR, USA. (Best Paper Award)
iAAMCS Guidelines for Successfully Mentoring Black/African-American Computing Sciences PhD Students
