The School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) launched University of Ottawa’s Association for Computing Machinery (ACM-W) Student Chapter in early 2021. ACM is the world’s largest organization for computing professionals with 100,000 members from more than 190 countries. Women’s section of ACM (ACM-W) supports, celebrates and advocates internationally for the full engagement of women in all aspects of the computing field.

ACM-W ensures the significant support to women via connecting computing professionals and students either locally or internationally and thriving their technical network. ACM-W is a space where female researchers and students on computing science can be informed about research going on and become acquainted with researchers in the field. These community links and mutual support are critical to strengthen the importance of women in tech world, where they are still a minority.

uOttawa’s ACM-W is the second Student Chapter in Canada. Its creation was led by Associate Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator (ELG & Applied AI-ELG) Dr. Burak Kantarci, who is Distinguished Speaker of ACM since 2019. uOttawa ACM-W Student Chapter aims at planning events with distinguished speaker guests, panel discussions, conferences and even stress relief activities to encourage women in technology and to create an inspiring environment for them. The chapter is led by three PhD students: Didem Cicek Simsek, Eslin Ustun Karatop and Faria Jaheen whose responsibilities are flexible and open to the contribution of other members. 

Chair: Didem Cicek Simsek

Vice Chair: Eslin Ustun Karatop

Secretary & Treasurer: Faria Jaheen 

Social Media Coordinators: Samima Khan & Samhita Kuili

Web Coordinator: Nalan Kurnaz

Industry Liaison: Scarlett Kelly

Membership Coordinators: Ghazal Asemian (Graduate students), Nalan Kurnaz (Undergraduate students)

Event Coordinators: Han Zhang & Bahar Hadadi

Dissemination Content Editor: Vacant