Carol Frieze

Carol Frieze works in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University as director of the Women@SCS and SCS4ALL professional organizations.

[2] Her 2007 dissertation, The critical role of culture and environment as determinants of women's participation in computer science, was supervised by Lenore Blum.

[2] Women@SCS, one of the organizations Frieze directs at Carnegie Mellon, is based on the guiding premise of leveling the playing field, working to ensure that women receive the same social, networking, mentoring, and professional opportunities, that are more readily available to the majority male peers.

The award citation commended her for "devoting nearly two decades to promoting diversity and inclusiveness in computing", for publishing "valuable research towards understanding the challenges diverse populations face", and for helping to bring the number of women majoring in computer science at Carnegie Mellon close to 50%, "far above the national average".

[1] Frieze grew up in a coal mining village in Nottinghamshire, England, and was the first in her family to go to college.