Katie: coming out of the black hole and impelling girls to computing

• Ester de Lima Pontes Andrade UFAL
• Kamila Almeida Benevides UFAL
• Kelly Bianca Araujo Silva UFAL
• Letícia Medeiros UFAL
• Luana Júlia Nunes Ferreira UFAL
• Natália de Assis Sousa UFAL
• Eliana Almeida UFAL
• Sunny Kelma Oliveira Miranda UFAL

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/wit.2020.11302

Abstract

In 2018, only 10% of students enrolled in Computer Science and Computer Engineering courses at the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL) were women, one of the issues that highlight female underrepresentation in the academic space. In this scenario, the Katie Group appears, formed by the students of these courses, focused on initiating the process of reversing this low female representation, acting not only in academic spaces, but also in these previous educational environments, such as high school. So, with that inspiring goal in mind, the group was named after Katherine Bouman, the computer scientist responsible for the algorithm used to create the first image of a huge black
hole

Keywords: computing, education, gender, STEM

References

BBC (2019). Katie bouman: The woman behind the first black hole image. Disponível em: [https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47891902]. Acesso em: 17, Novembro 2019.

Guardian, T. (2019). Katie bouman: the 29-year-old whose work led to first black hole photo. Disponível em: [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/apr/11/katiebouman-black-hole-photo]. Acesso em: 17, Novembro 2019.

Thiollent, M. (2007). Metodologia da pesquisa-ação. Cortez, 15th edition.