Biography:Alicia Nicki Washington
Alicia Nicki Washington | |
|---|---|
| Education | Johnson C. Smith University (BS) North Carolina State University (MS, PhD) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer Science |
| Institutions | Duke University |
| Doctoral advisor | Harry Perros |
Alicia Nicki Washington is an American computer scientist, author, and professor at Duke University. She is the author of the book Unapologetically Dope. She was the first Black woman to earn a Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science from North Carolina State University in 2005.[1]
Early life and education
Washington learned how to code from her mother, who was a programmer at IBM, while growing up in Durham, North Carolina.[2]
Growing up Washington experienced the most diversity within her girl scout troop; and Washington said that it encouraged community between everyone outside of school, despite her growing up in a mostly black community and others in white communities. [3]
Washington said that at 12, she was told by her teacher that she "gave blacks a bad rep." She has also highlighted racist student reviews of her collegiate teaching referring to her as "rude" or "disrespectful".[4]
Washington attended undergraduate school at Johnson C. Smith University, obtaining a Bachelor of Science in mathematics[5] in 2000. She earned her Master of Science in 2002 and her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in 2005 in Computer Science (CS) from North Carolina State University (NC State).[1][6][7] Of the students who have graduated from this university, Washington was also the first Black woman to receive a computer science Ph.D.[8]
Career
2006-2020
In 2006, Washington became an assistant professor of CS at Howard University, where she was the first Black woman CS faculty.[1][2][9] At Howard, Washington helped develop Google's "Google In Residence" program.[10] Washington joined Winthrop University in 2015 as an associate professor of CS.[1]
Duke University (2020-present)
Washington joined Duke University's faculty as a professor of CS in June 2020.[1][11]
Washington founded the course "Race, Gender, Class, and Computing" during her first year of being a professor at Duke University in 2020.[12]
Also in 2020, Washington was included in an article, Minding the Gaps, by Communications of the ACM, a well-known computer science organization. In this, she was quoted about her experiences joining the field of computer science, demonstrating her media presence. [13]
Washington, along with Dr. Shaundra Daily and PhD candidate Cecilé Sadler, created the Cultural Competence in Computing (3C) Fellows Program.[7]
In 2021, Washington and Daily were awarded a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation to establish Duke University's Alliance for Identity-Inclusive Computing Education (AIICE).[7][14]
In 2025, Washington was elected an ACM Distinguished Member.[15]
As of 2026, Washington is a professor of the Practice of African & African American Studies at the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences Department.[16]
Selected publications
- Martin, Juil C.; Burge III, Legand L.; Gill, Joseph I.; Washington, Alicia N.; Alfred, Marcus (2010-01-01). "Modelling the spread of mobile malware". International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology 2 (1): 3–14. doi:10.1504/IJCAET.2010.029592. ISSN 1757-2657. https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJCAET.2010.029592.
- Washington, A. Nicki; Burge, Legand; Mejias, Marlon; Jean-Pierre, Ketly; Knox, Qi'Anne (2015-02-24). "Improving Undergraduate Student Performance in Computer Science at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) through Industry Partnerships". Proceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. SIGCSE '15. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 203–206. doi:10.1145/2676723.2677277. ISBN 978-1-4503-2966-8. https://doi.org/10.1145/2676723.2677277.
- Washington, Alicia (2020-02-26). When Twice as Good Isn't Enough: The Case for Cultural Competence in Computing. pp. 213–219. doi:10.1145/3328778.3366792. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339510446.
- Washington, Alicia Nicki; Perros, Harry (2004-06-21). "Call blocking probabilities in a traffic-groomed tandem optical network" (in en). Computer Networks. In Memory of Olga Casals 45 (3): 281–294. doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2004.03.008. ISSN 1389-1286. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389128604000520.
- Washington, Nicki (20 October 2017). "Biddle, Brayboy and Bojangles: We Love Thee, Smith" (in en-us). https://www.theroot.com/biddle-brayboy-and-bojangles-we-love-thee-smith-1819650882.
- Washington, A. Nicki (2018). Unapologetically dope : lessons for Black women and girls on surviving and thriving in the tech field. Charlotte, North Carolina. ISBN 978-0-9847467-9-8. OCLC 1080937560.
- Washington, Alicia Nicki, Cecilé Sadler, and Shaundra Daily. “Identity-Inclusive Computing: Paving the Path Forward.” In Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2, 1730–1730. ACM, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1145/3641555.3705086.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "Meet Duke's new faculty of 2020" (in en-US). 2020-10-13. https://stories.duke.edu/meet-dukes-new-faculty-of-2020.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Vara, Vauhini (22 August 2014). "Pandora and the White Male" (in en-US). The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/pandora-white-male. Retrieved 2022-02-04.
- ↑ "Girl Scout Alum Promotes Anti-Racism and Anti-Bias in Tech" (in en). https://www.girlscouts.org/en/our-stories/alumnae/promoting-anti-racism-and-anti-bias-in-tech.html.
- ↑ Chen, Te-Ping (3 June 2020). "For Black Professionals, Unrest Lays Bare a Balancing Act at Work" (in en-US). Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-black-professionals-unrest-lays-bare-a-balancing-act-at-work-11591202955.
- ↑ "People of ACM: Nicki Washington" (in en). https://www.acm.org/articles/people-of-acm/2020/nicki-washington.
- ↑ "Nicki Washington" (in en). https://schedule.sxswedu.com/2020/speakers/257584.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Mahoney, Ashley (27 August 2021). "JCSU graduate widens opportunities in computer science field". https://www.thecharlottepost.com/news/2021/08/27/life-and-religion/jcsu-graduate-widens-opportunities-in-computer-science-field/.
- ↑ Education, Alliance for Interdisciplinary Innovation in Computing. "Nicki Washington, Ph.D. | Alliance for Interdisciplinary Innovation in Computing Education" (in en). https://aiiceinnovates.org/profile/nicki-washington-phd/.
- ↑ Jackson, Charreah; Gallagher, Demetria; Wilson, Kimberly (March 2019). "15 Black Women Disrupting the Tech Industry". Essence: 85.
- ↑ Elias, Jennifer (21 February 2021). "Google's program for Black college students suffered disorganization and culture clashes, former participants say" (in en). https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/21/google-howard-west-program-faced-disorganization-culture-clashes.html.
- ↑ Newsome, Melba (27 October 2021). "How tackling tech's diversity challenges can spur innovation" (in en). https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/27/1037104/nicki-washington-diversity-tech-computing/.
- ↑ "Nicki Washington" (in en). https://awards.acm.org/award-recipients/washington_0499389.
- ↑ "Minding the Gaps – Communications of the ACM" (in en-US). https://cacm.acm.org/news/minding-the-gaps/.
- ↑ "NSF Award Search: Award # 2118453 - NSF INCLUDES Alliance: The Alliance for Identity-Inclusive Computing Education (AIICE): A Collective Impact Approach to Broadening Participation in Computing". https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2118453&HistoricalAwards=false.
- ↑ "ACM Honors 2025 Distinguished Members for Driving the Future of Computing: 61 Professionals Selected by World’s Leading Computing Society". https://www.acm.org/media-center/2025/december/distinguished-members-2025.
- ↑ "Alicia Nicki Washington | Scholars@Duke profile" (in en). https://scholars.duke.edu/person/nicki.washington.
External links
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- Profile at Duke University
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