July 2023
I look forward to another new adventure as the Program Director for the College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies (CECS).This brand-new college comes with a lot of excitement from the university and state leadership, and we are thrilled to be creating innovative interdisciplinary programs for the students at UTK. Currently, I am leading cybersecurity programs for CECS.
July 2023
Participating in the “Retaining Women in STEM” panel organized by the Women Leadership in Marine Technology Webinar Series on July 12th was a pleasure. The discussions were invigorating and insightful!
July 2022
Exciting news to share! I have recently started my new position as the first Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the College of Communication and Information at UTK.
February 2022
I was invited to present at the University of Tennessee Virtual Sparks Event about on Artificial Intelligence, to share my approach towards teaching AI Ethics in DEI Context. I discussed my curriculum development work as part of the Google Award for Inclusion research project and got to learn from AI experts across the university at this fun event.
November 2021
This article by Jennifer Riggins raises some very important points about diversity in OSS and generated a lot of discussion in multiple social media platforms. Jennifer quoted some of my research about discrimination and misogyny faced by women, importance of codes of conduct, and safe spaces in this article.
https://blog.container-solutions.com/wtf-is-wrong-with-open-source-communities
https://blog.container-solutions.com/wtf-is-wrong-with-open-source-communities
October 2021
Very excited to share that we – Dr. Jeffrey Carver (Univ of Alabama) and myself, received a Google Research Award for Inclusion Research to develop a DEI course for undergraduates – the students will learn to be better citizens of the tech industry by engaging with OSS communities. Click below to read the write-up about this grant on my department website.
September 2021
I gave two invited talks on Gender and IT this month.
I presented at the Linux Foundation Event on September 24th – Linux Plumbers Conference, 2021 – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion session ; the topic of the talk is Motivations and Experiences of Women of Open Source Software.
This talk was live streamed on YouTube and here is the video from my presentation:
I also participated on a Safe Space session on Microaggressions at the ThriveWise conference. Once again, this panel was very well attended and had great insights into the microaggressions faced by women in Tech and guidance to deal with these.
August 2021
I am very excited to be appointed as an Executive Committee Member for the ACM-W North America. I will also Co-Chair the Student Chapters Committee and I am looking forward to helping create several new chapters in the next few academic years.
I am also working with National Center for Women in Information and Technology (NCWIT) and i am a designated Affiliate Member representative for University of Tennessee – Knoxville for the NCWIT Academic Alliance.
July 2021
The keynote at ThriveWise was a great experience; got to meet so many women in tech doing wonderful work – supporting and empowering each other. It was a delight (And yes (!) so many ideas for new research projects!).
The panel on Microaggressions was heartbreaking; BUT also served as fuel for the next steps in this project. So thankful for organizations like ThriveWise that provide a safe space for women in tech to share their experiences.
June 2021
- Looking forward to delivering the Keynote Speech at the ThriveWise conference on June 30th; At the same conference, I will also be participating in a panel on Microaggressions.
2. My Linux Foundation Webinar from April was discussed in detail in this news article at the New Stack: https://thenewstack.io/open-source-communities-need-more-safe-spaces-and-codes-of-conducts-now/
Article about my researchMay 2021
Very pleased to receive the College of Communication Faculty Research Award for 2021! Please read the details here: https://sis.utk.edu/2021/04/30/empowerment-through-technology-associate-professor-vandana-singh-given-2021-cci-faculty-research-award
April 2021
I got to do a really fun and interactive webinar in the mentorship series of The Linux Foundation; i discussed my research and Diversity in Open Source Software. The webinar was very well attended by an engaged audience, here is the recording of the webinar.
March 2021
My article discussing the Codes of Conduct in Open Source Software communities and their role in supporting women was just published in Software Quality Journal’s special issue on Open Source Software
Singh, V., Bongiovanni, B. & Brandon, W. Codes of conduct in Open Source Software—for warm and fuzzy feelings or equality in community?. Software Quality Journal (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-020-09543-w
July/August 2020
My article about integrating professional librarians in OSS communities is selected as a feature article by Informed Librarian Online for July/August 2020.
Singh, V. (2019). Applying Participatory Action Approach to Integrating Professional Librarians into Open Source Software Communities. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. (PDF)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0961000619836724
March 2020
Just received my participation appreciation certificate from GHC – 19. I love participating in this conference, this is my third year as a reviewer for GHC. Unfortunately, I have not been able to attend it yet, fingers crossed for next year!
September 2019
I am excited to present my research on Women of Open Source Software at the European Conference of Software Architecture.I will also be participating in a panel discussion at ALISE 2019 regarding integration of Professional Librarians in Open Source Software and presenting a poster about defining Online Learning.
August 2019
In teaching, I am really looking forward to teaching two new courses in Fall 2019:
1- INSC 586 on Usability Testing and Methods. This course was taught as INSC 590 in Fall 2018.
2 – INSC 514 – Foundations of Information Technology for Information Sciences – this is a new required course for the graduate students in the SIS Masters program.
And, I will be receiving the College of Communication and Information Outreach and Service Award for 2019 at a gala on October 11th, 2019. https://sis.utk.edu/2019/09/05/sis-associate-professor-vandana-singh-to-be-honored-for-her-service-research-work
August 2019
Some exciting results from my research publications. It is always so wonderful to see the impact of one’s research and in last month i have received two such mentions that i am very pleased about.
First is that my article published at the Gender Equality Workshop at the International Conference for Software Engineering in 2019 is being highlighted by IEEE Software as research that is useful to industry practitioners. (Singh, V. (2019). Women Only Spaces in Open Source Software”. ACM/IEEE 2ND International Workshop on Gender Equality in Software Engineering, May 25th, 2019 Vancouver, Canada.)
IEEE Software Magazine’s blog highlighted a few recent research papers about Gender Equality in Software Engineering and they selected my article from GE@ICSE from May, 2019. It is very rewarding to see that this is important research and is being viewed as work that impacts the industry. Slow, consistent strides and manifesting change!
http://blog.ieeesoftware.org/2019/12/gender-equality-in-software-engineering.html
The article is available at
https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3339012
July/August 2019
And the second is about an article published in 2017 was selected to be a Featured Article in the Informed Librarian for July/August 2019 as it was deemed useful for library professionals. (Singh, V. (2017). Open source integrated library systems migration: Librarians share the lessons learnt. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000617709059 Featured Article in July/August, 2019 Issue of Informed Librarian Online.)