Professor Soraia Musse’s research group is the first one from Brazil to receive the Google Computer Science Research (Google CSR) award
Photo: Disclosure
Project ADA, coordinated by School of Technology professor Soraia Musse, was granted the Google CSR (Computer Science Research) Award. This is the first time a Brazilian initiative is acknowledged by the award, directed at research groups with excellent scientific projects in the field of computer science. The submitted project is inspired by Project ADA, which encourages female protagonism in computer science by offering economically vulnerable women undergraduate study grants.
Project ADA is sponsored by the company Poatek, PUCRS and PUCRS Careers. At present, the initiative supports 15 Computer Science students, among which three are already in the job market and 12 are research group interns in the Graduate Program in Computer Science (PPGCC). In addition, two other women have already been selected to join the Computer Science Course and the ADA, in March 2023.
“The project exists since early 2020, when the first girls joined. From the beginning of their undergraduate course, the girls were welcomed by the coordination of the course, by professor Alexandre Agustini, and in the PPGCC, with support from coordinator professor Milene Selbach, in addition to being assisted by those responsible at Poatek and PUCRS Careers, which are great partners with the ADA Project. As the project’s coordinator, my first job is to introduce the PPGCC’s research fields so that the girls can place themselves in a research group, where they will carry out their internships during one year and a half,” explains Soraia. Currently, the girls are in 7 PPGCC research groups, advised by 7 professores, and are developing researches in various fields in computing. As a result of their undergraduate research projects, several of them have already shown a vocation for the research field.
Besides the general award, two other related projects, carried out by students who are a part of the ADA, were also submitted to the award and acknowledged. Scholar Luana Thomas’s project, developed in the Systems Security and Reliability (CONSEG) research group, investigates the data security and privacy field. Student Natália Dal Pizzol’s project, developed in the Virtual Humans Simulation Laboratory, addresses the participation of women in national conferences in the computing field, as well as in the Games and Computer Graphics fields. The article, which was published in the proceedings of the Women in Information Technology conference in 2022, was awarded an honorable mention as best complete article.
The group was awarded with US$ 32 thousand, which will be used to purchase laptop computers for those participating in the project and to fund congresses and internships so they can continue their scientific education. For coordenator Soraia, the prize is cause for celebration, because it awards the investment from the Institutions and the people in this initiative, which, with a Google awards badge, shows us we are on the right track. “At the ADA, we choose to give participants the opportunity to grow scientifically, technically and personally, showing career and qualification paths. We are changing lives, girls who would not study at PUCRS and would not have the opportunities they are having now,” states Soraia. “The Google award will allow us to have some financial support so they can take part in conferences, and we will be able to equip them with laptop computers. We are very happy with the award,” concludes the coordinator.
