Barbara Ryder awarded the influential educator award
Barbara G. Ryder, the J. Byron Maupin Professor of Engineering and head of the Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, was honored with the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT) Influential Educator Award on May 22 at the 37th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) in Florence, Italy.
Ryder achieved the annual award for her significant contributions in software engineering education, graduate student and faculty mentoring and efforts to improve the representation of women.
For more than 33 years, Ryder's profession has been rooted in education and mentoring. As a result of her leadership, 15 doctoral candidates and three masters students successfully completed their programs. She also supervised four post-doctoral students.
Prior to joining the Virginia Tech community, while a faculty member at Rutgers, Ryder received the Graduate School Teaching Award in 2007, the Leader in Diversity Award in 2006, and the Professor of the Year Award in computer science in 2003.
Ryder is a founding member of the National Center for Women and Information Technology Pacesetters program that strives to increase the number of women in computer science. She continues working with Pacesetters, holding the position of Virginia Tech's executive champion for the program.
She has worked to increase the number of women graduating from college with technical degrees by targeting outreach efforts to high schools. She has organized visits to numerous high schools, providing the teenagers with interactions with mentors and with currently enrolled women in computer science. The overall goal is to connect with 100 high school female students per year.
Ryder is a Fellow of the ACM since 1998, received the ACM President's Award in 2008, and its SIGPLAN Distinguished Service Award in 2001. She is an active leader in ACM, serving in multiple leadership capacities. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Computer Research Association from 1998 until 2001.
She received her bachelor's degree in applied mathematics from Brown University, a master's degree in computer science from Stanford University, and a doctoral in computer science from Rutgers University in 1982.
ACM is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers and practitioners to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address the field's challenges. The society strengthens the computing profession's collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. The society is also supportive of the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.
