CMD-IT Announces 2017 Richard A. Tapia Award Winner Manuel Perez Quinones

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, July 17, 2017 -- Today, CMD-IT announced the recipient of the 2017 Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing is Manuel Perez Quinones, Associate Dean, College of Computing and Informatics and Professor, Department of Software and Information Systems, University of North Carolina, Charlotte. The Richard A. Tapia Award is awarded annually to an individual who demonstrates significant leadership, commitment and contributions to diversifying computing.

“Manuel Perez Quinones has a long history of leadership with diversity and inclusion in computer science,” said Valerie Taylor, CMD-IT Executive Director. “In addition to his excellent work in human-computer interaction, Manuel has created and led impactful programs for African-Americans, Latinos, LGBTQ, Native Americans, and women students in his role as an academic leader.  Most recently he created a Corporate Mentoring Program at UNC Charlotte for women freshmen students, matching them with female corporate representatives. He continues to co-manage the Hispanics in Computing listserv that he founded, which has over 400 members. Manuel’s work on increasing diversity in computer science has a profound impact on thousands of students, academics and industry professionals.”

The Richard A. Tapia award will be presented at the 2017 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference. Themed “Diversity: Simply Smarter,” the Tapia Conference will be held September 20-23 in Atlanta Georgia.  The Tapia Conference is the premier venue to bring together students, faculty, researchers and professionals from all backgrounds and ethnicities in computing to promote and celebrate diversity in computing. The Tapia Conference is sponsored by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and presented by the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT).

The Tapia conference sponsors include Platinum Sponsors Cornell Computing and Information Science, Cornell Tech, Georgia Tech, Microsoft, Mozilla, Stanford Engineering, and UC Berkeley. Platinum Government Supporters include the National Science Foundation, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.  Gold Sponsors include Anita Borg Institute, GE Digital, GE Healthcare, IBM, Kennesaw State University, Lyft, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Northrup Grumman, Square, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and Virginia Tech.

For more information and to register for the Tapia Conference, visit www.tapiaconference.org.  

About CMD-IT

The vision of CMD-IT is to contribute to the national need for an effective workforce in computing and IT through inclusive programs and initiatives focused on minorities and people with disabilities. CMD-IT’s vision is accomplished through its mission to insure that underrepresented groups are fully engaged in computing and IT, and promotes innovation that enriches, enhances and enables underrepresented communities. For more information, please visit www.cmd-it.org.

Media Contact:  Jerri Barrett, [email protected], 408-204-7229