Understanding How Summer Research Experiences Can Foster Diversity In Computing Research

Between 2013 and 2015, while working at the CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP), Ama led an applied research project investigating the impact of undergraduate research experiences on computing students' preparedness and aspirations for graduate study. The resulting report evaluates whether participation in a Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program influenced the interest and intent of women and underrepresented racial minorities (e.g., African American, Black, Latinx) to persist in computing fields.

Using a propensity-score matching approach, the study first assessed whether SURE participation was more strongly associated with future intentions to pursue computing research among underrepresented students compared to their well-represented peers. It then examined common characteristics of SURE programs and their relationship to students' intentions to remain in computing research across demographic groups.