This year’s CCC Thanksgiving feel-good story features Joy Buolamwini, a 2012 graduate of the Georgia Tech College of Computing who was recently named a 2013 Rhodes Scholar.

“Born in Canada to African parents and having lived in Ghana, Barcelona, Memphis and Atlanta, Buolamwini truly considers herself a global citizen …

 

“Rhodes is not the first prestigious fellowship program to recognize Buolamwini’s enterprising spirit. She’s also a 2013 Fulbright scholar and will use her grant to improve access to education in Zambia. Her past experience developing web and mobile applications for Atlanta’s Teach for America schools will inform Buolamwini’s efforts with the Zambian Institute for Sustainable Development to create a program that gives students a foundation in information technology, mobile software development and entrepreneurship …

 

“Coming to Tech as a computer science major and Stamps President’s Scholar in 2008, Buolamwini spent the past four years growing her skills and flourishing in finding ways to employ them. She interned at Yahoo, worked at the Carter Center, founded multiple startup companies and earned numerous competitive scholarships, including the Google Anita Borg Scholarship and NASA’s Astronaut Scholarship …

 

“Buolamwini has researched human-robot interaction to support early diagnosis of autism, been a guest writer for Newsweek and won countless awards for her computing prowess.”

Read more about this phenomenal representative of Georgia Tech and our field here.