Arati M Dixit

Digital Library

Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award

USA - 2019

citation

For contributing to the growth and diversity of ACM programs in India, especially ACM-W India.

Dr. Arati Dixit has made significant contributions to the growth and diversity of ACM programs in India, in particular, ACM-W India, ACM India SIGCSE, ACM India's Eminent Speaker Program, and ACM-W outreach in the wider Asia-Pacific Region. Dr. Dixit has played a particularly important role in the growth and success of ACM-W India, an initiative of great importance to ACM India. These contributions go far beyond her service as chairperson of ACM-W India from 2017-2019. Of special significance is her leadership in establishing and leading ACM summer schools exclusively for women. These summer schools were designed both to counter gender bias and to overcome social pressures that women students face in India against traveling to mixed gender residential summer schools. Dr. Dixit was instrumental in setting up the first Celebration of Women in Computing in India in 2013. She put in place a regular calendar of regional celebrations across the country to complement the annual celebration, thus increasing the impact over this large and diverse nation. These events included programming competitions, poster presentations, an ACM-W Celebration for Women in Research, an annual 24-hour hackathon for women students, and an ACM-W Celebration for Women in rural regions. Another of Dr. Dixit's major contributions has been the founding and success of iSIGCSE, the instantiation of SIGCSE in India. The formation of an active SIGCSE community within India has been a major step forward for ACM in India. Dr. Dixit has contributed in numerous ways to promoting ACM in India. She has been on the panel for ACM India's Eminent Speaker Program, speaking in over 50 locations in India, raising awareness broadly around the country, and addressing important topics regarding diversity, research and education.
Press Release

2019 Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award

Arati Dixit was named recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award for contributing to the growth and diversity of ACM programs in India, especially ACM-W India.

Dixit is currently a Senior Scientist at Applied Research Associates, Inc. in Raleigh, North Carolina, as well as a Teaching Associate Professor in the ECE department at North Carolina State University. Dixit has been an active member of ACM-W India, an initiative that focuses on the empowerment of women, for many years. In 2013, she was involved in launching the first ACM-W Celebration of Women in Computing event in Pune. ACM-W Celebrations are events that are designed to build a sense of community among women in computing and can include anything from a technical session, to a graduate panel, to a career fair. When she became Chair of ACM-W India in 2017, Dixit expanded the number of ACM-W celebrations to eight diverse regions of the country in both rural and metropolitan settings. She also championed the creation of an annual ACM-W India hackathon.

In 2017, when the broader ACM India Council initiated a program of summer schools across the country to encourage undergraduate students to take up graduate studies, Dixit proposed the idea of having one of the schools dedicated exclusively to women. Dixit organized the first school in Pune in 2017, and an additional summer school was added in Bengaluru in 2018. These women-only summer schools were a success and the model has been repeated. The number of ACM-W chapters across India also grew during Dixit’s tenure. When she stepped down as Chair at the end of 2019, there were 35 active ACM-W student chapters and three ACM-W professional chapters in the country.

Dixit’s other prominent public contribution to ACM was her work as the founding Vice Chair of the ACM India Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (iSIGCSE), in which she made tireless efforts to promote ACM curriculum implementation across India. As an ACM India Eminent Speaker, she has delivered more than 50 talks on diverse topics. She has been especially active with her local ACM professional chapter in Pune, having served as Chair, Vice Chair, and Secretary/Treasurer.