Sarayu Sundar, Ph.D.

Dr. Sarayu Sundar serves as a Higher Education Research Associate with the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) at the University of Colorado Boulder. In this role, Dr. Sundar focuses on leveraging quantitative and qualitative data to broaden participation in computing. Her charge includes the collection and analysis of quantitative longitudinal enrollment, retention, and degree completion data from various Higher Education Alliance institutions, particularly those involved in NCWIT’s systemic change initiatives. She also supports the higher education team’s work with Learning Circles, by leading training sessions for LC participants to make data-driven decisions, as well as the Higher Education Alliance Meeting of the Minds webinar series and the Higher Education Alliance Advisory Board. Additionally, she works with the Higher Education Alliance Co-Chairs.

Prior to joining NCWIT, Dr. Sundar served as a Research Analyst for five years with UCLA’s Momentum, a research team dedicated to examining diversity efforts and progress among computing departments committed to increasing gender and racial/ethnic diversity in their undergraduate computing programs. She has also held a variety of student affairs roles at the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business and most recently served as the Associate Director of Student Experience at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business.

Dr. Sundar’s research centers women’s experiences in higher education. In addition to her work within undergraduate computing, she has also examined the role of women’s cultural and gender identities in shaping their college decision-making processes. Dr. Sundar has presented her research at national conferences for the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the American Educational Research Association, and the Association for Institutional Research. She has co-authored peer-reviewed papers that have been published in Research in Higher Education and Computer Science Education.

Education:

BBA: University of Houston, Accounting (2011)
M.Ed.: University of Houston, Higher Education Administration (2014)
M.A.: University of California, Los Angeles, Higher Education and Organizational Change (2018)
Ph.D.: University of California, Los Angeles, Higher Education and Organizational Change (2022)