Joanne McGrath Cohoon was a Professor of Science, Technology, and Society in the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. She was also a founding research scientist for the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). In both positions, she employed perspectives and methods from sociology to study gender, technology, and education.
A core finding of Joanne’s research was that departmental factors affected the gender balance in computing. In the late 1990s, Joanne conducted the first large-scale study that identified departmental cultures as the source of women’s high attrition from undergraduate CS. Prior to this, gender characteristics of individual women dominated the empirical landscape of women in computing, focusing on deficiency characteristics like sex role socialization, mathematical ability, and others.
Based on her first study, Joanne set out to understand whether the departmental factors were different for CS as compared to a major with many more women. She designed a mixed-methods study comparing CS and biology/life sciences faculty in 46 departments at the same institutions to compare their attrition rates, departmental settings, practices, and attitudes toward women. Joanne found that women are retained at similar rates to men in departments with less faculty turnover, when faculty had more positive attitudes toward women in their field, and where faculty believed they were important to student success and took action through mentoring and encouraging students. These findings were applied in NCWIT’s Extension Services program, in which departments undertake systemic change efforts.
Joanne later focused on gendered experiences in computing graduate programs and designed the Tapestry program to leverage the reach and influence of high school teachers for diversifying computing. Joanne was persistent and immensely creative; and she deeply appreciated the people who influenced and supported her. Joanne cared deeply about her family. In a story of her career progression presented at the Grace Hopper Conference for her Abie Award, she insisted that it include photos of her grandparents, her wedding photo with husband Jim, and two photos of her children. She was a delightful colleague and we miss her.
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