{"id":8323,"date":"2021-12-17T20:05:55","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T20:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=8323"},"modified":"2022-05-13T14:14:59","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T14:14:59","slug":"be-the-creed-jakita-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=8323","title":{"rendered":"Be the Creed: Jakita Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/files\/2021\/12\/creed-faculty_Jakita-Thomas-fixed-1.jpg\" width=\"1200\" height=\"799\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/eng.auburn.edu\/directory\/jnt0020\">Jakita Thomas<\/a>\u2019 mother, Cora Owensby, once dreamed her daughter stood before a full classroom as a college professor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cI remember thinking how strange that sounded because I had no interest in that career path,\u201d said Thomas, the Philpott-WestPoint Stevens Distinguished Associate Professor in computer science and software engineering. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cI was set on being a pediatrician,\u201d she added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That changed after completing her first year at Spelman College. Blood, needles and bodily fluids made her squeamish. The sound of crying children didn\u2019t help, either. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Computers, however, don\u2019t bleed or cry, and Thomas found a new passion. Not only is she a recognized researcher and endowed professor in the field, but she\u2019s a leading advocate for Black women in computing. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Turns out, Thomas\u2019 mother\u2019s dream was spot-on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In addition to her time in the classroom, Thomas received a grant to study \u201cExperiencing the Matrix of Power Dynamics for Undergraduate and Graduate Black Women in Computing to Understand their Intersectional Experiences,\u201d at Georgia Tech\u2019s Constellations Center for Equity in Computing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe academy is awash in inequities,\u201d she said. \u201cAs we engage in research, it has revealed that Black girls and women are contending with this matrix in many different types of contexts beginning with their first experiences with computing in classrooms across the country. This must be transformed if we expect computing to be truly equal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jakita Thomas\u2019 mother, Cora Owensby, once dreamed her daughter stood before a full classroom as a college professor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":8324,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1048],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Be the Creed: Jakita Thomas &raquo; Auburn Engineer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=8323\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Be the Creed: Jakita Thomas &raquo; 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