Computer science professor Ming Lin and biology professor Ann Matthysse have been named 2009 WOWS Scholars.
The award recognizes and supports their explorations of new ways to encourage the advancement of women in the sciences at UNC. WOWS Scholars also are asked to serve on search committees for faculty positions in the sciences.
The Working on Women in Science (WOWS) Program is designed to foster the careers of women in science through public recognition, leadership training, mentoring and networking.
Lin, the Beverly W. Long Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, has been working to attract more women to computer science. She is the founder and organizer of Carolina Women in Computer Science and over the past decade has organized meetings with prospective and current women students and faculty. As a Carolina Women’s Center Faculty Scholar in spring 2008, she integrated her research activities, course development, student advising and community outreach into a unified program addressing the critical issue of under-representation of women in computing.
Lin received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include physically based modeling, haptics, real-time 3D graphics for virtual environments, robotics and geometric computing.
Matthysse has been interested in promoting women in science and agricultural research for a long time. She has been involved with the organization Women in Science for decades. She has worked to bring several prominent women in science to campus for lectures and was the affirmative action officer for the biology department for 10 years in the 1980s. She helped to organize a group of female faculty members in the biology department for monthly lunches and discussions. The group also meets with women postdoctoral scholars and graduate students.
Matthysse received her Ph.D. from Harvard University. She studies interactions between bacteria, including both human and plant pathogens, and plant surfaces.
WOWS grew from an interdisciplinary proposal led by Laurie McNeil, professor and former chair of the department of physics and astronomy.
