Bill Gasarch asked me to make a statement about my blog and in responding to him, I realized I might as well post it here.
This blog will likely be YATB (yet another theory blog) – hopefully I will have something new and interesting to say. I’d been subscribing to the Theory of Computing Blog Aggregator for some time now (a tool I am very thankful for), but of the 20 or so blogs it contains, Sorelle Friedler’s is the only one by a woman. If we want to balance the gender inequity in our field, we need to get more women into the system. If we raise the profile of the women already in TCS (or CS or math or engineering), then perhaps it will seem more desirable to undecided female high school and undergraduate students.
I can’t remember the reference, but someone pointed out on a TCS blog that a particular program committee was rife with TCS bloggers, so yes, my motivation is also selfish. I am hoping that this blog will gain me exposure, particularly in TCS, and garner me advice. After all, I’m on my own out here. Already it feels less lonely.
So I’m not sure what I will blog about. It will likely be a mix of technical posts and posts about my professional life. I will feed the TCS-related posts to the ToC blog aggregator.
Nikhil — September 16, 2009 @ 9:27 am
If you feel lonely, make a trip up north to Redmond whenever you can. You are welcome to visit us @ MSR.
Seffi Naor is visiting us now, and R Ravi will be here during November.
Glencora — September 18, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
Thanks Nikhil! I’d been hoping to visit before classes start so I could see Seffi too, but – well, it turns out I have a fair amount to do before classes start. But I will definitely be up there sooner rather than later!
Vinayak — September 19, 2009 @ 4:15 pm
I totally agree that there should be more women in our field.