Susan Martin, Associate Director, Center for Women in Technology
Susan Martin joined the UMBC community in 2005 and the Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) staff in 2010, after serving in University positions related to advising, career development, assessment, and research.
Martin has been integral to CWIT’s efforts to increase diversity in engineering and computing fields by expanding resources that support student success and graduation rates. Her creative energy, collaborative spirit, initiative, and professionalism have been invaluable to building programs, establishing collaborations, mentoring student leaders, assessing the academic and gender climate in the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT), and evaluating the success of CWIT’s activities.
Guided by empirically-based best practices for increasing student success and retention, she played a key role in establishing the CWIT Affiliates program, which facilitates community and connection among women and men in COEIT. The program has grown from a dozen students to over 200 participating in CWIT activities. She also established an Affiliates peer mentoring program and Women in Technology events to provide students with opportunities to interact with and learn from each other and industry professionals.
Martin also revived and serves as advisor to UMBC’s Society for Women Engineers student chapter, now one of COEIT’s most active student groups. She has developed programs specifically for transfer students, including the NSF-funded T-SITE Scholars Program. Currently all 19 scholars have persisted in their COEIT majors—a remarkable retention rate.
Through her efforts, CWIT’s collaboration with campus and industry partners has increased substantially. As a co-PI on a number of externally funded projects, Martin has worked to conceptualize and implement an NSF-funded first-year course for students majoring in computing fields, two Google-funded summer workshops for high school teachers, and a summit on improving K-12 computing education.
Martin received her B.S. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, her M.A. from the University of Maryland, College Park, and her Ed.D. from George Washington University.