Subfield prestige and gender inequality among U.S. computing faculty

In computing, faculty play many critical roles, including training the next generation of researchers, advancing scientific research across a diverse array of computing topics, and translating that research into practice. The composition of the academic workforce thus shapes what advances are made and who benefits from them, in part because demographic diversity in science is known to accelerate innovation and improve problem solving. Despite a continued emphasis on broadening participation, women faculty in the U.S. remain underrepresented relative to women’s share of the U.S. population by more than a factor of two, and Black, Hispanic, and Native faculty by more than a factor of five. Women’s underrepresentation among computing researchers also persists internationally. For example, women are estimated to comprise less than 10% of contributors to international computer science journals.