Neha Kumar Appointed Chair of the Association for Computing Machinery's Future of Computing Academy

Posted June 7, 2019

Neha Kumar, an assistant professor with a dual appointment in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Interactive Computing, has been appointed chair of the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Future of Computing Academy. 

The Academy is a platform that enables early career researchers, practitioners, educators, and entrepreneurs of computing to develop a strong and influential voice for addressing challenging issues facing ACM, the discipline, and the world at large. ACM is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, which seeks to deliver resources that advance computing as a science and a profession.

Kumar will start her two-year term this July. The appointment reflects the quality and innovation of Kumar’s contributions to computing research, which focuses on the ways in which new media practices can produce positive social outcomes. She uses her background in computer science, design, and ethnography to study emerging technology practices of marginalized users in resource-challenged communities and to leverage this understanding towards the design and deployment of appropriate technology and process-based solutions. 

One of her recent projects, which she presented at SXSW EDU this year, investigated the potential of smartphone-based virtual reality for learning environments ranging from Cobb County in Atlanta to slum communities in Mumbai, India. Read more about Kumar’s cutting-edge research here.

The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.