The Center for Networked Systems (CNS), a computer science research center at UC San Diego, is developing a new initiative to support LGBT undergraduate students in computer science and engineering. Named The Alan Turing Scholarship, this initiative will be established in 2015 by CNS through philanthropic partnership.
CNS will award the Alan Turing Memorial Scholarship to enrolled UC San Diego undergraduate students majoring in computer science or computer engineering who have demonstrated their academic merit and who are also active in supporting the LGBT community. Preference will be given to students with demonstrated financial need. The award will be made for one year for up to $10,000.
“We are very proud to be originating this initiative,” said CNS’ Kathryn Krane. “I think that it shows our Center’s commitment to all forms of equality and diversity within the field of computer science. It is also another way that UC San Diego is on the cutting edge of research and in fostering a free-flowing, meritocratic intellectual community.”
According to Krane half of the funds that are required to initiate this program have been raised and CNS will be running a fundraising campaign beginning June 1 to raise the remainder. The goal is to award the first Alan Turing Scholarship in the spring semester of 2016.
A founder of the field of computer science, Alan Turing was credited by Winston Churchill as making the single-most important individual contribution to the Allied victory in World War II through his brilliant codebreaking. After the war, Turing suffered outright persecution for his activities as a gay man. He committed suicide in 1954.
