Tamara Pearson, Phd Email and Phone Number

I am a Black woman from the South who believes that circumstance should not define opportunity, and as an educator, this viewpoint guides all of my work. In my current role as Deputy Director and Senior Director of Research and Programs at Constellations Center for Equity in Computing, my work focuses on disrupting the root causes for the inequitable access, participation, and success of historically marginalized communities in computing. Before coming to Georgia Tech, I was the inaugural Director of the Center of Excellence for Minority Women in STEM at Spelman College. In my two years in that role, I was successful in raising significant public and private funds, including a $5 million grant from Google to develop a data hub highlighting the unique needs and challenges of Black women in STEM, the largest ever grant of this kind from Google, and a $4.2 million Racial Equity in STEM Education grant from the National Science Foundation focused on the undergraduate of experiences of Black women in STEM.In my dissertation I wrote, “I understand how powerful technology is and appreciate its uses. However, I left a graduate computer science program to pursue a degree in education. If someone like me, who had considerable exposure to technology from an early age, still is not interested in being a computer engineer then what does it take?” My parents both worked for IBM, but they weren't creating technology at IBM. They were in sales. I didn't have anyone showing me that people that looked me could have careers in computing. In fact, I had just the opposite. Therefore, my mission every day, as I continue to push the STEM/STEAM movement forward, is that not only will young black girls have Shuri and Meg, fictional characters from pop culture, but they will also have me.