Information

• Date: 15.10.2024
• Time: 12:30 — 14:00
• Location: Metso, 2^nd floor of Dipoli
• Format: Informal lunch session with presentation and discussion – please fetch your lunch with you and join!
• Moderator: Gopika Premsankar, Aalto University
• This informal lunch session invites attendees to reflect on and discuss inclusion, accessibility, and systemic barriers in ubiquitous computing academia.

Program

12:30 – 12:35 — Welcome and Introduction

12:35 – 13:00 — Presentation: First-Gen by Design: Making the Hidden Curriculum Visible

Speaker: Brandon Woodard, Brown University in Providence, RI, USA

Abstract: First-generation academics, those first in their families to navigate higher education routinely encounter a “hidden curriculum” of unwritten norms, thin financial safety nets, and limited sponsorship networks. This short talk reframes those barriers as design problems and proposes a practical toolkit for labs and conferences: onboarding checklists that decode tacit expectations; transparent authorship and feedback rubrics; micro-mentoring and sponsorship maps that pair tasks with advocates; and lightweight access supports (microgrants, travel advances, equipment pools). I will share a template for program design plans informed by my personal experience and by notes from academics who have faced similar obstacles, and outline solutions that incentivize institutions that don’t yet have these safety nets in place. The aim is not to pathologize first-gen scholars, but to make the system legible and fair so they can do their best work.

13:00 – 13:55 — Moderated Open Discussion