In the Theory group, we are committed to maintaining a safe, inclusive, and welcoming environment where everyone has the opportunities and support to thrive. We are committed to providing opportunities to everyone, regardless of age, race, nationality, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, religion, socio-economic status, and immigration status. We affirm that Black Lives Matter.

Both the Theory group as a whole and individual members work towards actionable change towards creating a more inclusive, just, and equitable environment. Here are some of our current efforts.

  • Department and College Service:
    • Representative in college Ad-Hoc Inclusive Culture Committee (Raf)
    • Faculty and student representatives in the department anti-racism working group hosted by the Grad Student Alliance
    • Founded & chaired department's Pedagogy Committee, with a focus on inclusive pedagogy (Josh)
    • Representative in department DEI Committee (Bo)
  • Inclusive Teaching Practices: We believe that course grades should reflect what students have learned by the end of the semester. In particular, mistakes are a part of the learning process and should not be factored into final grades. To this end, we have implemented standards-based grading and growth-based grading in several of our courses to support student growth and learning.
    • CSCI 3104 Algorithms (Charlie, Lijun Chen, Ewan, Josh, Ryan Layer, Michael) - the focus of our ITiCSE '22 experience report
    • CSCI 3434 Theory of Computation (Raf)
    • CSCI 4114/5114 Practical Algorithmic Complexity (Josh)
    • CSCI 4802/5802 Data Science Team (Raf)
    • CSCI 6114 Computational Complexity (Josh)
  • Seminars:
    • We are committed to inviting scholars from diverse backgrounds, especially as their interests relate to our own, to speak at our Theory Seminar.
    • Compiled database of BIPOC scholars, organized by subfield, for internal departmental use: inviting colloquium speakers, and citing BIPOC scholars such as in research or designing syllabi. (Michael)
    • We are committed to making our seminars accessible via simultaneous in-person & live online access.
  • Mentoring:
    • Departmental Affiliate Matching (Gabe, Jessie, Raf, Steven, Michael, Josh)
    • Black in AI Mentoring Program (Jessie, Raf)
    • Algorithmic Game Theory Mentoring Workshop (Raf)
    • CU Boulder Engineering Access and Inclusion Graduate Mentor (Jessie)
  • Bi-monthly group meetings devoted to topics of anti-racism, diversity, and inclusion.