Anja Samsom ’24 is a high achiever. In her first two years at UVM, the Honors College student and computer science and information systems major won the Women and Gender Equity (WAGE) Center’s Mariafranca Morselli Leadership Award, the UVM Computer Science Sophomore Award, and UVM’s Outstanding Sophomore Award. Now, as vice president of the Society of Women in Computer Science (SWiCS), she is leading the way to help other women and non-binary students in computer science find their own success on campus. In an effort she hopes will increase diversity in the field, she is spearheading an endeavor to raise $10,000 to create the SWiCS Scholarship Fund at UVM.

“I love creating a community for women and femmes in computer science,” says Samsom. “But nationwide, only about 19% of computer science students are female. And it’s even harder to find statistics on the number of non-binary computer science students.”

Samsom helps organize weekly SWiCS meetings or group dinners with the WAGE Center and helps bring in experts to give talks to members. She also speaks to local high school students about the need for diversity in computer science and volunteers on weekends with Girls Who Code, an organization that introduces young girls to computer science.

“I want everyone to know that computer science and technology can be a path for them,” says Samsom. “SWiCS shows people that they don’t have to fit a preconceived notion of what a computer scientist looks like in order to be successful, and they definitely shouldn’t have to bend to masculine norms in a work or education setting to do this.”