During her seven-year tenure as Dean of Khoury College from 2014 to 2021, Carla Brodley achieved a string of accomplishments. There was a record 43% growth in enrollment for first-year women students and a 50% increase in enrollment of groups historically marginalized in tech. Brodley focused on building the faculty of the college, hiring 46 tenure/tenure-track faculty, 5 professors of the practice and 50 teaching faculty; facilitating the creation of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute; and doubling the size of the PhD program. As a result, the College moved up to number 12 in in csrankings.org, which is the research ranking publication for Computer Science in the U.S.

Brodley also proved herself to be a prolific fundraiser, raising tens of millions of dollars for student scholarships and to fund the Center for Inclusive Computing, which currently works with 57 universities to increase access for women of all races to the field of computing. In addition, she worked with the faculty to raise money from corporations for research—increasing the industry research engagement from 12 to more than 30 tech companies.

Early in her tenure as Dean at Khoury, Brodley and her team made several strategic moves to increase the number of women and students from historically marginalized races and ethnicities. First off, the College created regular and accelerated versions of its two introductory courses for first-year students, ensuring that students without prior experience in computer science could take the first two classes without feeling like they were starting the program behind other students.  The College also centralized undergraduate TA recruitment and training. “TA’s are critical to the culture of computer science,” explains Brodley. “We made sure they understood how to be inclusive and create a sense of belonging for each and every student.” These two changes reduced the College’s drop/fail/withdraw rate from 25 percent to five percent, and when students met up again in the third course in the introductory sequence, the College observed no difference in performance between the two groups.

Next, to attract students, the College dramatically increased its combined majors from 12 to 43—leading to a significant increase in women students.

“In the first year we created our mission of CS for Everyone,” said Brodley. “We made sure all our websites and marketing materials reflected all intersectional identities, and that all students feel welcome at Khoury. We also created one of the most interdisciplinary colleges of computer science in the country because the second meaning of our CS for Everyone is that CS touches all fields.” Indeed, 30% of the faculty that Brodley hired have interdisciplinary appointments with other colleges in the University.

One accomplishment that Brodley takes great pride in is the Align Master’s program, designed for students who come from non-technical backgrounds. When Brodley arrived at Khoury College, there were 11 students enrolled in an earlier version of the program on the Seattle campus. Since then, the program has dramatically expanded to seven campuses, including Boston, and currently has 1,721 students enrolled.

In the first year we created our mission of CS for Everyone. We made sure all our websites and marketing materials reflected all intersectional identities, and that all students feel welcome at Khoury. We also created one of the most interdisciplinary colleges of computer science in the country because the second meaning of our CS for Everyone is that CS touches all fields

As Brodley puts it, the program creates a “new pathway of talent” that benefits students and regional economies. The program’s success led to scholarship investments from industry and the ability to draw faculty to apply to Khoury College who are motivated by the Align mission.

Since completing her tenure as Dean of Khoury College, Brodley has remained on the Northeastern campus as Dean and Executive Director for the Center for Inclusive Computing, a position that allows her to amplify her mission of making CS available and assessable to everyone.