The Empowering Leadership: Computing Scholars of Tomorrow Alliance (EL 

Alliance) is funding scholarships for both undergraduate and graduate 

students to attend the 2009 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in 

Computing Conference to be held April 1-4 in Portland, Oregon. The 

deadline for applications is February 28.

The Tapia Celebration - http://tapiaconference.org/2009:  The 

Tapia 2009 Celebration is aimed at providing a supportive networking 

environment for under-represented groups across the broad range of 

computing and information technology, from science to business to the 

arts to infrastructure. Tapia 2009, the fifth in the conference 

series, is organized by the Coalition to Diversify Computing and 

sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 

cooperation with the Computing Research Association (CRA) and the IEEE 

Computer Society (IEEE-CS).

About the Empowering Leadership Alliance - 

http://empoweringleadership.org: The Empowering Leadership Alliance is 

an NSF Broadening Participation in Computing alliance of dedicated 

students, faculty, and staff, that provides experiences and programs 

that aim to ensure the success of minority scholars in computing at 

research institutions.

The EL Alliance scholarships, which will cover travel, hotel accommodations, 

meals, and conference registration, are designed to broaden 

participation in the conference by funding those who have not attended 

in the past.

Richard Tapia, director of the EL Alliance and 

honoree of the conference says, "This conference is a community gathering. 

It can provide a strong support system for those students who may feel 

isolated in their computing programs."

Students often characterize this conference as transformative. "I 

attended the conference for the first time in 2007, and it was 

amazing," said Quincy Brown, Drexel University, Computer Science PhD 

candidate. "Being surrounded by so many students and computing leaders 

with common interests helped to re-energize me for my research." An 

application form for the ELA scholarships can be found at 

https://my.rice.edu/survey/entry.jsp?id=1232976794225 . Questions 

about the ELA scholarship program can be sent to 

info@empoweringleadership.org.