About

The Graduate Advisory Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Leadership in Applied Computation (GAC) is a Departmental Graduate Student Organization representing students and alumni of Harvard’s graduate programs in Data Science and Applied Computation.

Established in Summer 2020 as a collaborative effort between students, faculty, and administrators at Harvard’s Institute for Applied Computational Science (IACS), GAC and its student leaders have a mandate to:

• work with IACS staff to foster an inclusive and welcoming environment
• design guidelines for the IACS diversity, inclusion, and belonging strategy
• amplify the voices of underrepresented groups in Applied Computation
• provide a forum for students to gain diversity and inclusion leadership experience within the academic domain

Membership in GAC is open to all IACS affiliates, and many of GAC’s current members hold membership in one or more historically minoritized groups in STEM.

GAC’s student leadership includes two co-chairs, as well as subcommittee chairs representing our six areas of engagement:

• Admissions, Recruiting, & Funding
• Career Development & Mentorship
• Community Building
• Historically Minoritized Student Support
• International Student Support
• Pedagogy