Virginia Grande Castro

Virginia Grande (they/them) is a postdoctoral researcher at UpCERG. Virginia does research in computing and engineering education. Their Ph.D. thesis is on role models, particularly from the perspective of educators in higher education. It includes role modeling care and emotions, and they use theory in ethics, professional competencies, and identity.

Their work is inspired by their teaching experience and volunteering for the ACM, particularly the ACM Council on Women in Computing (ACM-W).

My Ph.D. studies were in Computing Education, under the supervision of Mats Daniels (main supervisor) from Uppsala University (UU), Anne-Kathrin Peters (from KTH), Anders Berglund (UU), and Päivi Kinnunen (University of Helsinki). I am part of the Uppsala Computing Education Research Group (UpCERG). I was also one of the Ph.D. students in UpRiSE, the Uppsala Research School in Subject Education.

My research is focused on role models. This involves work such as analyzing the experiences of teachers in computing as role models for their students, of students reflecting on themselves as role models for others in the course, and generally on people in computing who may be emulated by others. I have developed a framework as a way of thinking of role modeling from the role model's perspective, based on who is part of this phenomenon, what can be modeled (e.g., professional competencies, emotions, types of care), how, and why. I approach these questions with others using theories from ethics and identity research.

Examples of recorded presentations and events that where Virginia Grande has presented and/or organized.