{"id":58459,"date":"2016-05-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/commencement-2016-computer-science-student-finds-a-home-friends-career-at-uri\/"},"modified":"2016-05-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T00:00:00","slug":"commencement-2016-computer-science-student-finds-a-home-friends-career-at-uri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2016\/05\/commencement-2016-computer-science-student-finds-a-home-friends-career-at-uri\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement 2016: Computer science student finds a home, friends, career at 溏心vlog免费B站"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"press-release-import\">\n\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2021\/05\/Koller-NL12.jpg\" width=\"230\" height=\"252\" align=\"right\"\/>KINGSTON, R.I., May 10, 2016\u2014When Elizabeth Koller transferred to the 溏心vlog免费B站 to study computer science, she was alone. She had no friends and didn&#8217;t belong to any student groups.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nOne day, she noticed a sign on campus advertising a \u201cBig Gay Picnic.\u201d She wandered into the LGBTQ event and offered to help. She made table decorations.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nHer life changed in an instant.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\u201cEveryone was so friendly and enthusiastic,\u201d she says. \u201cI knew I had found the place I wanted to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nThat same day, Annie Russell, center director, offered her a job as creative marketing specialist for the LGBTQ Center\u2014now called the Gender and Sexuality Center.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nIt\u2019s been three years, and Koller is still coordinating the center\u2019s Facebook page and other social media sites \u201cto spread a message of acceptance and inclusion\u201d on campus and beyond.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PK1da9vp2AQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nThe 23-year-old Warwick resident will graduate in May with a bachelor\u2019s degree in computer science and is exploring jobs with tech consulting firms throughout the world. <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nGrowing up in Ocoee, a small town outside Orlando, Fla., Koller was a tinkerer as a kid and teen, building everything from theater sets to tiny mousetrap cars. She excelled academically in high school, especially in math and science, fields often dominated by men.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\u201cI remember being at an engineering competition with 300 other students and the host of the awards ceremony thanked me for being the only woman in the room. I still cringe thinking about it,\u201d she says. \u201cI don&#8217;t think of myself as a woman. Even before I got the language, I identified as gender neutral.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nThat summer, her eyes opened even wider when she took a summer residential class for high school students at Brown University: \u201cThe History of Human Sexuality.\u201d She had never explored gender studies. In fact, she says, \u201cI didn\u2019t even know it was a topic. Everything just burst into color for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nAfter high school, she attended Boston University but \u201cran out of money\u201d after one year, and returned home to study at Vallencia College in Orlando. In 2012, Koller and her family moved to Rhode Island so her father could pursue a business opportunity. Koller joined 溏心vlog免费B站 in the fall of 2013 after visiting with Joan Peckham, chair of the computer science and statistics department.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\u201cShe sat down with me and helped me figure out my transfer credits and what I needed to do to graduate,\u201d says Koller. \u201cThat just blew me away. That kind of personal attention is something I never found at my other universities. Here, I\u2019ve never felt like a number.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nOne of her highlights at 溏心vlog免费B站 was attending the Grace Hopper Conference for women in computer science in Houston, Texas. She was among 13,000 people. <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\u201cIt sounds cheesy, but I got to meet women from all over the world with similar interests who are tackling challenges in the tech industry,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was mind-blowing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nShe also coordinated 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s computer science summer camp for kids, ages 8 to 14. \u201cYou give kids code, and they take it and run with it,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s really fun to watch them light up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nThe center has been her home away from home. The staff is nurturing and supportive, she says. \u201cI feel heard, and I feel accepted for who I am in every way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nThese days, she\u2019s finishing up her classes and helping her parents, Sarah and Ron Koller, with their new restaurant, the Malted Barley Providence on Westminster Street, a block from the Providence Performing Arts Center.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nShe\u2019s also having fun. She\u2019s an artistic collaborator and model in the steampunk community, a genre of science fiction and fantasy with Victorian elements and steam-powered machines. Koller makes accessories, including top hats and feathered hair clips.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to ever feel limited by one type of expression,\u201d she says. \u201cI choose to live fearlessly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nPhoto by Nora Lewis\n\t<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KINGSTON, R.I., May 10, 2016\u2014When Elizabeth Koller transferred to the 溏心vlog免费B站 to study computer science, she was alone. She had no friends and didn&#8217;t belong to any student groups. &#13; One day, she noticed a sign on campus advertising a \u201cBig Gay Picnic.\u201d She wandered into the LGBTQ event and offered to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}