Margaret Burnett

Margaret Burnett

Technical Leadership Abie Award Winner

Margaret Burnett is a Distinguished Professor at Oregon State University. During sabbaticals, she has also worked at IBM, Microsoft, University of Auckland, and University of Cambridge. She specializes in helping humans succeed at the problem-solving that arises in most computing activities. She created two visual programming languages, Forms/3 and FAR; led the multi-institution EUSES Consortium’s research into an area she co-founded, end-user software engineering; and then did seminal work that helped seed the area of explainable AI.

Her work on the GenderMag method has enabled technologists to find and fix gender-inclusivity “bugs” lurking in their software. GenderMag is used in over 50 countries. She holds 4 patents; has received 10 best paper awards/honorable mentions and 5 Long-Term Impact awards; and has received multiple mentoring, service, and research awards. She is an ACM Fellow and was elected to ACM’s CHI Academy as one of the “principal leaders of the field.