Director - Dr. Melanie Williamson

Dr. Melanie Williamson is a Full Professor of Computer & Information Technologies at Bluegrass Community and Technical College. In addition to her faculty role at the college, she is the Dean of Innovation and has been with the college for over 21 years.

Dr. Williamson is a dedicated advocate for increasing women's participation in STEM fields and promoting the role of community colleges in educational leadership at both local and national levels. She co-founded the ACM-W Kentucky Community Colleges – Women in computer conference and has played a significant role in various grant initiatives.  She served as a sub-awardee Principal Investigator (PI) on the NSF NCAE-C High School Cybersecurity Teacher Development grant, was also a member of the sub-awardee team for the NSF NCAE-C Cyber Curriculum and Research grant, and led as PI for the project "What URM/female high school students know (and don't know) about Computer Science Careers," which was a pioneering achievement as it marked the first time a community college received this Google CS-ER grant. Most recently, she has served as a mentor to community colleges preparing Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grants as a member of the Fortifying Cybersecurity and Computing Education through ATE Grants (FORCE) team.