Maria Luigia Gini

University of Minnesota | Minneapolis, MN | 2023

Maria Luigia Gini Portrait Photo

The impostor syndrome has always been in the back of my mind. I often think that I have been lucky to have landed the job I have and to have achieved the successes in my career. Receiving this incredibly prestigious award will reinforce confidence in myself and will give me renewed energy to continue mentoring students and junior colleagues. This award really should go to all the people who supported me, inspiring me to share what I learned from them and to continue learning from my mentees.

The official biography below was current at the time of the award. Awardees may choose to provide their latest biographical information on their profile page.

Maria Gini joined the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 1982 as an assistant professor, coming from Italy where she had completed her doctorate degree from the University of Milan. She is a College of Science and Engineering Distinguished Professor. Maria’s mentoring activities over the years have been local, national, and international. Examples include a summer program to teach computer programming to junior and high school females, mentoring one-on-one undergraduates working on individual research projects, her own Ph.D. students and many M.S. students, plus mentoring numerous graduate students at conferences as part of doctoral consortia. For 10 years, Maria has supervised mentoring several hundred female undergrads as part of the national Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates and for the last seven years, the Grad Cohort program for over a thousand M.S. and Ph.D. students. Maria never forgets that lack of funding prevents many students from underrepresented groups from participating. She has often obtained NSF funding to provide scholarships to attend conferences and funding from the Department of Education for scholarships to Ph.D. students at the University of Minnesota. Maria’s dedication has been recognized with the A. Nico Haberman Award for increasing numbers and successes of underrepresented members in computing, the Harrold & Notkin Research and Graduate Mentoring Award, and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Distinguished Service Award for mentoring colleagues and working to increase the participation of women in computing. At the University of Minnesota, she received the Distinguished Woman Scholar Award, the Mullen-Spector-Truax Women's Leadership Award, and the President's Award for Outstanding Service.