Fay Cobb Payton to Serve as NSF Director in 2018

Fay Cobb Payton, professor of information systems and technology and University Faculty Scholar at the NC State Poole College of Management, has been selected to serve as a program director in the Division of Computer and Network Systems at the National Science Foundation from January to December, 2018.  The NSF’s rotating program director initiative enables university faculty to work at the federal agency for one or three years.

As a program director in computing, Payton will help evaluate and recommend proposals for funding, engage in national outreach at academic, industry and professional conferences, and work with a team of NSF professionals committed to computing and STEM domains.  The program director role will “provide an opportunity to work with a team committed to informing the computing landscape. The work will provide an opportunity to collaborate directly with computer scientists and the broader computing community.”

Her research interests include healthcare IT, informatics and disparities; data management and science; social media use among the millennial and under-represented groups; racial, gender and ethnic identities in online communities; broadening participation in IT, computing and STEM education and workforce participation; and the influence of racial, class and gender identities on health information seeking and content creation. She is the author of “Leveraging Intersectionality,” published by Richer Press, in which she discusses her authored research on these topics.

She is a member of the NC State Women in Science & Engineering and Chancellor’s STEM Leadership Program Advisory Boards, and recipient of NC Technology Association Educator of the Year, National Coalition of Women in IT Mentoring  and The PhD Project Hall of Fame Awards.