About Us

The Papaya Project is an initiative towards identifying and critically addressing inequities and bias in computing and computing education research, with the goal of transforming computing education and the broader computing discipline into a more inclusive and equitable field.The Papaya Project is an initiative towards identifying and critically addressing inequities and bias in computing and computing education research, with the goal of transforming computing education and the broader computing discipline into a more inclusive and equitable field.

painting of a papaya half placed over another papaya half
Our Key Symbol

The Papaya

We draw from the Philippines’ colonial history and assimilation to dominant western ideologies. The Philippines is a southeast Asian country historically colonized by many nations, in particular by Spain and the United States. Some of the most significant impacts of these colonizations were on Filipino culture, self-image, and way of living. These colonizations impacted Filipinos’ conceptions of beauty, identity, worth, and even ability, and these have become embodied in the western white form. From the periods of colonization until now, brown Filipinos have been considered as “less than” by their lighter-skinned colonizers. This colonial dynamic led to an obsession by Filipinos on the papaya, which has been claimed to lighten or whiten the skin, building and enculturating the idea among Filipinos that, if they were able to whiten their skin, then they would be seen as equals, and so they would be deemed “acceptable” to society, their workplaces, their families, and their other social structures. In other words, the papaya has become a vehicle towards acceptance and white visibility. From a bigger perspective, the papaya served to “whiten” the Filipinos’ history, their identities, their self-image-– and it is this symbol of whitening that we draw from.

Our Team

Meet The Founders

headshot of Francisco Castro, PhD
Francisco Castro, PhD

New York University

headshot of Earl W. Huff Jr, PhD
Earl W. Huff Jr, PhD

University of Texas at Austin

headshot of Gayithri Jayathirtha, PhD
Gayithri Jayathirtha, PhD

University of Oregon

headshot of Yerika Jimenez
Yerika Jimenez

University of Florida

headshot of Minji Kong
Minji Kong

University of Delaware

headshot of Natalie Araujo Melo
Natalie Araujo Melo

Northwestern University

headshot of Amber Solomon, PhD
Amber Solomon, PhD

Georgia Institute of Technology

headshot of Jennifer Tsan, PhD
Jennifer Tsan, PhD

University of Chicago