Tarika Barrett (she/her)
NYU Alumni Changemaker of the Year
(STEINHARDT ’10)
Education Leader and Advocate
The first Black woman CEO of Girls Who Code.
Education reformer Tarika Barrett was raised to believe that knowledge is power. The principle tracks back to Barrett’s Jamaican grandmother, who was forced to leave school in the 6th grade but instilled in her children the belief that education transforms lives. Barrett’s desire to make that transformative power more accessible led her to NYU and then to the NYC Department of Education, where she fought tenaciously to make STEM education—a key to many professional doors—more accessible to low-income students and students of color.
“I want to change the way STEM education looks,” says Barrett, which explains her historic appointment as the first Black woman CEO of Girls Who Code—a nonprofit fighting to shrink the gender gap in tech. Barrett took the reins in 2021, just as the pandemic was exposing stark inequities for underserved students, and she moved quickly to reimagine the organization’s structure. She introduced hybrid classes, recruited new learner populations, and spearheaded programs to connect learners and employers in virtual spaces.
Results have been extraordinary. Girls Who Code’s Summer Immersion Program experienced a 50% increase during the pandemic, and the organization has now served 500,000 students. Hybrid models have expanded geographic diversity, and new hiring summits have led to thousands of internships and jobs—many for girls from historically underrepresented groups. And Barrett, who was named one of Crain’s 50 Most Powerful Women in New York, says the organization is just getting started. “The real objective,” she says, “is to disrupt the status quo.”