Service to CRA Award

The award recognizes outstanding service to CRA as an organization.

2024 Peter Harsha

Peter Harsha

The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor Peter Harsha with the 2024 Service to CRA Award in recognition of more than 20 years of dedicated service to the organization.

Peter Harsha, CRA’s Chief Operating Officer and Senior Director of Government Affairs, has been a pivotal figure in shaping CRA’s influence on computing research policy. Since joining CRA in 2001, Peter has played a crucial role in improving public and policymaker understanding of computing research, as well as increasing the computing community’s engagement with policy issues. His efforts have ensured that CRA remains at the forefront of advocacy for computing research in Washington.

During his tenure, Peter has taken on several challenging roles, including serving as Interim Executive Director and leading critical audit initiatives. His leadership and commitment have been instrumental in navigating CRA through complex policy landscapes and organizational transitions, contributing significantly to the association’s success and growth.

Peter’s impact on CRA is felt across the organization, and his work continues to advance the mission of supporting and promoting computing research.

Harsha received the Service to CRA Award at the 2024 CRA Conference at Snowbird.

2022 Andrew Bernat

Andrew Bernat

The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor Andrew Bernat with the 2022 Service to CRA Award in recognition of nearly 20 years of service leading the organization as Executive Director.

Bernat joined CRA in 2002, and under his leadership the association saw a dramatic, positive transformation, more than tripling in size and launching significant new efforts in research visioning, widening participation, and postgraduate support, while remaining the organization of record for computing research issues in Washington policy circles.

During his tenure, CRA:

saw its financial position strengthen significantly. Expenditures increased from under $2 million to more than $7.5 million and the size of reserve funds increased from $600K to more than $3 million;
expanded the scope of initiatives and increased staffing from 7 to 22 full time employees;
founded the Computing Community Consortium, launched two iterations of the CIFellows programs, expanded its widening participation programs, and established the Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline, CRA Education Committee, and CRA-Industry;
and nurtured strong relationships with affiliates and partners in the computing community.

Bernat, who retired in September 2021, received the Service to CRA Award at the 2022 CRA Conference at Snowbird.

2020 CRA Taulbee Survey

The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor the CRA Taulbee Survey with the 2020 Service to CRA Award in recognition of 50 years of providing an invaluable resource to CRA as well as to the computing community.

The CRA Taulbee Survey is the principal source of information on the enrollment, production, and employment of Ph.D.s in information, computer science and computer engineering (I, CS & CE) in North America. It also provides salary and demographic data for faculty in these areas, and statistics given also report gender and ethnicity breakdowns. The results provide useful data to CRA member departments and are often referenced by national media. Reports are published in the May issue of Computing Research News and can be viewed at www.cra.org under “Resources” or “Data.”

Conducted each fall since 1974, the survey in general covers the preceding academic year. Faculty salary data, however, are for the current year. The survey has an excellent response rate–a fact which we believe lends great credibility to the result – and is widely used both within and outside the computing research community to gain an understanding of the trends that shape the community.

The title of the survey honors Orrin E. Taulbee of the University of Pittsburgh, who conducted these surveys for the Computer Science Board until 1984, with retrospective annual data going back to 1970.

2018 Mary Fernández

Mary Fernández

The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor Mary Fernández with the 2018 Service to CRA Award for her work in transforming the visual identity and communications of the organization. Mary was a member of the CRA Board from 2009 to 2015, during which time she spearheaded several key initiatives to re-brand and revitalize communications.

Mary first became involved with CRA in 2008 by serving as a speaker and mentor at CRA-W’s Advanced Career Mentoring Workshop. She joined the CRA board in 2009 as an ACM representative and co-chaired the 2010 CRA Conference at Snowbird the following year. Mary was also a speaker at CRA-W Grad Cohort 2011, the CRA-W Mentoring Tracks at Grace Hopper in 2012 and CRA-W’s Distinguished Lecture Series in 2017.

As chair of the communications committee, Mary advocated to CRA’s board of directors the importance of developing a strong brand identity and directed several initiatives to improve communications. She guided a multi-year effort which clarified and strengthened the CRA mission statement and re-branded CRA as a more unified organization.

Mary was instrumental to making the vision of creating a new brand identity for CRA a reality. She took on the challenge of finding a way to bring the multiple identities that make up CRA under one cohesive brand and succeeded by building consensus with members, staff, committee chairs and board members.

The new look was unveiled at the 2014 Conference at Snowbird and positioned CRA as dynamic and collaborative, while preserving the unique identities of CRA’s distinct committees.

The new CRA symbol is designed to represent great minds coming together. The symbol was created by combining many ovals of different sizes into one symbol to illustrate dynamic collaboration. Each committee’s logo is a different color to both strengthen its individual identity and connect it to the organization as a whole.

Mary currently volunteers her time and energy to the boards of several nonprofit organizations, using her wealth of leadership expertise to help advance their missions. After serving on the board of MentorNet for several years, she took on the role of CEO in 2013 and revitalized the organization to enhance its mission to increase the representation of historically underrepresented individuals in STEM fields; it is now a division of Great Minds in STEM. Mary also spent 17 years at AT&T Labs Research, as a research computer scientist specializing in database and information systems, then as the head of distributed computing research, and finally as assistant vice president of information and software systems research.

Mary left the CRA board in 2015 to focus on other responsibilities, but her work has had lasting impact. The vibrant CRA and committee logos and unified web presence are all the results of her amazing leadership, and this is evident to anyone who attends our events or visits our websites.

2016 Fred Schneider

Fred Schneider

Fred Schneider, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor and Chair of Computer Science, Cornell University

Fred was a member of the CRA Board from 2007 to 2016, during which time he thought deeply about how to have positive impact on the computing research community and spearheaded several key initiatives.

As chair of the Government Affairs Committee (2009-2016), Fred helped drive CRA’s policy agenda and developed the Leadership in Science Policy Institute, intended to educate computing researchers on how science policy in the U.S. is formulated and how our government works. The event has been held biennially since 2011, with more than 115 total participants, many of whom have gone on to advocate for the field, testify before Congress, or take on positions in Washington that help steer Federal policy for computing.

As chair of the Committee on Best Practices for Hiring, Promotion, and Scholarship, Fred led the committee over a period of 18 months in conducting interviews with more than 75 academic and industry computing and information unit heads to understand the issues and gain insights from practice. Preliminary recommendations were vetted with department chairs and CRA Deans at the CRA Conference at Snowbird in July 2014, and were published in a CRA Best Practices memo entitled, Incentivizing Quality and Impact: Evaluating Scholarship in Hiring, Tenure, and Promotion.

Fred played a central role in the development and success of the Computing Community Consortium, beginning with the 2010 site visit and follow on 2012 proposal for continued funding. He provided oversight of the Visioning Program process and was always a strong voice in shaping important research initiatives.

But Fred’s importance extends beyond his knowledge, intelligence, and dedication. Fred speaks his mind, regardless of whatever direction the tide may be flowing, and there is always sense in what he says. Time and again, a thoughtful interjection by Fred has caused us to reconsider and change direction, to the enormous benefit of CRA and the field.

2014 Jean Smith

Jean Smith

Jean is recognized for her 15 years of outstanding service at CRA. She was editor of Computing Research News, and assisted the organizing committee for CRA’s Biennial Conference at Snowbird in planning the program and publicizing the conference to the computing research community. Jean also organized CRA Board meetings, elections, the preparation of CRA’s annual reports, and oversaw three annual CRA awards programs. The award will be presented to her at the 2014 CRA Conference at Snowbird.

2012 Phil Bernstein, Carla Romero