This article is published in the June 2022 issue.

NITRD 30th Anniversary Symposium Recap


The NITRD 30th Anniversary Symposium was held in Washington D.C. at the National Spy Museum. The event provided an opportunity for the computing research community to come together and celebrate the impact that federal funding has had on computing technologies, innovations and the world at large. The day featured insightful remarks from key leaders in the community including Alondra Nelson (Deputy Assistant to the President Deputy Director for Science and Society White House Office of Science and Technology Policy), Barbara McQuiston (Director of Defense Research and Engineering for Research and Technology in the Department of Defense), Kamie Roberts (Director of the National Coordination Office for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program), Sethuraman (“Panch”) Panchanathan (Director of the National Science Foundation), Erwin Gianchandani  (NSF) and the Computing Community Consortium’s Chair Elizabeth Bradley.

The event consisted of five panels, each composed of four to five experts discussing the impact federal funding has had on their field and what entities funding should focus on going forward.

Computing at Scale
Moderated by Ben Zorn (Microsoft and CCC)

Networking and Security
Moderated by Bob Bonneau (The Office of the Secretary of Defense/Department of Defense)

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Moderated by Elizabeth Bradley (University of Colorado Boulder)

Privacy and Internet of Things
Moderated by Charles (“Chuck”) Romine (National Institute of Standards and Technology)

How Technology Can Benefit Society: Broadening Perspectives in Fundamental Research
Moderated by Alondra Nelson (Office of Science and Technology Policy)

The symposium also incorporated voices from early career researchers during a poster session. Fifty Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) presented a poster on their postdoc research and had the opportunity to speak with the other NITRD attendees about their work. You can check out their posters here.

The event was a great way to honor the last 30 years of continued investments in Networking and Information Technology facilitated by the NITRD program. If you did not get the chance to tune into the livestream, you can view the panel recordings on the CCC web page or on NITRD’s YouTube channel. We will be posting a blog series highlighting each panel over the coming weeks.