CNSF Exhibition

On May 12, 2011, In Events, People, Research, Uncategorized, By MelissaNorr

The Coalition for National Science Funding held another successful Science Exposition on Capitol Hill last night and once again CRA played a part. CRA was ably represented this year by Dr. L. Jean Camp and Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) student Carl Brugger from Indiana University who did a fantastic job showing and explaining their work on Ethical Technologies in the Homes of Seniors (ETHOS). ETHOS researches and develops technologies to keep seniors connected to offsite caregivers and to keep seniors safe in their homes. The exhibit received a number of Congressional staff, NSF staff, and other exhibitors interested in learning about the projects displayed. The three technologies exhibited for CRA included an external device to indicate the trustworthiness of web sites, a tablet computer that uses photos of pills to assist in the monitoring of medication doses and interactions, and a clock set that would indicate to an offsite caregiver that a senior was home and active.

Dr. L. Jean Camp and Carl Brugger at the CRA exhibit

The CNSF exhibition, a sort of science fair for Congress and staff, had 32 booths manned by researchers representing universities and scientific societies featuring some of the important research funded by the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Camp and Carl Brugger discuss the displayed research

As we’ve noted before in this space, personal visits to members of Congress and their staff are vital to getting the message about the importance of computing research out. If you are coming to Washington and would like to visit your Representative and Senators, let us know and we’ll be happy to help with appointments and provide materials for your use!

 
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Is CS Education Running on Empty?

On October 6, 2010, In Computing Community Consortium (CCC), Computing Education, CRA, Diversity in Computing, Events, Uncategorized, By MelissaNorr

ACM and the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) today released an exhaustive report on the state of CS education at the K-12 level and their conclusion is…well, it’s not good. The computing community used the occasion to announcing a new coalition, called Computing in the Core, targeted at addressing the problem.

My colleague Erwin Gianchandani over at the CCC blog beat me to the post so I’ll just point you in that direction for more information. There is also a good blog post on this at Education Week which you can find here.

 
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PCAST Focuses on Computing at Meeting

On September 3, 2010, In Uncategorized, By MelissaNorr

The PCAST met yesterday for the September meeting and the morning was devoted to network and information technology. PCAST member David Shaw and CCC Chair Ed Lazowska are co-chairing a PCAST report on the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program.

Jeannette Wing, former acting director of NSF’s Computing and Information Sciences and Engineering directorate, gave a presentation on computer science. Dr. Wing spoke to the economic and social impacts of computer science and pointed out how far computing has come in such a short time.

Dr. Wing used three stories to illustrate her talk: Google, model checking, and machine learning. She pointed out that the Google story shows the immense importance of federal funding of basic research and its potential payoff. She cautioned that basic research can take decades to payoff but when it does it can do so exponentially, which was also a point in the model checking story. She also said it was important to remember that innovation cannot always be planned. Machine learning was used to illustrate the importance of computing in all of the science disciplines and in every day life. This is why agencies other than NSF and DARPA need to start investing in basic computing research to address their sciences’ needs going forward.

Dr. Wing also talked about potential areas in computing such as cloud computing, cyberphysical systems, molecular machines, and socially intelligent computing. When questioned, she stated that cybersecurity needs a great deal of attention because of the implications to national security and the societal impacts of failure in that space.

Education was also a big theme and the focus of many questions from PCAST members. Dr. Wing said that computer science is part of STEM and that all future generations need to know computational thinking. She pointed out that there are computer science standards available from the CSTA and ACM. She also mentioned that NSF is involved in the effort to overhaul the CS AP course.

A webcast of the meeting can be found here.

 
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