The CRA Bulletin frequently shares news, timely information about CRA initiatives, and items of interest to the general community.
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CRA’s mission is to enhance innovation by joining with industry, government and academia to strengthen research and advanced education in computing. CRA executes this mission by leading the computing research community, informing policymakers and the public, and facilitating the development of strong, diverse talent in the field.
Recently, CERP was contracted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) to evaluate the CISE Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program, starting spring of 2022. For more information, visit https://cra.org/cerp/cerp-reu-evaluation/
The CRA-Industry Committee is hosting a series of virtual roundtable meetings focused on issues of interest to our computing research industry partners. The first roundtable, “Corporate Responsibility and Computing Research” will be held on July 14, 2021 from 4:00-5:30 PM ET. In order to attend this event, please register here. Please forward this to your appropriate colleagues and encourage them to attend!
CRA-WP is honored to announce the recipients of the 2021 Skip Ellis Early Career Award and Anita Borg Early Career Award.
The Computing Research Association (CRA)—the nation’s premier member organization of academic departments, laboratories, and industry centers aimed at advancing computing research to change the world—seeks an inclusive, transparent, and enterprising leader to serve as its next Executive Director (ED).
CRA has engaged the services of Isaacson Miller to help with the search. If you would like to nominate someone for consideration for the position (including yourself!) or if you have general inquiries, please go to https://www.imsearch.com/search-detail/S7-971.
Are you interested in mentoring prospective graduate students through the application and reentry process?
The mentor and coach application is now available on the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program webpage. The goals of the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program are:
Specific topics include the admissions process, preparation of all components of a strong graduate application, differences between graduate programs at different institutions, how to compare programs with respect to the Fellow’s goals and background, and general guidelines on making a selection among admission acceptances.
Applications received by June 1st will be given preference.
For questions regarding eligibility, please email csgrad4us@cra.org.
CRA has recently hired Taniya Ross-Dunmore as a research assistant for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). In this role, she will assist in CERP’s research and evaluation projects and tasks. Taniya holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in psychology from Spelman College where she obtained experience in data collection and evaluation, research methods, psychometrics, and more.
Prior to joining the CRA CERP team, she worked as a registered behavioral technician for children with autism and aided in the facilitation of a program which aimed to increase young women of color in the STEM and art fields. In her free time, she enjoys painting, reading, and Netflix.
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is excited to announce the new website feature, “CIFellows Spotlight”, which will highlight the work of the Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) going forward. Announced in May 2020, the CIFellows program was created, with strong support from NSF, to provide recent PhD graduates in computing research with the opportunity to continue their work despite the hiring disruptions in academic institutions due to COVID-19. These articles will give the CIFellows the opportunity to share their work with the community and dive deeper into the details of their current project(s).
Yi Ding began her CIFellowship in January 2021 after receiving her PhD from University of Chicago this past December. Ding is at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Michael Carbin, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and leader of the Programming Systems Group.
The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2021 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award. The deadline has been extended to February 8.
ACM-W’s “Celebrating Technology Leaders” web series brings stories and advice from engaging speakers, with diverse careers in computing, directly to you.
The ACM recently named 95 of its members as ACM Fellows for outstanding contributions that underpin today’s computing innovations.
This work uses the same methodology as previous work to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised tenure-track searches for the current hiring season. This work also provides an opportunity to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty hiring in Computer Science for hires starting in 2021.
As part of the rollout of the 2020 Computing Research Associations (CRA) Quadrennial Papers, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to publish the final group of papers around the “Artificial Intelligence (AI)” theme, including papers on AI being deployed at the edge of the network, cooperation between AI and humans, new approaches to understanding AI’s impact on society, AI-driven simulators, and the next generation of AI. The Quadrennial Papers are intended to help inform the computing research community and those who craft science policy about opportunities in computing research to help address national priorities. This group of papers is the final installation of the CCC’s contribution, in addition to the previous themes of Broad Computer Science, Core Computer Science, and Socio-Technical Computing.
Applications are now open for the 2021 CRA-WP Graduate Cohort Workshops.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Women will likely be a virtual workshop on April 23-24, 2021. Apply here.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills – The IDEALS Workshop (formerly the Grad Cohort Workshop for URMD) will be a virtual workshop on March 11-12, 2021. Apply here.
Both applications will close on November 30.
The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Highlights series is now in its third year of featuring outstanding undergraduate researchers from universities across North America. It is one of the many CRA-E activities that supports the computing research pipeline by honoring undergraduate research and promoting graduate education and research careers in computing fields.
Each article describes the journey of a successful undergraduate researcher, from finding research opportunities to disseminating their work. The highlights series features students from the Finalists and Honorable Mentions of the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher competition, with the goal of offering guidance to the next generation of undergraduate researchers and to share how research has shaped their career aspirations. CRA-E chooses a diverse set of students for the highlights series to reflect the wide range of undergraduate institutions, research areas, and paths to research.
Today CRA released its third set of 2020 Quadrennial Papers, part of a series of white papers produced though its subcommittees, exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Today’s release focused on papers around the themes of Socio-Technical Computing and Diversity & Education.
Numerous events of 2020 have placed a national spotlight on the inequities and inequalities that are present in K-16 education and society at large. In this conversation, Dr. Nicki Washington discusses how her personal journey in computing influenced her research on identity in computing, including the development of her “Race, Gender, Class, and Computing” course and why “teaching is political.”
Recruiting continues to be one of the top computing research community challenges. Thus, CRA plans to strengthen the CV Database initiative and take additional actions in 2020-21.
To identify and broadly engage the next generation of computer science researchers, the Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions (CAHSI), an NSF INCLUDES Alliance, piloted a national virtual Research Experience for Undergraduates (vREU) during the summer of 2020. Funded by an NSF RAPID grant, the pilot provided undergraduate research experiences for 50 students and 20 faculty drawn from 20 colleges and universities widely distributed throughout the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico. The program used the Affinity Research Group (ARG) model to guide faculty mentors throughout the experience. ARG is a CAHSI signature practice with a focus on deliberate, structured faculty and student research skills development. At weekly meetings, Drs. Morreale, Villa, and Gates discussed and provided resources for specific skills that were appropriate at a specific point in time of a student’s research experience. Faculty mentors put skills development into immediate practice throughout their summer research program.
Published online each fall, the CRA Academic Member Book highlights institutions that are member departments of CRA. Each academic member department is invited to submit a one page pdf about their department. Thanks to all the departments that took the time to prepare a submission.
For nearly 50 years, the Computing Research Association (CRA) has brought the leadership of the computing research community together every other year at Snowbird, UT to discuss community issues. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted our plans to hold an in-person event this year, just like it has disrupted much of our way of life, both professionally and personally. After canceling the in-person event, CRA quickly pivoted to provide the conference in an online format with specialized content addressing the current environment and challenges during these unprecedented times. CRA Board members Ran Libeskind-Hadas and James Allan stepped up as chair and co-chair of the Virtual Conference.
Conference sessions provided a community forum to share best practices for continuing to navigate the unpredictable challenges imposed during the coronavirus pandemic and addressing community issues around race, equity, and equality. The conference videos are now available here and lightning talk videos are available here.
July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. We welcome four new members to our board of directors: Alex Aiken, Cindy Bethel, Liz Bradley and Fatma Özcan. Aiken, Bethel, and Özcan were elected earlier this year, and their terms run from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023. Also beginning July 1, Bradley replaces Mark Hill as the CCC Chair and representative on the board. Hill continues on the CRA board in an elected position.
Retiring from the board as of June 30, are Susan Davidson, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, and Barbara Ryder. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
CRA-WP is honored to present the recipients of the inaugural Skip Ellis Early Career Award and the 2020 Anita Borg Early Career Award. Tawanna Dillahunt of the University of Michigan and Michel A. Kinsy of Boston University have been selected as the Skip Ellis Early Career Award recipients. Olga Russakovsky of Princeton University has been selected as the Anita Borg Early Career Award recipient.
We will be hosting a one-hour CIFellow 2020 Informational Webinar on Tuesday, May 26th at 3:00PM ET. There will be a brief 10-minute presentation on the program, followed by a Q&A. Presenters will be CCC Chair Mark D. Hill and CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura. Please register for the webinar here. Please note that the webinar will be recorded and posted on the CIFellow 2020 webpageafter the event.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium (CCC) are pleased to announce a new Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Program for 2020. This program recognizes the significant disruption to the academic job search caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic uncertainty and aims to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent and soon-to-be PhD graduates in computing.
CRA members have elected three new members to its Board of Directors: Alex Aiken, Cindy Bethel and Fatma Özcan. Nancy Amato, Carla Brodley, Dan Grossman and Kim Hazelwood were re-elected to the CRA board. Mary Hall and Mark Hill, who held non-elected positions on the board, have also been elected. All of their terms run from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023. CRA would like to thank everyone who agreed to run this year.
There have also been changes to the appointed members to the board. Kathleen Fisher has been appointed the new ACM representative, replacing Mary Hall and joining Alexander Wolf. Beginning July 1, Liz Bradley will replace Mark Hill as the CCC Chair and representative on the board.
Retiring from the board as of June 30, are Susan Davidson, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, and Barbara Ryder. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
CRA is pleased to announce the 2020 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition. Petition nominations must be signed by the Designated Voting Representatives of at least five Constituent Member Organizations that are current in dues payment.
CRA Director of Programs Erik Russell was recently announced the winner of the AccessComputing 2019 Capacity Building Award. The award recognizes individuals whose work and accomplishments have changed the way the world views people with disabilities and their potential to succeed in challenging computing careers and activities.
The ACM recently named 58 of its members as ACM Fellows for wide-ranging and fundamental contributions in areas including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, combating cybercrime, quantum computing and wireless networking. CCC Council and CRA-WP Board Member Maria L. Gini, former CRA Board Member Lise Getoor, and former CCC Council Members Elizabeth F. Churchill and Robin R. Murphy were among those honored.
Recently, ACM named 62 Distinguished Members for outstanding contributions to the field. Several from the CRA community were recognized for outstanding educational contributions to computing, including CRA Board Member and CRA-WP Co-Chair Andrea Danyluk. Congratulations to all!
