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.
On Monday, February 26, in Arlington, VA, the CRA hosted its annual Computing Research Leadership Summit for the senior leadership of CRA member societies (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Association for Computing Machinery, CS-Can/Info-Can, IEEE Computer Society, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and USENIX Association) and the CSTB.
Paul Messina was selected as the 2018 recipient of the CRA Distinguished Service Award for his significant contributions to the advancement of high performance computing and decades of service to the field. Messina has an incredible record of building and managing large-scale, diverse research activities. Over the course of his career, he has designed, directed, and otherwise executed numerous initiatives that have influenced U.S. policy and programs resulting in the U.S. leadership position in high-performance computing.
CRA has recently hired Daniela Cárdenas as a program assistant. In her new role, Daniela supports CRA and CRA-W program activities with administrative and logistical matters such as planning meetings, workshops, outreach activities, and committee support.
The program for the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird has recently been updated. A third plenary session will consist of a panel on “Diversity in Computing Leadership” chaired by Carla Brodley. The confirmed participants include Shinder Dhillon, Head of Global Diversity & Inclusion – Engineering & Corporate Functions, Microsoft, Brian Reaves, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Dell, Inc., and Ayanna Howard, Chair, School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech.
CRA Executive Director Andrew Bernat, board member H.V. Jagadish and former board member M. Tamer Özsu have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
What does it take to produce application code that performs as close as possible to a parallel architecture’s compute or memory peak performance? This question is one that programmers of high-performance architectures contemplate regularly since using such systems efficiently can solve problems faster, or solve larger or more complex problems.
This question fundamentally changes the approach to programming.
“The Disappearing American Grad Student” in last week’s New York Times explores reasons why foreign students in STEM (and computer science in particular) often outnumber domestic students at the graduate level.
The Computing Research Association seeks your help in suggesting nominations for its board of directors. We want individuals who have the time, energy and initiative to work on CRA issues on behalf of the entire CRA community. We have a working board, and all members are expected to be involved with community issues.
The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) is excited to announce a new and improved version of its Conquer website (conquer.cra.org) for CS undergraduates interested in research and graduate school. The site also has resources for faculty who are interested in mentoring undergraduate research and helping their students apply to graduate school.
We are excited to announce the eleventh year of the Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship program which aims to recognize, support, and mentor students as they continue their doctoral education in computer science, electrical engineering and mathematics, as well as interdisciplinary studies intersecting with those domains.
The 2016 Taulbee Survey report, published in the May 2017 issue of CRN, did not include the results of a component that was introduced in the most recent survey–namely, bachelor’s enrollment data from specific courses in the curriculum. This component was introduced as a result of what was learned in the CRA Enrollment Report (see https://cra.org/data/generation-cs). Unfortunately, we were unable to compile the data in time to feature the results in the May issue.
CRA’s own Jane Stout, director of the CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP), was recently featured in the article “Q&A: Researcher Shares Strategies to Increase Diversity in Tech,” in EdTech Magazine: Focus on Higher Education. Amy Burroughs, managing editor of EdTech spoke to Jane about why the lack of diversity in tech persists, how institutions benefit from diverse groups and how IT leaders can build more diverse teams. Drawing from her social science background and her current research on factors that influence women and minorities pursuing computing careers, Jane emphasized building a sense of belonging and community and encouraged IT managers to actively recruit women who can serve as role models and mentors. She also encourages IT managers to recognize that there are different types of effective leadership styles.
The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce a new iteration of the Graduate Cohort Workshop designed specifically for underrepresented minorities in computing and persons with disabilities. Applications are now open for the inaugural CRA URM Graduate Cohort Workshop, which will be held March 16-17, 2018 in San Diego, CA.
On Tuesday, July 11, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2017 class of Eben Tisdale Fellows to the CRA Washington, DC office. These fellows, all of whom are undergraduates at universities and colleges across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. Additionally, they took two class credits at George Mason University, and attended briefings at the U.S. Capitol, Department of State, World Bank, Federal Reserve, and other institutions. The fellows visited the office to attend a presentation by Brian Mosley, CRA’s Office of Government Affairs policy analyst, that covered the policy concerns and issues the association works on and influences at the federal level.
July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. We welcome four new members to our board of directors: Carla Brodley, Kim Hazelwood, Brian Noble, and Jaime Teevan. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2017 are David Culler, Mary Czerwinksi, Margaret Martonosi, and Margo Seltzer. CRA would like to thank each of them for contributions during their service on the board.
The CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) turns four years old this month. During the past four years, CERP has been working steadily toward its goal of building diversity in computing through evaluation and social science research. CERP is staffed by Director Jane Stout, Research Scientist Burcin Tamer, and Research Associate Heather Wright. As seen on CERP’s About page, CERP staff are an eclectic mix of social scientists with expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods and a passion for diversity research.
On May 1, Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger announced that Jeannette M. Wing, currently corporate vice president of Microsoft Research, will become the Avanessians Director of Columbia’s Data Science Institute and Professor of Computer Science. From Columbia’s Announcement: “Jeannette Wing is a pioneering figure in the world of computer science research and education. Her addition to the […]
CRA has recently hired Claire Brady as a program manager. In her new role, she is responsible for planning CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) program events and providing support to initiatives that enrich the community’s awareness of CRA, its committees, mission, and services.
Over the past few months, CRA and its committees have been actively promoting our mission areas of policy, leadership, and talent development.
On Monday, February 27, in Washington, D.C., the Computing Research Association hosted its annual Computing Leadership Summit for the senior leadership of CRA member societies (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Association for Computing Machinery, CS-Can/Info-Can, IEEE Computer Society, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and USENIX Association) and the CSTB.
Generation CS: Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments Surge Since 2006 Across the United States and Canada, universities and colleges are facing a significant increase in enrollment in both undergraduate computer science (CS) courses and programs. The current enrollment surge has exceeded previous CS booms, and there is a general sense that the current growth in enrollment […]
A paper from CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) was recently named an “Exemplary paper” in the 2017 SIGCSE Proceedings. New this year, the SIGCSE program chairs recognized a new category of the top 25% of accepted papers as “Exemplary papers”, highlighted for their accomplishment of high quality, novelty and broad appeal to […]
Today, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced it has elected 84 new members and 22 foreign members. Among those elected were Julia Hirschberg, CRA-W co-chair and former CRA board member, and Katherine Yelick, CCC council member. Several of the members elected have a background in computing research; congratulations to all. Julia Hirschberg: Percy K. and Vida […]
The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) is pleased to announce the “Undergraduate Research Listing Service.” This free service is now available for faculty and other researchers to advertise undergraduate research opportunities and for undergraduates to find such opportunities. The site can be found here: http://conquer.cra.org/research-opportunities.
You can now view videos from the De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQFpLGNQdPn62wuMuITAbFg. Recently, CRA was a sponsor and participated in the De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work, which focused on the impact of the amazing technologies being developed by the computing research community on the […]
Today, former CRA board member Martha Pollack was named the 14th president of Cornell University. Pollack is currently provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Michigan. Cornell University Board of Trustees unanimously elected her, and the position will begin on April 17, 2017.
Facebook has announced the Facebook Emerging Scholar Program, which is designed to identify promising doctoral students and support them in their research efforts. The Facebook Emerging Scholar award is also specifically designed to support talented students from underrepresented minority groups pursuing their Ph.D.’s while delivering innovative research. The award is open to first or second year Ph.D. students who are members of an underrepresented minority group in the technology sector. Emerging Scholar recipients studying computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, system architecture, or a related area will be awarded tuition and fees for two years in addition to a two year $37,000 annual stipend and
On September 14, 21 computing researchers from across the country visited Washington, D.C. to make the case before Congress for federally funded computing research. The volunteers, traveling from as near as Maryland and Pennsylvania, and as far away as Utah and California, participated in nearly 50 House and Senate meetings. Their message to Congress was very simple: Federally supported computing research is vital to the nation’s future. Using their own research and individual stories as support, and reinforced with additional information from CRA, they made the “Federal case” for computing to members of Congress and their staff. Just as important as the message they presented, they also made valuable connections with the officials who represent them in D.C. Those members now know more about the expertise and interesting (and important) computing work that occurs in their districts and states, and our participants have a better sense of just who represents them in Congress. And they’ve hopefully started a lasting dialogue on both sides.
The 2016 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As we did last year, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey.
The schedule will be as follows:
By September 9: All doctoral departments will be contacted to update Taulbee user information. The academic unit head will receive an email and so will the Taulbee primary contact, if separate.
September 13: PDF will be available for data gathering.
September 27: Both sections of the Taulbee will open for input.
November 18: Due date for salary section.
December 19: Preliminary salary report available.
January 18, 2017: Due date for the main Taulbee section.
April 2017: Full Taulbee report to CRA members and participating departments.
May 2017: Published in CRN.
If you have any questions, contact Betsy Bizot at bizot@cra.org.
We are excited to introduce a new discussion session at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird that will facilitate dialogues about a number of thought-provoking topics in computing research. The group discussions will be based on the articles and books in this post. The session is scheduled for the morning of Tuesday, July 19, so begin the final day of the conference with some stimulating conversation.
