Featured Announcements Archives

CRA Bulletin

The CRA Bulletin frequently shares news, timely information about CRA initiatives, and items of interest to the general community.
Subscribe to the RSS feed to stay connected.

Posts categorized under: Featured Announcements

Items to feature on the CRA homepage.

CRA Board Secretary Greg Morrisett Named Dean of Cornell Tech

June 7, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, People /

Today, Cornell University announced that CRA Board Secretary Greg Morrisett has been named the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech, effective August 1. Morrisett is currently the dean of Computing and Information Sciences at Cornell University and an international expert in software security. He joined the CRA board of directors in 2012 and has served two year terms on the executive committee as board secretary. Morrisett has also been a member of the CCC Council since 2017.

CRA Board Member Mark D. Hill Receives Top Computer Architecture Award

June 5, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, People /

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society recently announced that CRA Board Member and CCC Chair Mark D. Hill of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the recipient of the 2019 Eckert-Mauchly Award. Hill was cited for contributions to the design and evaluation of memory systems and parallel computers. The Eckert-Mauchly Award is known as the computer architecture community’s most prestigious award.

CRA-E Workshop at FCRC – Academic Careers: The Landscape is Broader than You Think

May 7, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, Education /

The CRA Education Committee, with support from Google, is organizing an Academic Careers Workshop at FCRC 2019. The workshop will be held on Tuesday, June 25 from 12:30-6:30 PM. Please register for the workshop through the FCRC registration page. We are now accepting applications for financial support to attend the workshop! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.

CRA Education Committee Selects New Graduate Fellow

May 2, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, Education /

CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2019 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Joslenne (Joss) Peña. Joss is a Ph.D. candidate and Sloan MPHD Scholar in Informatics at Penn State University (PSU) under the direction of Mary Beth Rosson. She earned her M.S. in Information Sciences and Technology in 2015 (also at PSU). Joss completed a 14-month internship as a research intern in the Human-Centered Systems group at Honeywell Aerospace. Broadly, her research interests are in human-computer interaction, design, computer science education, and human factors psychology. Specifically, her dissertation work is investigating non-programmers’ behaviors and attitudes in higher education through small exposures to coding and how their trajectories relate to a reexamined view of computational thinking.

Forbes Article on Inclusivity in Higher Education Highlights CERP Project

May 1, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, NSF, CERP /

A recent Forbes article written by Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and a former CRA board member, addresses “Why We Need Inclusive Teaching In Every Classroom.” In the article, Klawe interviews Colleen Lewis, a computer science professor at Harvey Mudd, about Lewis’ work to develop, incorporate, and disseminate inclusive teaching practices. Lewis researches […]

CCC’s Catalyzing Computing Podcast Included on NSF’s Science360 Radio Stream

April 26, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, NSF /

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC)’s recently launched Catalyzing Computing podcast is now included on the NSF’s Science360 Radio stream. Science360 Radio showcases shows from radio and podcast series, and also includes webcasts, events, in-depth interviews, and documentaries from NSF and other contributors. Catalyzing Computing focuses on topics of interest within the computing research community and is hosted by CCC […]

Expanding the Pipeline: The Second Annual CRA Grad Cohort for URMD Supports a Diverse Computing Research Community

April 25, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students /

On March 22-23, CRA hosted the second annual Graduate Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD Grad Cohort) in picturesque Waikoloa Village, Hawaii. The location provided beautiful scenery as students spent two days learning how to succeed in graduate school and networked with a diverse group of peers and senior researchers.

Creating Institutional Homes for Computing: Transforming a Department into a School or College

April 19, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, Resources /

The Computing Research Association has released its latest white paper, “Creating Institutional Homes for Computing: Transforming a Department into a School or College.” This white paper addresses the growing interest and trend in transforming a department of computer science, usually housed within a college of engineering or science, into a school or college of computing. It follows up on a successful panel at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird on Schools and Colleges of Computing and a second panel on transitioning to Colleges of Computing at the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird.

CRA Board Member Charles Isbell Named Dean of College of Computing at Georgia Tech

April 1, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, People /

CRA Board Member Charles Isbell has been named the next dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, effective July 1. Isbell serves as the AAAI representative to the CRA Board.

Expanding the Pipeline: CERP Data Buddies Survey Finishes Strong with More Insights About Students’ Experiences

March 26, 2019/In: Featured Announcements /

The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline concluded its fall 2018 Data Buddies Survey. The survey was modified to provide additional insight on student experiences in computing degree programs. These new data will be used in annual reporting and program evaluation.

CRA Launches BPCnet.org: A Resource Portal for Broadening Participation in Computing Efforts

March 12, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /

In partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT), CRA announces an initial launch of BPCnet.org, a resource portal designed to amplify the NSF CISE Directorate’s efforts in broadening participation in computing (BPC). CRA anticipates that BPCnet.org will provide a much-needed clearinghouse for the community to learn about and engage with ongoing projects to diversify computing.

2019 CRA Board Election Results and FY20 Executive Committee

March 5, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors /

CRA members have elected three new members to its board of directors: Lorrie Cranor, Divesh Srivastava and Marvin Theimer. The CRA board of directors has elected new board officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2019. At the February board meeting, Ellen Zegura was elected chair; Nancy Amato was elected vice-chair; Ran Libeskind-Hadas was elected secretary; and James Allan was elected treasurer.

2019 CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awardees Announced

March 1, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, Mentoring, Awards, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /

The CRA board of directors is pleased to announce its selections for the 2019 CRA Awards.
Edward Felten – Distinguished Service Award Winner
Maria Gini – A. Nico Habermann Award Winner

Applications Open for the 2019 CRA-W Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) Research Scholars Program

February 28, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, CRA-W /

This CRA-W program provides guidance to research-interested students on how to navigate the vast offerings at the GHC conference and opportunities to meet and interact with students and mentors with similar interests in small-group settings

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: NSF Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering

February 11, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, People, NSF /

The National Science Foundation is initiating a national search for the Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).

Former Board Member Margo Seltzer Elected to National Academy of Engineering

February 8, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /

Recently, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) elected 86 new members and 18 foreign members. This brings the total U.S. membership to 2,297 and the number of foreign members to 272. Former CRA Board Member Margo Seltzer was among those elected.

2018 Grad Cohort for Women Attendees Share Reflections in Short Video

February 7, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, CRA-W /

Find out what participants thought about the 2018 CRA-W Grad Cohort for Women in this recently released video. In testimonials collected at the end of the workshop, a resounding theme was the participants’ renewed motivation to complete their Ph.D.

Jennifer Rexford and Westley Weimer Receive the 2019 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award

February 5, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, Awards, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /

The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2019 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Jennifer Rexford from Princeton University and Westley Weimer from the University of Michigan. These outstanding individuals are being recognized for providing exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of their students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.

CCC Launches the “Catalyzing Computing” Podcast

February 4, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is launching the “Catalyzing Computing” podcast, which will focus on topics of interests within the computing research community. The podcast is hosted by CCC Program Associate Khari Douglas and will feature interviews with researchers and policy makers about their background and experiences in the computing community. You can stream or download the podcast on Soundcloud now.

CRA Board Member Highlight: James Allan

January 31, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /

My current work focuses on support for critical literacy and efforts to foster new paths for equity in the sciences.

New York Times Article on High Demand for Computer Science Professors

January 24, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, People /

Today’s New York Times features an article “The Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting Into Class.” The story explores how the increasing student demand for computer science courses is outstripping the supply of professors. The article cites CRA Taulbee data and quotes several current and former CRA board members.

2019 Nominees for CRA Board; Petition Nominees Sought

January 23, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /

CRA is pleased to announce the 2019 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition.

CRA Board Member Highlight: Barbara G. Ryder

January 9, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /

My computer science research career started during my college internship at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, during the early 1970s in the center that later produced UNIX and the portable C compiler. This experience taught me that computing was broader than the introduction to scientific programming in my undergraduate studies in applied math. (There was no computer science undergraduate major at the time.) For most of my career, I was interested in deriving descriptions of program execution behaviors from code in order, for example, to optimize program time and/or memory performance, to validate desirable properties such as correctness or data security, or to refactor code for ease of maintenance.

CRA Board Member Highlight: Rachel Pottinger

January 8, 2019/In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /

Increasingly, jobs rely on the ability to use computers to interpret, understand, and trust data. For example, my students and I have worked with ornithologists who cannot understand the representations of their bird sightings, civil engineers who cannot easily use their own building data, finance experts who cannot trace money between companies and their subsidiaries, and an XML document company whose clients cannot understand data that appears outside of their reports. In each case, the data users have been hampered because their data is exceedingly difficult to understand and trust, even though the users are experts in their fields. One reason for this difficulty is that the organization of the data is often designed for computers, not for people (i.e., for storage, not accessibility). Another reason is that data often come from different sources, leaving users with the challenge of integrating data that they neither understand nor trust.

2019 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Winners

December 20, 2018/In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2019 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. This year’s nominees are a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several are authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others have made presentations at major conferences, and some have produced software artifacts that were in widespread use.

CACM Blog Post on Broadening Participation in Computing Based on 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird Session

December 14, 2018/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /

The organizers of the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird session, “Increasing Diversity in Computing is Easier Than You Think: Some Small Steps that Make a Big Difference,” recently published a list of 10 small steps departments can take to increase diversity at their institutions.

Professional Development Workshop for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2019

December 10, 2018/In: Featured Announcements, Education /

The CRA Education Committee, with support from Google, is organizing a Professional Development Workshop for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2019. The workshop will be held on Wednesday, February 27, 2019 from 8:30 AM- 4:00 PM. We are now accepting applications to the workshop! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.

Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in Tech List

December 4, 2018/In: Featured Announcements /

Three CRA contributors were recently recognized on Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in Tech List. From Forbes: “The Top 50 Women In Tech is an unranked assessment of technologists in five categories: Moguls, Founders, Innovators, Engineers and Warriors. The list showcases the breadth and depth of entrepreneurial women who are changing the world.” CRA and […]

AAAS Honors 2018 Elected Fellows

November 29, 2018/In: CRA, Featured Announcements /

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2018 Elected Fellows. The Fellows are recognized with this lifetime honor for their extraordinary achievements in advancing science. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows to the Section on Information, Computing & Communication.