Featured Announcements Archives - Page 17 of 20

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The CRA Bulletin frequently shares news, timely information about CRA initiatives, and items of interest to the general community.
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Posts categorized under: Featured Announcements

Items to feature on the CRA homepage.

Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Dan Grossman

February 25, 2017/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Education, Board Member Profiles /

Since I started graduate school in 1997, I have considered myself a member of the programming languages research community — and I continue to attend and publish in the annual conferences of this vibrant computing subfield. But over the last 5-10 years, I have also found myself increasingly passionate about opportunities for computing researchers to focus on ways to influence computing education beyond, for those of us who are academics, our own classrooms and independent studies. Let me share some of the projects I have enjoyed (seriously!) and others I wish I had more time to pursue.

CRA Releases Report on Surge in Computer Science Enrollments

February 24, 2017/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Education /

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 […]

Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Mary Czerwinski

February 21, 2017/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /

My research revolves around tracking and understanding users’ emotional states and leveraging that information as additional context for the design of emotionally sentient systems. Some of the systems we have built have been designed for a user’s own personal reflection. Our first application, AffectAura, provided users with their own behavior patterns over time, such as what they were doing, where they were, who they were with and how they felt. This information could be used to make personal decisions about behavior change—if certain activities usually result in your feeling good or bad, perhaps you want to increase or decrease those behaviors.

CERP Receives Exemplary Paper Award for SIGCSE 2017

February 17, 2017/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CERP, Education /

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 […]

2017 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award Winners Announced

February 3, 2017/In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /

The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce three winners of the CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award. Congratulations to the 2017 award recipients: Margaret Burnett from Oregon State University, Nayda Santiago from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus, and Margo Seltzer from Harvard University. These outstanding individuals are recognized for providing exceptional mentorship, undergraduate […]

CRA Expresses Concern at New Executive Order Suspending Visas

February 2, 2017/In: Featured Announcements, Policy /

The Computing Research Association released the following statement in response to President Trump’s new Executive Order, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States”:

Thank You Data Buddies!

January 31, 2017/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, CERP /

CRA wishes to thank the computing departments who distributed CERP’s Data Buddies survey during the fall of 2016! The collective effort of these departments provides data for CERP’s research on students’ experiences and successes in computing degree programs.

Undergraduate Research Opportunity Listing Service

January 25, 2017/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, For Students, For Researchers /

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.

Profiles in Computing: Chandra Krintz

January 24, 2017/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, CRA-WP, Profiles in Computing /

Krintz believes it is important in computing research to push technology forward by including people with diverse perspectives and ideas. To do that, she supports increasing underrepresented minority participation in computing. “I think it benefits both society and technology in general. Personally, it’s just so inspiring to see young people have new ideas, get excited, and want to go out and change the world.”

Why Students Consider Leaving Computing and What Encourages Them to Stay

January 18, 2017/In: Featured Announcements, CERP, Education /

In CERP’s 2015 Data Buddies survey, computing majors were asked whether they had thought about changing to a non-computing major during the past year. Thirteen percent of students who responded to this question said that they had. The word clouds here were created using students’ comments about the reasons they considered leaving computing and factors that helped them stay. Some of the most frequently encountered words in students’ reasons for considering leaving computing were “classes”, “hard”, “difficult”, “work”, and “time”. On the other hand, students’ responses regarding the factors that helped them stay in computing contained words such as “job”, “degree”, and “friends”.

NSF CISE 2017 CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop

January 12, 2017/In: Featured Announcements, NSF, For Researchers /

The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on March 20, 2017. This workshop will be held at the Hilton Arlington, near the National Science Foundation. The goal of this workshop is to introduce junior CAREER-eligible faculty to the NSF CAREER program and help them to prepare their CAREER proposals to target CISE programs. Attendees will have the opportunity to improve their skills in proposal writing, as well as to interact with NSF program directors from different CISE divisions (ACI, CCF, CNS, and IIS) and recent NSF CAREER awardees.

Call for Applications: CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program

January 6, 2017/In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Education /

The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting applications for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in computing fields to contribute to CRA-E projects, network with computer science education advocates on the committee, engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote undergraduate research and education at the national level.

CRA-E plans to appoint up to two graduate fellows per year, who will serve as members of the committee, providing a voice for graduate students. The fellows will attend the annual CRA-E meeting (travel expenses funded by CRA-E), serve on a CRA-E subcommittee related to their interests and expertise, and contribute to the CRA-E Conquer site that provides resources for undergraduate research and applying to graduate school.

Nominations Open for Borg Early Career Award

January 3, 2017/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards, For Researchers, CRA-WP /

CRA-Women invites nominations for the Borg Early Career Award (BECA). he award honors the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W and is inspired by her commitment to increasing the participation of women in computing research.

Executive Q&A: Jeannette M. Wing, Head of Microsoft Research

December 21, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Lab and Center Profiles /

Microsoft is a Lab and Center member of CRA. This article is the second in a series of our industry member profiles.

Jeannette M. Wing joined Microsoft Research in January 2013, after holding positions in academia and government, most recently at Carnegie Mellon University and the National Science Foundation (NSF). From 2007 to 2010, she served as assistant director of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate at the NSF. Wing is a former CRA board member and recipient of the 2011 CRA Distinguished Service Award. Her areas of expertise are in trustworthy computing, formal methods, concurrent and distributed systems, programming languages, and software engineering.

De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work

December 16, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /

CRA recently 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 nature of work and employment. The conference was held at Rice University with primary funding from the De Lange Conference Fund at Rice, which brings top experts and major figures to its campus in order to focus on a topic of great concern to society.

2017 Election Committee’s Slate of Nominees for the CRA Board; Petition Nominees Sought

December 13, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors /

2017 Election Committee’s Slate of Nominees for the CRA Board

CRA is pleased to announce the 2017 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board.

2017 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Winners

December 12, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /

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

Computer Science Education Week and new NSF CSforAll Solicitation

December 6, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, Education /

A recent White House blog post by Ruthe Farmer, Senior Policy Advisor for Tech Inclusion, emphasizes that Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) is an opportunity to join the #CSforAll movement and give every student the opportunity to learn computer science. On that note, with the kick off of CSEdWeek yesterday, the White House released a fact sheet detailing the great scope of CS for All efforts, including a new CSforAll program solicitation from NSF called Computer Science for All: Researcher Practitioner Partnerships (CS for All: RPP).

Ayanna Howard: 2016 A. Nico Habermann Award Winner

November 30, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards, A. Nico Habermann, CRA-WP /

In February, Ayanna Howard from Georgia Institute of Technology received the 2016 A. Nico Habermann Award for her sustained commitment to increasing diversity in computing. Howard is currently a CRA-W board member, and at Georgia Tech, she has provided research opportunities to dozens of undergraduates – more than 75% of whom are underrepresented minorities or women, and a majority of these students have gone on to graduate school. Nominations for the 2017 A. Nico Habermann Award are due on Friday, December 9.

Maria Klawe: 2016 CRA Distinguished Service Award Recipient

November 29, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, Awards, A. Nico Habermann /

By Shar Steed, CRA Communications Specialist Earlier this year, Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College (HMC), received the CRA Distinguished Service award for her tireless commitment to and profound impact on the computing research community. Nominations for the 2017 Distinguished Service Award are due on Friday, December 9. Throughout her career thus far, Klawe has […]

OSTP Shares Resource on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Science and Technology

November 28, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /

Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) shared a summary of actions to take to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in science and technology. The post titled, “Raising the Floor: Sharing What Works in Workplace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” was written by Megan Smith, the U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and […]

Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2017

November 21, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /

The wealth of faculty searches in Computer Science during this hiring season for positions starting in 2017 again affords the opportunity to study areas of Computer Science where departments are choosing to invest in new faculty hires. While the number and areas for faculty searches does not necessarily translate into the same for faculty hires, we believe that they provide insight into current and future needs within the discipline.

We analyzed ads from 347 institutions seeking to fill hundreds of tenure-track faculty positions in Computer Science. There is a 30% one-year (and 56% two-year) increase in the number of institutions searching for tenure-track faculty in Computer Science and a 35% one-year(and 71% two-year) increase in the number of positions being searched for. The number of institutions searching and positions seeking to be filled has increased even more for non-PhD-granting institutions.

Data Buddies 2016 is underway!

November 16, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, CERP /

On Monday, November 14, CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) distributed its annual Data Buddies surveys to more than 110 participating “buddy” computing departments.

Buddy departments send the survey to students affiliated with computing (e.g., majors; minors; students enrolled in CS courses; graduate students), and in return they receive a customized report on their students’ responses. The survey measures students’ experiences in computing (e.g., sense of belonging), aspirations for the future (e.g., intentions to pursue a Ph.D.), and participation in computing activities (e.g., formal research experiences).

CERP uses data buddies data to conduct evaluation as well as social science research on diversity issues in computing.

Is your department a buddy? If not, help the computing community by volunteering your department to become a Data Buddy today! Visit CERP’s website to learn more, view our list of buddies, and sign up: http:/cra.org/cerp/data-buddies/.

Martha Pollack Named the 14th President of Cornell University

November 14, 2016/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People /

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.

Profiles in Computing: Rita Wouhaybi

October 27, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, CRA-WP, Profiles in Computing /

The 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) brought together more than 30 accomplished speakers and 550 female graduate students in computing. Rita H. Wouhaybi who is a research scientist with Intel Labs’ Systems and Software Research at Intel Corporation, was one of the speakers who shared her unique perspective with the attendees.

CRA-Education to Host Workshop at Supercomputing 2016

October 19, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Education /

The CRA Education Committee (CRA-E) hosts a series of workshops on Engaging Undergraduates in Research at major computer science research conferences. The next workshop titled “Best Practices in Mentoring Undergraduate Research in Supercomputing,” will be held at Supercomputing 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The workshop will run as BoF session on Wednesday, November 16, 5:15-7 pm and is run by Nancy Amato (Texas A&M) and CRA-E Fellow Max Grossman (Rice University).

Nominations Open for 2017 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award

October 11, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, For Researchers, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /

CRA’s newest award program honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award recognizes faculty members who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.

Computing Research and the Emerging Field of Data Science

October 7, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Research Issues, For Researchers /

Our ability to collect, manipulate, analyze, and act on vast amounts of data is having a profound impact on all aspects of society. This transformation has led to the emergence of data science as a new discipline. The explosive growth of interest in this area has been driven by research in social, natural, and physical sciences with access to data at an unprecedented scale and variety, by industry assembling huge amounts of operational and behavioral information to create new services and sources of revenue, and by government, social services and non-profits leveraging data for social good. This emerging discipline relies on a novel mix of mathematical and statistical modeling, computational thinking and methods, data representation and management, and domain expertise. While computing fields already provide many principles, tools and techniques to support data science applications and use cases, the computer science community also has the opportunity to contribute to the new research needed to further drive the development of the field. In addition, the community has the obligation to engage in developing guidelines for the responsible use of data science.

Computing Researchers Travel to D.C. to Make the Case for Computing

October 4, 2016/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Policy, For Researchers /

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.

Nominees Sought for CRA Board of Directors

October 3, 2016/In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /

The Computing Research Association seeks your help in suggesting nominations for its board of directors. We want individuals who have the time, energy, initiative, and resources to work on CRA issues on behalf of the entire CRA community. We have a working board, and all members are expected to work on community issues.

The board provides the membership for various standing committees, including the Government Affairs, Snowbird Conference, Taulbee Survey, Finance, and Elections committees. In addition, issues affecting computing research arise unexpectedly, and board members must take the initiative and lead CRA’s responses. Many CRA committees and initiatives involve year-round attention, regular conference calls, communications with lab directors and department chairs, proposal writing, and sometimes travel at the expense of the individual board member.