CRA Bulletin

The CRA Bulletin frequently shares news, timely information about CRA initiatives, and items of interest to the general community.
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Information on activities relevant to students.

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Profiles in Computing: Morgan Carroll

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Morgan Carroll, a senior studying computer science at University of Texas at Tyler, fondly remembers her grandfather buying her a HP Pavilion with Windows 98 when she was eight years old. “From then on I just loved computers. In high school, I figured out that I was good at math. So when I went off to college, I took my love of computers and math and decided to try computer science.”

Carroll focuses on general programming and enjoys figuring out how to accomplish project objectives. Last year, one of her professor’s suggested she participate in a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), so she searched for one on the National Science Foundation REU opportunities webpage. She was particularly excited about a research project at the University of Alabama. The project was supported by CRA-Women’s Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU) program, which matches students with a faculty mentor for a summer research experience at the faculty mentor’s home institution.

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Graduate Student Opportunity: Applications Open for Grad Cohort 2017

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The upcoming CRA-Women Graduate Student Cohort (Grad Cohort) will be held April 7-8, 2017 in Washington, D.C. Grad Cohort is a two-day workshop for female students in their first, second, or third year of graduate school in computing fields. The application closes November 30.

Grad Cohort is generously funded by sponsors from industry, academia, the National Science Foundation, and the computing community. The workshop aims to increase the ranks of senior women in computing-related studies and research by building and mentoring nationwide communities of women through their graduate studies.

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CRA-Women Virtual Undergrad Town Hall: Enabling Science Breakthroughs Using Computer Science

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Please share this opportunity with your students. During CRA-W’s Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall Event, students from around the world will learn about cutting edge research in the field of computing, and have the opportunity to ask questions to distinguished computer scientists. The next event will be held October 13 at 7PM EST. Speaker: Deb Agarwal, Senior […]

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Profiles in Computing: Volcano Kyungyoon Kim

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For Volcano Kyungyoon Kim, current Ph.D. student and 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) attendee, choosing to study computer science was an easy decision. She knew since elementary school that she would have a career in computing. Volcano comes from a computer science family – her father is a computer science professor, her mother also has a degree in computer science, and now her younger brother is currently pursuing a master’s degree in computer science. “Every single one of them is in computer science. So I never really thought of anything else. My parents think that it’s the most exciting and valuable field of study and it will lead to a great career in the future.”

While this influenced her enough to begin studying computer science in college, during her first two years she wasn’t totally convinced that it was a perfect fit for her. It wasn’t until Volcano discovered the flexibility of the field and its interdisciplinary nature that she was completely hooked. “There was a moment later on when I thought this is really perfect for me. It is not only about computer science, it is about applying it to all the other areas. If you have an interest in art, having a computer science background can boost your art skills or it can even open up a new art genre such as 3D painting in a virtual reality. Computer science is like a magic powder that you can add to other fields. ”

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New Videos Encourage Undergraduates to Pursue Advanced Education in Computing

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The Computing Research Association (CRA) and its education committee (CRA-E) are excited to announce the creation of five short videos entitled “Choosing a PhD in Computer Science.” These videos were designed in conjunction with award-winning producer Patrick Sammon (co-producer of “Codebreaker”) to explain the benefits of pursuing a PhD in CS. The videos showcase young researchers with PhDs who are now working in industry as they talk about what compelled them to pursue a doctorate and how they are using their advanced training in their work. While many undergraduates understand that a PhD is needed for a position in academia, these videos demonstrate how a PhD can be useful in industry as well.

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Nominations Open for 2017 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers

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The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a terrific way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.

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Student Opportunites: Grace Hopper Celebration Research Scholars

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CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) recently announced a new program for undergraduates, the CRA-W Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) Research Scholars Program. The GHC Research Scholars program brings undergraduate women to the annual Grace Hopper Celebration. The purpose of this program is to provide attendees with an unique experience, providing them a mentor, networking opportunities, and advising.

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Profiles in Computing: Drew Williams

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An early love of science fiction is what initially lured Drew to a career in STEM. Her fascination with outer space and the future, recurrent themes in science fiction, inspired her to study astronomy and become a physics major. Although she didn’t take any high school computer science courses, she always enjoyed tinkering with computer programs on her own. She decided in college to take a coding class and “really loved it.” Drew soon changed her major to computer science because she wanted to be part of the movement that brings to life the technologies we dream about in science fiction.

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The Congressional App Challenge is Now Open!

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The second annual Congressional App Challenge is a nationwide event that allows U.S. students in high school and below to create and exhibit their software application, or “app,” on mobile, tablet, or computer devices. The Challenge opened for submissions on 7/18, and submissions are due by 11/2. The Challenge is open to all high school students, and the winners get to meet their Member of Congress and have their app displayed in the US Capitol Building! Please spread the word!

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CRA-Women Virtual Town Hall on July 14

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During this Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall event, students will learn about cutting edge research in the field of computing and have the opportunity to ask distinguished computer scientists questions. The state of the art in cloth simulation can produce highly realistic cloth, but requires extremely high computation time, on the order of hours or even days.

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CRA Hosts Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows

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On Tuesday July 5th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2016 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows (http://www.tfas.org/tisdale) to the CRA Washington, D.C. office. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, are spending the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. Additionally, they are taking two class credits at George Mason University, and attending briefings at institutions such as the U.S. Capitol, Department of State, World Bank, and Federal Reserve. The fellows were in the office to attend a presentation, by Brian Mosley, policy analyst in CRA’s Office of Government Affairs, covering the policy concerns and issues that the association works on and attempts to influence at the federal level.

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Through the Screen of a Female Coder: A First Person Perspective on Diversity in STEM 

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Again and again we hear that earning computing degrees leads to one of the highest starting salaries for college graduates and almost a guaranteed job after graduation. This information is supported by data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers who report computer science graduates have the second highest starting salary ($61,321 this year) and the highest full-time employment rate (76% within six months of graduation). A blog post from the Computing Community Consortium in March highlights 2016 Bureau of Labor Statistics job projection results, which found that computing occupations are projected to account for 73% of all newly-created STEM jobs during the decade (488,500 jobs), and 55% of all available STEM jobs, whether newly-created or available due to retirements (1,083,800 jobs over the decade). All of this isn’t new information. Many people are aware that the booming tech industry can be a ticket to job security and comfortable living. Data from the National Science Foundation in 2014, shows that there are approximately 17.8% of women studying computer science at the undergraduate level. So why is it every CS classroom I am in is filled with bright-eyed, eager young men, but a dismal number

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Local Instructors, Students Sought for Blue Waters Introduction to HPC Virtual Course

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The Blue Waters project at the University of Illinois is pleased to announce the offering of a graduate course Introduction to High Performance Computing that will be offered as a collaborative, online course for multiple participating institutions fall semester 2016. The project is seeking university partners that are interested in offering the course for credit to their students. The course includes online video lectures, quizzes, and homework assignments with access to free accounts on the Blue Waters system.

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Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall: How to Prevent an Unruly Power Delivery System

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CRA-Women invites students to its 3rd Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall on Wednesday, February 24 at 8pm ET for an online webinar style discussion with Mondira Pant, lead technologist on-chip delivery at Intel Corps. This is an opportunity for students to learn more about the opportunities in research and graduate school and ask Mondira questions during the live Q&A session.

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Announcing the First Microsoft Open Source Challenge

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Microsoft Research is delighted to announce its first Open Source Challenge that uses the many and various open source computer science tools from our researchers. From artificial intelligence to programming models, cryptography to education, there is something for every enquiring mind.

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CRA at the AAAS Annual Meeting

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This year the AAAS annual meeting will be held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., close to CRA headquarters. To help engage the public with fun hands on science activities, CRA was invited to participate in AAAS’s Family Science Days on Saturday and Sunday, February 13–14, 2016 from 11:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) will also have a panel at the conference on the Friday, February 12, at 3 p.m. titled, “The Confluence of Computing and Society: Emerging Themes in Socio-Technical Systems.” CCC Chair Greg Hager, CCC Vice Chair Elizabeth Mynatt, and an additional speaker will offer perspectives on future ideas and challenges for technology innovations at global societal scales.

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Mentoring the Whole STEM Person: Advancing LGBTQ+ students and professionals

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January is National Mentoring Month, a great time to learn how mentoring can help support students and professionals in computing research, and in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) more generally. Mentoring is especially important for individuals in STEM from underrepresented groups in promoting persistence and success in education and professional settings. Effective mentoring programs help mentors and mentees consider various attributes of their identities and experience, like race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and educational background, which may influence their persistence and success. Although effective programs aim to support the whole person, gender identity and expression and sexuality orientation are often overlooked.

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Call for Nominations for BECA, SWSIS, and NCWIT Awards

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BECA Award Take the time to nominate an individual for the CRA-W Borg Early Career Award (BECA). Nominations are open to women who are early in their careers in computer science and engineering and deserve to be recognized for significant research contributions and positive/significant impact on advancing women in the computing research community. Deadline: February 15 Announcement of […]

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2016 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Winners

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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. Many of nominees had been […]

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New Undergraduate Research Opportunities Listing Service

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The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) is pleased to provide a new “undergraduate research listing service” for faculty and other researchers to advertise (at no cost) undergraduate research opportunities and for undergraduates to find such opportunities. The site can be found here:http://conquer.cra.org/research-opportunities.

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CRA Women Undergraduate Town Hall

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CRA-W’s Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall webinar is an online mentoring event where students learn about cutting edge research in computing and how to get involved with undergraduate research. Participants will have the opportunity to engage with distinguished computer scientists on topics such as professional development, reasons for pursuing a research career, and how to get into graduate school.

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Application Open for CRA-W Grad Cohort 2016

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CRA-W is now accepting applications for Grad Cohort 2016, a 2-day workshop during which participants will learn graduate school survival skills, receive mentoring, and develop networks with senior female computing researchers. This is a great opportunity for female graduate students to build mentoring relationships and develop peer networks to form the foundation of their graduate career and beyond.

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