CCC Council Member Ian Foster and CRA Board Members Mary Hall and Vivek Sarkar have recently been named IEEE Fellows.

CRA has recently hired Nicole Beck as a part-time reimbursement specialist, working closely with CRA’s Grant Specialist Jill Hallden to ensure the organization’s bills get paid on time and reimbursements for participants in CRA-sponsored events are processed expeditiously. Prior to joining CRA, Nicole was a stay at home mom while also attending college at George Mason University and Arizona State University. She graduated from Arizona State with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in geography with a specialization in geographic information systems. In her free time, Nicole enjoys all things geography and cartography, spending as much time as possible with her two daughters, as well as discovering new music to listen to.

On September 11, 21 computing researchers from across the country visited Washington, D.C. to make the case for federally funded computing research. The volunteers, traveling from as near as Virginia and Maryland, and as far away as Wyoming and Montana, participated in over 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. Those Members of Congress now know more about the expertise and interesting (and important) computing work that occurs in their districts and states, and our participants have a sense of just who represents them in Congress.  And they’ve hopefully started a lasting dialogue on both sides.

On Tuesday June 25th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2019 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows to the CRA office. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. At the CRA office, the fellows attended 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.

Former CRA Board Member David Bader will direct the new institute for data science at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The institute will focus on cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and development in all areas pertinent to digital data. It will bring existing research centers in big data, medical informatics and cybersecurity together with new research centers in data analytics and artificial intelligence, cutting across all NJIT colleges and schools, and conduct both basic and applied research.

Today, President Trump announced his intent to appoint former CRA Board Chair Daniel A. Reed to the National Science Board (NSB). Reed will serve as a member of the NSB for the remainder of a six-year term, expiring May 10, 2024.  He is currently senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah. Reed served on the CRA board of directors from 1999-2009.

Recently, former CRA Board Chair James Foley was inducted into the 2019 Georgia Tech College of Computing Hall of Fame. He was one of six luminaries from the Georgia Tech computing community inducted this year.