CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program Accepting Nominations: Due January 5

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

More information is available at  http://cra.org/crae/activities/fellows/. Nominations are due Wednesday, January 5, 2022 at 5 PM EST.

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CRA-WP Board Welcomes Two New Members: Jeanine Cook and Russ Joseph

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CRA-WP has welcomed new members to its board of directors – Jeanine Cook and Russ Joseph.

Jeanine Cook is a principal member of technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the Scalable Architectures Department at the Computer Science Research Institute. She is a leading researcher in the fields of High-Performance Computing, performance characterization and modeling, hardware accelerator technologies, and large-scale system monitoring and data analytics.

Russ Joseph is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. His primary research interest is in computer architecture, focusing on the design and implementation of power-aware and reliability-aware computer systems.

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Serving as a DARPA PM: A very long lever arm

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The following is a blog post from Kathleen Fisher (Tufts University). Fisher is a former CRA-WP board member and currently serves on the CRA Board of Directors and the Computing Community Consortium Council.

Going to DARPA as a Program Manager (PM) is a great opportunity to make a difference by creating and managing a program much bigger in scope than what an individual faculty member can do at a university. Other PMs are talented and innovative thinkers who come from a broad range of backgrounds. Exposure to them and to the range of problems DARPA is reckoning with can be eye-opening. In the following paragraphs, I describe my experiences serving as a PM to convey a sense of what the job is like and why it might be an attractive career option.

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Registration Open for First CRA-Industry Committee Virtual Roundtable: Corporate Responsibility and Computing Research

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The CRA-Industry Committee is hosting a series of virtual roundtable meetings focused on issues of interest to our computing research industry partners. The first roundtable, “Corporate Responsibility and Computing Research” will be held on July 14, 2021 from 4:00-5:30 PM ET. In order to attend this event, please register here. Please forward this to your appropriate colleagues and encourage them to attend!

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CRA Education Committee Selects New Graduate Fellow

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CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2021 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Nadia Ady from the University of Alberta. Nadia is a Ph.D. Candidate in Computing Science at the University of Alberta supervised by Patrick Pilarski. She earned her B.Sc. in Honors Mathematics at the University of Alberta in 2014. Nadia is thrilled to have this opportunity to serve CRA and gain experience collaborating towards an important purpose: ensuring that students receive opportunities to discover research and how fulfilling it can be.

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Call to Action: Apply Now to the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program!

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Are you interested in serving as a mentor or coach?
The mentor and coach application is now available on the CS Grad4US Mentoring Program webpage.

The goals of the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program are:

  1. To guide returning students through the application process towards a successful CS PhD admission and school selection
  2. To mentor them through the transition to PhD graduate study in the first year towards high retention.

Specific topics include the admissions process, preparation of all components of a strong graduate application, differences between graduate programs at different institutions, how to compare programs with respect to the Fellow’s goals and background, and general guidelines on making a selection among admission acceptances.

The CSGrad4US Mentoring Program will provide not only general graduate application advice and guidance, but also provide missing larger context and network to students returning from the workforce. Our intention is to recruit a representative set of mentors and coaches that reflects the diversity of institutions, demographics, and scholarship among the computing research community.

Applications received by June 1st will be given preference.

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Expanding the Pipeline: Gaining Momentum through Research on Diversity in Undergraduate Computing

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By Linda J. Sax and Kathleen J. Lehman, UCLA

Five years ago, we wrote in this column about the research our team was initiating on the BRAID (Building Recruiting and Inclusion for Diversity) initiative, a coordinated effort among 15 universities to increase representation among women and Students of Color in their undergraduate computing programs. Over these past five years, the BRAID institutions have indeed made significant strides towards greater diversity. Collectively, while BRAID departments experienced an 87% increase in overall undergraduate computing enrollments, such increases were even larger among women (139%), BLI (Black, Latinx, and Indigenous) students (106%), and BLI women (127%). While there is much more work to be done in order to achieve gender and racial/ethnic parity in computing representation (not to mention fostering more inclusive environments), these figures certainly reflect progress. Further, such progress was not experienced by BRAID institutions alone, as data from the nationwide CRA Taulbee Survey during this same time period also show significant gains in representation among women and underrepresented Students of Color.

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Reflections on Black in Computing

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By Quincy Brown, Tyrone Grandison, Jamika D. Burge, Odest Chadwicke Jenkins, Tawanna Dillahunt

In June 2020, a community of Black people in computing from around the world published an open letter, initiated by the authors, and a call for action to the global computing community.

Today, we are issuing another call to action to the individuals, organizations, educational institutions, and companies in the computing ecosystem to address the systemic and structural inequities that Black people experience.

As we did in June 2020, we ask that you translate the public statements  into public action to support the Black professional communities toward achieving systemic fairness in computing.

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CRA and CRA-WP Welcome Elyse Okwu

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CRA has recently hired Elyse Okwu as a program associate for the Widening Participation (CRA-WP) committee. In this role, she leads and supports CRA-WP programs that focus on increasing the success and participation of underrepresented groups in computing research.

Prior to joining CRA-WP, Elyse worked as a research associate at Arizona State University to examine factors of persistence for women in STEM doctoral programs nationwide. At the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering, she worked with INVESTING NOW to expose young women to engineering. Elyse is passionate about working with underserved populations to ensure that access and equity are attainable in their quest for education in STEM.

Elyse holds a Master’s of Education from the University of Pittsburgh and a Bachelor’s in Mass Media Arts from Clark Atlanta University. She is an HBCU enthusiast who believes in helping students to “find a way or make one” in higher education. Elyse is the proud mother of a sweet toddler son and their happy place is the beach.

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