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.
The US Department of State, the Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections (IWGSC), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI) are working together to help identify, and where possible assist with efforts to save/protect priceless Ukrainian archival, cultural, and scientific collections under threat.
CRA-E is asking members of the community who mentor or plan to mentor undergraduate researchers, to complete this brief survey (2 required questions). Feedback will allow us to better adapt the program to different needs and audiences. For your feedback to have maximum impact, please complete the survey by June 10, 2022.
Recently, the Department of Commerce announced the appointment of 27 experts to the new National AI Advisory Committee (NAIAC). Among them were several individuals affiliated with CRA.
ACM has named Carla E. Brodley the recipient of the inaugural ACM Frances E. Allen Award for Outstanding Mentoring. She is recognized for significant personal mentorship and leadership in creating systemic programs that have increased diversity in computer science by creating mentoring opportunities for thousands at Northeastern and other universities across the United States. Brodley is a member of the CRA Board and former member of the CRA-WP Board.
The Computing Research Association’s newest committee, Computing Research Association-Industry, held their first workshop at the end of March on Best Practices on Using the Cloud for Computing Research. It brought together 30 participants in a hybrid format in Washington, DC from industry, academia, and government. This workshop was based off of a very successful September 2021 roundtable event, in which over 50 members of the community attended. The goal of the workshop was to continue the momentum from the roundtable and identify best practices on using the cloud for computing research in three different areas, education, collaboration, and research.
CRA is sad to announce that on March 3, 2022, Andrea Pohoreckyj Danyluk passed away at age 59 after a hard-fought battle with pancreatic cancer. The CRA community is deeply saddened by the loss of an amazing mentor, friend, and champion for diversity. She was family to many of her former students, colleagues, and friends. Through trying times, Danyluk calmly navigated the group forward, making time and space for people to voice their opinions and concerns. In recognition of her successful and impactful efforts to build inclusive and diverse communities in computing, the Computing Research Association selected Andrea Danyluk as the recipient of the 2022 CRA A. Nico Habermann Award. Andrea profoundly impacted the lives of her family, friends, students, and colleagues. She will forever be remembered for her warm spirit, boundless energy, and infectious laughter.
The Computing Research Association-Industry Committee is delighted to announce an upcoming virtual Roundtable on Building Stronger Regional Academia-Industry-Government Computing Research Partnerships on Wednesday, April 27th from 3:00-4:30 PM ET. Regional hotspots for innovative and high impact computing research, including the Boston area and Silicon Valley, are iconic. But how did these regions develop as they did and what are key elements in the collaboration between academia, industry, and government that make them successful?
In this roundtable, CRA-Industry will convene computing research partners across academia, industry, and government from Atlanta, Georgia to understand elements of successful approaches and to discuss the value of partnerships and best practices leading to success.
Confirmed speakers include Erwin Gianchandani (National Science Foundation Senior Advisor for Translation, Innovation, and Partnerships), Charles Isbell (Dean of Computing and The John P. Imlay Jr. Chair at Georgia Tech), Phyllis Schneck (Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer for Northrop Grumman) and Peter M. Williams (Director of Community Strategy & Engagement for BlackRock Atlanta). Read more about them here.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate has announced the second year of the CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship program. Goal and Motivation To increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields. The fellowship program, which will provide 3-year fellowship opportunities for […]
CRA hosted the 2022 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop in person on February 24-25 in Washington, DC. More than 120 participants engaged in a variety of panels and mentoring activities with senior researchers, including several CRA board members, and representatives from government agencies.
The Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Computing and Information Technology (CMD-IT) 2022 Academic Careers Workshop will be held in person, June 9-12 in Chicago, IL.
The Computing Research Association today announced it has selected Katherine Yelick, the Robert S. Pepper Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, as the recipient of the 2022 CRA Distinguished Service Award for her outstanding and sustained service contributions to the computing research community.
CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2022 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Yasra Chandio from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
The Computing Research Association recently hired Haley Griffin as a Program Associate for the CCC subcommittee. In this role, she will support the CCC mission by facilitating workshops, completing administrative tasks, and assisting with communications deliverables.
The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2022 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Darko Marinov from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Jelani Nelson from the University of California Berkeley.
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.
CRA-I was created in the Fall of 2020 with the goal of reaching out to industry partners involved in computing research and giving them new opportunities to convene and connect on topics of mutual interest with academia and government.
The National Science Foundation is currently seeking nominations for the National Medal of Science (NMS), the highest recognition the nation can bestow on scientists and engineers.
CRA is pleased to announce the 2022 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition, which are due by February 28.
On Wednesday, February 2 at 8 AM PST the Networking Channel will host a webinar titled, “How can we improve diversity and inclusion in the systems and networking community?”
The Last Mile Education Fund is offering $10,000 fellowships to low-income students from underrepresented groups who are participating in a computing-related Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) during Summer 2022.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2021 Fellows. The honor recognizes diverse accomplishments, including pioneering research, leadership within a given field, teaching and mentoring, fostering collaborations and advancing public understanding of science.
This year’s CRA Conference at Snowbird will explore the tremendous opportunities for computing research to dramatically benefit the human condition, as well as the related responsibility for computing research to consider the risks inherent in the work we do. Ensuring socially responsible intentions and practices is critical to realizing the future potential of computing research.
The ACM recently named 71 of its members as ACM Fellows for wide-ranging and fundamental contributions in areas including algorithms, computer science education, cryptography, data security and privacy, medical informatics, and mobile and networked systems ─ among many other areas. The accomplishments of the 2021 ACM Fellows underpin important innovations that shape the technologies we use every day.
CCC Council Member and CRA-WP Board Member Maria Gini was recently named the recipient of the 2022 ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award, one of the major SIGAI awards.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) seeks two highly-motivated individuals to join its staff as Program Associate or Senior Program Associate (depending on qualifications and experience). The positions involve work primarily with CRA’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC) subcommittee, which aims to catalyze the computing research community to pursue innovative, high-impact research. The CCC is run as a cooperative agreement between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and CRA.
The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Pre-Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2022. The event will be held on Wednesday, March 2, 2022 from 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM EST. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.
The NCWIT Academic Alliance recently announced that nominations are open for two NCWIT Higher Education Recognitions: the Joanne McGrath Cohoon Service Award and
the Harrold and Notkin Research and Graduate Mentoring Award.
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2022 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 created papers for major conferences, as well as producing software, apps and algorithms.
The Computing Research Association recently announced Dr. Tracy Camp will become its next Executive Director starting July 1, 2022. Camp is currently the Department Head of Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines. She brings to the role strong experience as a leader in the computing research community at the national level, a history spearheading diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in computing, and a detailed vision for leading the organization into the future.
CRA-WP welcomes your nominations for the Early Career Awards honoring Anita Borg and Clarence “Skip” Ellis. Nominations are due February 15, 2022, at 11:59 PM ET.
Learn more about the award eligibility and the nomination process: https://cra.org/cra/cra-wp/early-career-awards
The University of Washington (UW) Allen School recently shared the story behind the creation of a new professorship honoring Ed Lazowska in recognition of his incredible impact on the computing research community. The Endowed Professorship in Computer Science & Engineering in Honor of Edward D. Lazowska was the brainchild of Peter Lee of Microsoft and […]
This work uses the same methodology applied over eight years to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised tenure-track searches for the current hiring season. This work also provides an opportunity to continue to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty hiring in Computer Science for hires starting in 2022.
We analyzed ads from 400 institutions seeking to fill hundreds of tenure-track faculty positions in Computer Science. This number is a 70% increase from last year at this time (mid-November) and is a comparable number to the 394 institutions searching for 2020. The number of tenure-track positions sought is doubled from last year and up 6% from two years ago indicating a recovery in demand after a one-year drop due to the pandemic. The number of BS/BA institutions seeking faculty is at an eight-year high with top PhD and private PhD institutions at eight-year highs in the number of positions being sought.
Join us on Thursday, December 2, 2021, at 12pm EST for a special virtual event marking the 30th anniversary of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program. For three decades, the NITRD program has coordinated federal investment at the frontiers of computing, networking, data, and software, leading to many of the breakthrough information technologies that define our lives today, like the modern Internet as well as 4G, LTE, and 5G wireless networks, expanding access to broadband connectivity, information, and other resources; vehicle-to-vehicle communication, enhancing driver safety and reducing traffic congestion; and machine learning and predictive modeling, advancing understanding of human diseases like COVID-19 leading to therapeutics.
Members of the CRA-Education Committee hosted a webinar titled “The Ph.D. in CS: Getting There and Being Successful.” The webinar is designed to help undergraduates evaluate whether a Ph.D. program is right for them, and how to determine which program is a great fit.
The Computing Research Association seeks your help in recruiting candidates for its Board of Directors. We want individuals who have 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. Candidates may nominate themselves by completing this form. The deadline for receipt of nominations is December 17, 2021.
Published online each fall, the CRA Academic Member Book highlights institutions that are member departments of CRA. Each academic member department is invited to submit a one page pdf about their department. Thanks to all the departments that took the time to prepare a submission.
The Computing Research Association will offer an in-person Career Mentoring Workshop, February 24-25, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
Click here to apply. The workshop application deadline is December 10, 2021.
The CCC, Computing Research Association-Industry (CRA-I), and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) submitted a joint response to the NAIRR Implementation Plan.
CRA has recently hired Roohia Meer as a program assistant for the Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). She supports CERP’s efforts aimed at broadening participation in computing research and education.
DREU interns have the opportunity to be directly involved in a research project and interact with graduate students and professors on a daily basis. This experience is invaluable for those who are considering graduate school; DREU will provide a close-up view of what graduate school is really like and increase interns’ competitiveness as an applicant for graduate admissions and fellowships. Faculty mentors will have the opportunity to work on their research project with new students from other institutions and to mentor future graduate students.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE) announced an updated Core Programs solicitation (NSF 21-616) with new guidelines for submitting Project Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plans.
Applications are now open for the MGB-SIAM Early Career (MSEC) Fellowship. The MSEC Fellowship recognizes the achievements of early career applied mathematicians – particularly those belonging to racial and ethnic groups historically excluded from the mathematical sciences in the United States – and provides support for professional activities and career development.
The CRA CV Database is now open for applications for the 2021-22 recruiting season. It can be accessed through https://cra.org/cra/cv-database/. Candidates will be able to upload their resumes, research and teaching statements, job objectives and other preferences, and a link to a short presentation video. Recruiters will be able to search this information and are encouraged to contact candidates starting mid-November.
The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored.
CRA-WP will host two Graduate Cohort Workshops in 2022. The Grad Cohort Workshop for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills (GC-IDEALS) is designed specifically for graduate school populations underrepresented in computing research. The Grad Cohort Workshop for Women (GC-Women) is designed for women students in their first, second, or third year of graduate school […]
NSF highlighted CRA-WP resources in an article recently published in Open Access Government. The article “Computing, Communication & Information Systems,” authored by Nina Amla with Joydip Kundu and Fernanda Pembleton from NSF CISE shared the mission and major themes supported by the CISE Directorate.
CRA will be represented during the upcoming DOE Advanced Scientific Computing Advisory Committee (ASCAC) meeting. Attend CRA session “Taulbee, Talent, and Trends” from 1:00-1:45 PM ET on September 30, 2021.
The Data Buddies Project has been running strong since 2010. This article dives into some of the history of the Data Buddies Project and CERP while also highlighting the project over the years. The article concludes with a look into how the project operates today.
The 2020 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As has been our recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.
Taulbee Schedule
By September 20: Each academic unit head will receive an email about this year’s survey and so will the Taulbee primary contact(s), if separate. The data-gathering pdf will also be available at this time.
September 27: Both Salary and Main surveys open for input
November 29: Due date for salary section.
Late December: Preliminary salary report available to participants.
January 24, 2022: Due date for the main Taulbee section.
April 2022: Full Taulbee report to CRA members and participating departments.
May 2022: Published in CRN.
The Taulbee Survey is open to all academic units that grant doctorates in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or Information. If you have any questions, contact Betsy Bizot at bizot@cra.org/cra
The Computing Research Association (CRA) 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 wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
After nearly 20 years at the helm of the Computing Research Association, Executive Director Andrew Bernat has retired from his position, marking the close of his incredible career that has spanned more than 40 years. Over the course of his career, he was founding member and chair of the Computer Science Department at the University of Texas at El Paso, a NSF Program Director and finally executive director of CRA since 2002. Under his leadership the association has seen a dramatic, positive transformation, more than tripling in size and launching significant new efforts in research visioning, widening participation, and postgraduate support, while remaining the organization of record for computing research issues in Washington policy circles.
The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) will support one of the new INCLUDES Alliances as a consultant representing BPCnet.org, a clearinghouse for the community to learn about and engage with ongoing projects to address underrepresentation in Computing. Through this collaboration, CERP will work to expand the BPCnet.org Statistics and Data Hub, an online tool that currently provides computing-related data at the K-12 and postsecondary levels.
Consider registering for NSF’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program solicitation webinar on August 6th, 2021 starting at 12:00 pm ET.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) seeks a full-time employee to join our team as a Senior Program Associate for the CRA Industry standing committee (CRA-Industry). CRA-Industry is a newly formed standing committee that convenes industry partners on computing research topics of mutual interest and connects our partners with CRA’s academic and government constituents for mutual […]
The Computing Research Association (CRA) seeks a full-time employee to join our team as a Program Assistant working with the CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). The following description outlines the general nature of this position and is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities and skills necessary for this […]
Recently, CERP was contracted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) to evaluate the CISE Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program, starting spring of 2022. For more information, visit https://cra.org/cra/cerp/cerp-reu-evaluation/
This past spring, the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its Computing Community Consortium (CCC) announced funding for a cohort of Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) for 2021, with strong support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program sponsors two-year postdoctoral research positions in computing, as well as career development and cohort building activities, to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent Ph.D. graduates. The program aims to address the continued disruption in hiring practices at academic institutions due to COVID-19.
The CRA is excited to announce the launch of an Opportunity Board to enable recent new PhD graduates and members of the community that are looking for postdocs to connect. This is a continuation of the Opportunity Board used to match potential postdocs and mentors during the CIFellows 2021 process. The board allows for the posting of post doc opportunities by potential mentors and posts by those looking for a postdoc opportunity. We encourage members of the community to use this as a resource.
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!
The CRA Education Committee (CRA-E) recently welcomed four new members to the committee: Janet Davis, Gary Holness, Victoria Interrante, and Brandon Myers. Christine Alvarado (University of California, San Diego) and Ran Libeskind-Hadas (Claremont McKenna College) will be leaving the committee after its August board meeting. Christine has served on the board from 2017-2021, and Ran co-founded the committee, serving as co-chair from 2011-2017 and board member from 2011-2021. Both have contributed significantly to the mission of CRA-E with work on various projects and awards. CRA-E thanks them both for contributions during their service on the committee.
In February, the CRA board of directors elected board officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2021. Nancy Amato is chair; Dan Grossman is vice-chair; Ran Libeskind-Hadas is secretary; and James Allan is treasurer. Today, CRA welcomes three new members to its board of directors: Diana Franklin, Eve Schooler and Katie Siek. Their terms run from July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2024.
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!
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society recently announced that former CRA and CRA-WP Board Member Margaret Martonosi is the recipient of the 2021 Eckert-Mauchly Award. She was cited for contributions to the design, modeling, and verification of power-efficient computer architecture. The Eckert-Mauchly Award is known as the computer architecture community’s most prestigious award
The Computing Research Association (CRA)—the nation’s premier member organization of academic departments, laboratories, and industry centers aimed at advancing computing research to change the world—seeks an inclusive, transparent, and enterprising leader to serve as its next Executive Director (ED).
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is accepting nominations for major prizes that will be awarded in 2022. If you know someone who meets the criteria for one of the prizes below and deserves to be recognized for their achievements, please nominate them!
CRA-Industry, a standing committee of the CRA, was created in the Fall of 2020 with the goal of reaching out to industry partners involved in computing research and giving them new opportunities to convene and connect on topics of mutual interest. As a part of the CRA, CRA-Industry also facilitates the interaction between industry partners and other organizations deeply involved in computing research including academic institutions and government agencies. You can learn more about CRA-Industry by visiting our web page and/or signing up for our mailing list.
This article and the accompanying figures and tables present the results from the 50th annual CRA Taulbee Survey, which documents trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant the Ph.D. in computer science, computer engineering, or information.
After nearly 20 years at the helm of the Computing Research Association, Executive Director Andrew Bernat announced he will retire from his position as of September 1. Bernat joined CRA in 2002 and under his leadership the association has seen a dramatic, positive transformation, more than tripling in size and launching significant new efforts in research visioning, widening participation, and postgraduate support, while remaining the organization of record for computing research issues in Washington policy circles.
CRA has engaged the services of Isaacson Miller to help with the search. If you would like to nominate someone for consideration for the position (including yourself!) or if you have general inquiries, please go to https://www.imsearch.com/search-detail/S7-971.
Are you interested in mentoring prospective graduate students through the application and reentry process?
The mentor and coach application is now available on the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program webpage. The goals of the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program are:
To guide returning students through the application process towards a successful CS PhD admission and school selection
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.
Applications received by June 1st will be given preference.
For questions regarding eligibility, please email csgrad4us@cra.org/cra.
Today, May 20, 2021, marks the tenth Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). The purpose of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access/inclusion and people with different disabilities. In honor of GAAD, we’re sharing resources to learn more about accessibility in higher education.
CRA, in consultation with NSF, has appointed five new members to the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council with terms starting on July 1.
Sven Koenig, University of Southern California
Chandra Krintz, University of California, Santa Barbara
William Regli, University of Maryland
Mona Singh, Princeton University
Ufuk Topcu, University of Texas at Austin
The recipient of the 2021- 2022 ACM Athena Lecturer Award is Ayanna Howard, Dean of The Ohio State University College of Engineering.
Her citation reads as follows: For fundamental contributions to the development of accessible human-robotic systems and artificial intelligence along with forging new paths to broaden participation in computing through entrepreneurial and mentoring efforts.
To view the press release, please visit: https://awards.acm.org/about/2021-athena
Last year the IEEE announced the creation of the IEEE Frances E Allen medal, recognizing the contributions of Frances “Fran” E. Allen as an American computer scientist and pioneer in the field of optimizing compilers.
Nominations for this award are open now and are due by June 15. Please honor Fran Allen and outstanding members of our research community by submitting a nomination.
CRA has recently hired Kristi Kelly as a research associate for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). As part of the CERP team, Kristi’s responsibilities include management of IRB submissions, survey development, and data analysis and reporting.
This year’s class of newly elected members includes a record number of women, including former CRA-WP Board Member Anna Karlin. She is the Microsoft Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science at the University of Washington. She has been active in several CRA-WP activities including Grad Cohort, Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall, and Career Mentoring Workshops.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is hosting a webinar on the Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) program solicitation (NSF 21-571) on May 4, 2021 starting at 2:00 pm Eastern Time.
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.
In response to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate’s recently announced CSGrad4US Fellowship program, the Computing Research Association’s Education (CRA-E) and Widening Participation (CRA-WP) committees are working to develop a CSGrad4US Mentoring Programfor recipients of the CSGrad4US Fellowship.
We are pleased to announce the second addendum to the Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Pandemic Informatics: Preparation, Robustness, and Resilience quadrennial paper on variants of concern (VOC).
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate has announced the new CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship program that aims to increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields. The new fellowship, which will provide 3-year fellowship opportunities for new Ph.D. students in the computing disciplines, was released in response to the increased demand for people with a Ph.D. in computer science (CS), the continued decrease of domestic students pursuing research and completing a Ph.D., and the overall small number of bachelor’s degree recipients in CS pursuing graduate school.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) is soliciting proposals for projects addressing systemic racism in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce development through research and practice. Those who have been impacted by the inequities caused by system racism should be the primary focus for all proposals. Competitive proposals will be clear with respect to how the work will advance racial equity and address system racism.
We will be hosting a one-hour CIFellow 2021 Informational Webinar on Thursday, April 15th at 2:30PM ET. There will be an introduction by NSF, a presentation of the program, concluding with a Q&A session. Please register here for the webinar.
PIs with active medium and large CISE Core programs awards are invited to submit supplemental funding requests to engage more members of the CISE research community in significant BPC efforts as part of their project’s BPC plan. Supplemental funding requests should be submitted by the BPC deadline (June 14).
The Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium (CCC) are pleased to announce a new Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) cohort for 2021. This program recognizes the continued disruption to hiring in academic institutions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As before, this program aims to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent and soon-to-be […]
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[b] to the global computing community. The letter began with, “The recent killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police has sparked a movement that began at the birth of our nation. Though George Floyd may have been the most recent instance, we should not forget the lives of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Philando Castille, Tanisha Anderson, Atatiana Jefferson, Eric Garner, Charleena Lyles, Eula Love, Michael Brown, Khalif Browder, Botham Jean, Tamir Rice, Latasha Harlins, Amadou Diallo, Mary Turner, Emmett Till, and too many other Black people who have been murdered …”
As a continuation of our 2020 series, we are delighted to release two more papers titled: “Taking Stock of the Present and Future of Smart Technologies for Older Adults and Caregivers” and “Imagine All the People: Citizen Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Computational Research.”
CRA has recently hired Taniya Ross-Dunmore as a research assistant for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). In this role, she will assist in CERP’s research and evaluation projects and tasks. Taniya holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in psychology from Spelman College where she obtained experience in data collection and evaluation, research methods, psychometrics, and more.
Prior to joining the CRA CERP team, she worked as a registered behavioral technician for children with autism and aided in the facilitation of a program which aimed to increase young women of color in the STEM and art fields. In her free time, she enjoys painting, reading, and Netflix.
CRA members have elected three new members to its Board of Directors: Diana Franklin, Katie Siek and Eve Schooler. James Allan, Stephanie Forrest, Ayanna Howard, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Rachel Pottinger, and Chris Ramming were re-elected to the CRA board. All of their terms run from July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2024. Vivek Sarkar will remain on the board as the co-chair of the CRA Industry Committee. CRA would like to thank everyone who agreed to run this year.
After careful consideration of the current and projected situation surrounding the pandemic, CRA has unfortunately decided to cancel the in-person CRA Conference at Snowbird scheduled to take place this August. At this time, there are simply too many uncertainties to move forward.
We believe interaction is a critical feature of this conference. Given we held a virtual version last year, we have decided not to organize a hybrid or entirely virtual meeting this year, as this is typically an off year for Snowbird. CRA is currently planning to hold a full in-person Conference at Snowbird on July 19-21, 2022.
Using CRA Data Buddies Survey data, this analysis presents changes in undergraduate students’ highest degree intentions over the course of a year. Students who participated in an REU during that year showed an interest in pursuing a higher-level academic degree than those who did not participate in an REU.
In Fall 2020, the Computing Research Association released a series of planned white papers produced through its subcommittees (including the Computing Community Consortium), exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Called Quadrennial Papers, the white papers attempt to portray a broad picture of computing research detailing potential research directions, challenges, and recommendations for policymakers and the computing research community.
One of those white papers Pandemic Informatics: Preparation, Robustness, and Resilience outlined a strategy to reduce the impact of global pandemics stressing early detection, predicting the public’s reaction and developing effective policies.
Several months later, the pandemic is still ongoing but we are facing a new and different set of challenges that are both surprising and yet also somehow predictable. The authors of the paper have produced a March 22nd, 2021 Addendum to address current issues.
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is excited to announce the new website feature, “CIFellows Spotlight”, which will highlight the work of the Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) going forward. Announced in May 2020, the CIFellows program was created, with strong support from NSF, to provide recent PhD graduates in computing research with the opportunity to continue their work despite the hiring disruptions in academic institutions due to COVID-19. These articles will give the CIFellows the opportunity to share their work with the community and dive deeper into the details of their current project(s).
Yi Ding began her CIFellowship in January 2021 after receiving her PhD from University of Chicago this past December. Ding is at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Michael Carbin, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and leader of the Programming Systems Group.
On Monday, March 15, CRA’s Burçin Tamer was a panelist at the SIGCSE 2021 session, “How Student Surveys Drive Change: Using the Data Buddies Department Report from the Computing Research Association.” Tamer and panelists discussed how departments can use their students’ responses to the Data Buddies survey to make meaningful changes in their department.
The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) is excited to launch a new blog called the CERP Bulletin to share news, research and evaluation findings, promote resources and community platforms, and provide helpful context to CERP’s mission. The CERP Bulletin will include CERP research activity, infographics, evaluation reports, and interesting CERP-related articles.
We encourage you to stay updated on CERP through the Bulletin by signing up for our mailing list, which you can do here.
This post is brought to you by the CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). CERP provides social science research and comparative evaluation for the computing community. Volunteer for Data Buddies by signing-up here.
Mary Jane Irwin was selected to receive the 2021 A. Nico Habermann Award in recognition of her more than 30 years of diversity efforts, both in academia and in professional organizations. James Kurose was selected to receive the 2021 Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his exemplary service to the computing research community. Through a career spanning more that 35 years, he has distinguished himself as national leader in numerous impactful service roles in the computing research community.
The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2021 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Tijana Milenkovic from University of Notre Dame and Saad Biaz from Auburn University. 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.
On February 22-23, CRA held its annual Computing Research Leadership Summit for the senior leadership of CRA member societies and winter board meeting.
An increasing number of NSF CISE solicitations, including the CISE Core Programs (for which SMALL Projects do not have a submission deadline), are eligible for cloud access via the CloudBank portal to the AWS, Azure, GCP, and IBM clouds.
A video recording of the “Standing Against Racial Injustices” conversation series organized by the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT) is now available. If you missed the event, we encourage you watch and share!
The goal of the 2021 CMD-IT Academic Careers Workshop is to mentor assistant- and associate-level faculty, senior doctoral students, and postdocs in computing about academic careers.
CRA Board Member Timothy M. Pinkston has organized and will moderate the panel, “Valuing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Our Computing Community” from 1:30 to 3 PM (EST) on March 3rd at this year’s co-located HPCA’21, PPoPP’21, CGO’21 and CC’21 conferences (virtual due to COVID-19).
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has elected 106 new members and 23 foreign members. Several computing researchers are among those elected this year, including those with CRA connections. Among them are Margaret Martonosi and Kunle Olukotun.
CRA is pleased to announce the 2021 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition, which are due by February 22.
In response to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate’s recently announced CSGrad4US Fellowship program, the Computing Research Association’s Education (CRA-E) and Widening Participation (CRA-WP) committees, with CRA support, are exploring the development of a CSGrad4US Mentoring Program to support recipients of the CSGrad4US Fellowship.
NSF CISE has announced the new CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship program that aims to increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields.
The Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship recognizes emerging leaders in the field of computing who have exceptional talent for research and innovation. Qualifying faculty must have received their terminal degree in May 2016 or later, and their research must be closely related to the general research areas carried out by Microsoft Research. These full-time faculty members must also conduct research, advise graduate students, and teach in the classroom in North or South America. Provisions of the award include $100,000 USD awarded annually for two years starting in the fall of 2021.
The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2021 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award. The deadline has been extended to February 8.
CRA-WP is accepting applications for two programs: Scholarships for Women Studying Information Security and Distributed Experiences for Undergraduates. Nominations are due March 31 for two award programs: Skip Ellis Early Career Award and Anita Borg Early Career Award.
The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) recently elected its 2021 Fellows. The AAAI Fellows program recognizes individuals who have made significant, sustained contributions — usually over at least a ten-year period — to the field of artificial intelligence. Three individuals involved with CRA were among those elected Fellows this year – Ayanna Howard, Chad Jenkins and Holly Yanco.
CRA welcomes Forrest Shull as a new Board Member. Shull is President of IEEE-CS and replaces Greg Byrd as one of the IEEE-CS representatives on the CRA Board, serving along with Leila De Floriani.
This updated work follows a full study released in November 2020, on faculty hiring in Computer Science for hires starting in 2021. That work analyzed hiring based on ads through mid-November 2020 and found significant decreases in the number of institutions searching and the number of positions being sought. This updated work considers ads through the end of December 2020 and is intended to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on whether searches have been delayed or simply will not materialize this hiring season.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is broadening its commitment to young scientists through a new Information Innovation Office (I2O) PostDoc Fellowship Program focused on postdoctoral researchers in the field of computer science with grants sized to support each fellow for up to two years.
CRA welcomes Arvind Krishnamurthy as a new Board Member. Krishnamurthy is the Vice President of the USENIX Board of Directors and replaces Brian Noble as the USENIX representative on the CRA Board. Noble joined the CRA Board in 2017, and CRA thanks him for his term of service.
The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Virtual Pre‐Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2021. The event will be held on Friday, March 12, 2021 from 1:00 – 5:00 PM EST. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda. 2020 event information is available here.
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2021 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.
CRA Board Member Timothy Pinkston is featured in this week’s “People of ACM”. In the Q&A, Pinkston discusses topics such as what prompted him to establish his research group, deadlock-free adaptive routing techniques, the importance of CISE’s Expeditions in Computing program, and efforts to broaden participation in computing.
To fulfill its mission, the CCC needs visionary leaders — people with great ideas, sound judgment, and the willingness to work collaboratively to see things through to completion. The Council is composed of 20 researchers representing the breadth and diversity of computing today.
CRA welcomes Timothy M. Pinkston as a new Board Member. Pinkston replaces Mark D. Hill as an academic member on the Board. Hill recently moved into industry with a position at Microsoft as Partner Hardware Architect with Azure, requiring him to step down from the Board. We would like to thank Hill for his term of service on the CRA Board.
The IEEE Computer Society Build Your Career Webinar Series focuses on topics that help you hone your professional skills. Webinars focus on topics that include effective communication, tips for email writing, personal brand management, career transition, interviewing skills, and more. New topics are covered each month. You are invited to Solutions Thinking 101, which takes […]
This work uses the same methodology as previous work to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised tenure-track searches for the current hiring season. This work also provides an opportunity to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty hiring in Computer Science for hires starting in 2021.
IEEE recently named its 2021 class of newly elevated Fellows. IEEE Fellow is a distinction reserved for select IEEE members whose extraordinary accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest are deemed fitting of this prestigious grade elevation. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elevated to Fellows.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2020 Fellows. The honor recognizes diverse accomplishments, including pioneering research, leadership within a given field, teaching and mentoring, fostering collaborations and advancing public understanding of science. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows.
Part 2 of the CMD-IT Standing Against Racial Injustice conversation brings together a group of Black industry tech professionals for a breadth of conversation on how we create the change we want to see and how Commanding Our Voices drives Inclusion, Innovation and Impact to our community, society and the nation.
Undergraduate enrollments in CS have grown considerably and continue to grow. Yet opportunities for undergraduates to engage in CS research have not grown proportionally. Engaging undergraduates in research has tremendous benefits for students, and is critical to the health of the North American CS PhD pipeline.
The CRA’s Education committee has released a new report documenting best practices and concrete suggestions for departments wishing to expand undergraduate research opportunities in CS (without overwhelming their faculty!). The report is based on a broad examination of existing structured research programs at universities across North America. It compiles the main challenges departments face in implementing undergraduate research programs, and provides best practices for addressing these challenges.
As part of the rollout of the 2020 Computing Research Associations (CRA) Quadrennial Papers, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to publish the final group of papers around the “Artificial Intelligence (AI)” theme, including papers on AI being deployed at the edge of the network, cooperation between AI and humans, new approaches to understanding AI’s impact on society, AI-driven simulators, and the next generation of AI. The Quadrennial Papers are intended to help inform the computing research community and those who craft science policy about opportunities in computing research to help address national priorities. This group of papers is the final installation of the CCC’s contribution, in addition to the previous themes of Broad Computer Science, Core Computer Science, and Socio-Technical Computing.
Applications are now open for the 2021 CRA-WP Graduate Cohort Workshops.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Women will likely be a virtual workshop on April 23-24, 2021. Apply here.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills – The IDEALS Workshop (formerly the Grad Cohort Workshop for URMD) will be a virtual workshop on March 11-12, 2021. Apply here.
CRA-WP has renamed the Grad Cohort for URMD Workshop to the Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills – The IDEALS Workshop.
The ACM Prize in Computing recognizes an early to mid-career fundamental, innovative contribution in computing that exemplifies the greatest achievements in the discipline.
With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), NSF draws attention to the opportunity for supplemental funding to help researchers, who are confronted with a short-term increase in dependent care responsibilities, ensure that the research activities supported by an NSF award can continue.
The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Highlights series is now in its third year of featuring outstanding undergraduate researchers from universities across North America. It is one of the many CRA-E activities that supports the computing research pipeline by honoring undergraduate research and promoting graduate education and research careers in computing fields.
Each article describes the journey of a successful undergraduate researcher, from finding research opportunities to disseminating their work. The highlights series features students from the Finalists and Honorable Mentions of the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher competition, with the goal of offering guidance to the next generation of undergraduate researchers and to share how research has shaped their career aspirations. CRA-E chooses a diverse set of students for the highlights series to reflect the wide range of undergraduate institutions, research areas, and paths to research.
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.
Today CRA released its third set of 2020 Quadrennial Papers, part of a series of white papers produced though its subcommittees, exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Today’s release focused on papers around the themes of Socio-Technical Computing and Diversity & Education.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate just announced a new newsletter that will share “periodic updates about CISE and NSF broadly, including up-to-date information about [their] newest programs and activities.” The first newsletter released today highlights three recent major activities that the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its committees were heavily involved in.
As part of the rollout of the 2020 Computing Research Association’s (CRA) Quadrennial Papers, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to publish the second group of papers around “Broad Computer Science,” including papers on pandemic informatics, infrastructure for AI, High Performance Computing (HPC) and Quantum, robotics in the workforce and a new research ecosystem for secure computing. The Quadrennial Papers are intended to help inform the computing research community and those who craft science policy about opportunities in computing research to help address national priorities. As part of CCC’s contribution, in addition to the theme of Core Computer Science from last week, two more sets of Quadrennial Papers organized around the themes of Artificial Intelligence and Socio-Technical Computing will be released over the next several weeks.
Numerous events of 2020 have placed a national spotlight on the inequities and inequalities that are present in K-16 education and society at large. In this conversation, Dr. Nicki Washington discusses how her personal journey in computing influenced her research on identity in computing, including the development of her “Race, Gender, Class, and Computing” course and why “teaching is political.”
Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member William “Bill” Gropp has been voted IEEE Computer Society 2021 president-elect and will serve as president in 2022!
Today the Computing Research Association (CRA) released the first of more than a dozen planned white papers produced through its subcommittees, exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Called Quadrennial Papers, the white papers attempt to portray a broad picture of computing research detailing potential research directions, challenges, and recommendations for policymakers and the computing research community. The release of the 2020 Quadrennial Papers covers five thematic areas: Core Computer Science, Broad Computing, Socio-Technical Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Diversity & Education.
To identify and broadly engage the next generation of computer science researchers, the Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions (CAHSI), an NSF INCLUDES Alliance, piloted a national virtual Research Experience for Undergraduates (vREU) during the summer of 2020. Funded by an NSF RAPID grant, the pilot provided undergraduate research experiences for 50 students and 20 faculty drawn from 20 colleges and universities widely distributed throughout the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico. The program used the Affinity Research Group (ARG) model to guide faculty mentors throughout the experience. ARG is a CAHSI signature practice with a focus on deliberate, structured faculty and student research skills development. At weekly meetings, Drs. Morreale, Villa, and Gates discussed and provided resources for specific skills that were appropriate at a specific point in time of a student’s research experience. Faculty mentors put skills development into immediate practice throughout their summer research program.
Published online each fall, the CRA Academic Member Book highlights institutions that are member departments of CRA. Each academic member department is invited to submit a one page pdf about their department. Thanks to all the departments that took the time to prepare a submission.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) are calling upon the academic community to create and submit Departmental BPC Plans to BPCnet.org.
Departmental BPC Plans are important because they help departments:
reaffirm their commitment to equity and inclusion,
identify and organize their BPC related goals and activities,
and support PIs in their department who are submitting CISE proposals requiring a Project BPC Plan at the time of award.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) have named CRA Board Member Vivek Sarkar of Georgia Institute of Technology as the recipient of the 2020 ACM/IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. Sarkar is recognized for “foundational technical contributions to the area of programmability and productivity in parallel computing, as well as leadership contributions to professional service, mentoring, and teaching.”
The Computing Research Association (CRA) is hosting the third workshop in its series of Departmental BPC Plan workshops starting on October 29, 2020. All departments with faculty submitting CISE proposals are welcome to attend this workshop.
The structure for this workshop is as follows:
Presentation Day – October 29, 2020
Writing Day #1 – November 12, 2020 (optional)
Writing Day #2 – December 3, 2020 (optional)
On the presentation day, academic departments will learn about the NSF CISE requirements and expectations for BPC Plans. The workshop will also cover in-depth discussions on BPC Plan components and have BPC experts available for Q&A.
The two writing days are optional, but strongly encouraged. For each writing day, attendees will dedicate a few hours to writing a BPC plan with available assistance from BPC experts. Of importance, you are not required to attend the presentation day if you would like to attend the writing days. For example, previous workshop participants could use these days to further develop their drafts.
Click here to sign up for the workshop. The deadline to sign up for the presentation day is 11:59 pm (ET), October 25, 2020. Those signing up for the writing days only will be accepted on a rolling basis. All notifications and action items related to the workshop will be sent in advance.
The National Science Foundation is pleased to accept nominations for the 2021 Alan T. Waterman Award. Each year, the Foundation bestows the Waterman Award to recognize the talent, creativity, and influence of a singular young researcher. The award consists of a $1,000,000 prize, a medal, a certificate, and a trip to Washington, DC, to receive the award. For details about the Waterman Award’s history, the nomination procedure and the selection criteria please visit http://www.nsf.gov/od/waterman/waterman.jsp.
The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. It recognizes those 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.
Applications are now open for the 2020 CRA-WP Early and Mid-Career Mentoring Workshop! The purpose of the workshop is to provide historically underserved groups in computing research and education with support to further develop your career. Apply today to join sessions on career tracks in education, research and industry/government laboratories, participate in group mentoring, and build one-on-one mentoring relationships with senior researchers. Deadline: October 12.
CRA Board Member and CCC Chair Emeritus Mark D. Hill recently held a virtual presentation to CRA staff on “How Computing May Change Our World.” The talk is a great introduction on current topics facing computing and is approachable for audiences who do not have a computer science background. Much of the work discussed is based on visioning work Hill collaborated on when he was Chair of the CCC.
The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) recently published a webinar featuring the Data Buddies Survey (DBS). This webinar details some of the background of the Data Buddies Survey, tips for good response rates, benefits for participating departments, and requirements for participating departments. This webinar is designed for a broad audience, including prospective DBS participants. You can view the webinar by clicking here.
The 2020 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As has been our recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.
This past spring, when hiring practices were rapidly changing due to COVID-19, the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its Computing Community Consortium (CCC) launched the CIFellows 2020 program, with strong support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program aims to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent and soon-to-be PhD graduates in computing. This effort was inspired by the CRA/CCC’s NSF-funded Computing Innovation Fellows Programs with cohorts starting 2009, 2010, and 2011, which funded a total of 127 fellows after the 2008 recession.
Undergraduate computing departments have long suffered from issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). However, there has been, to date, no large-scale effort that focuses on addressing issues of systemic racism and bias that directly impact not only students from minoritized groups, but also faculty (as issues of race, gender, and intersectionality impact hiring, […]
Former CRA Board Member, Moshe Vardi from Rice University will present “Lessons from COVID-19: Efficiency vs Resilience,” as part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Distinguished Lecture series on September 17, 2020 from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM ET.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) 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 wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
For nearly 50 years, the Computing Research Association (CRA) has brought the leadership of the computing research community together every other year at Snowbird, UT to discuss community issues. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted our plans to hold an in-person event this year, just like it has disrupted much of our way of life, both professionally and personally. After canceling the in-person event, CRA quickly pivoted to provide the conference in an online format with specialized content addressing the current environment and challenges during these unprecedented times. CRA Board members Ran Libeskind-Hadas and James Allan stepped up as chair and co-chair of the Virtual Conference.
Conference sessions provided a community forum to share best practices for continuing to navigate the unpredictable challenges imposed during the coronavirus pandemic and addressing community issues around race, equity, and equality. The conference videos are now available here and lightning talk videos are available here.
The National Science Board (NSB) has named computer scientist and disability advocate Richard Ladner as the 2020 recipient of its Public Service Award. This award is granted to individuals and groups that have contributed substantially to increasing public understanding of science and engineering.
Recent trends such as increasing industry demands for technical talent from academia, as well as changes in the academic environment with increased industry interactions have prompted the need for a fresh look at the relationships between academia and industry. A CRA ad hoc committee on Industry/Academia Interactions was studied these trends and determined how CRA can have an impact.
CRA conducted two surveys about the COVID-19 disruption in summer 2020. CRA Director of Statistics and Evaluation Betsy Bizot recently presented these results at the ACM Education Advisory Committee Meeting.
CRA is sad to report that former CRA and CRA-W Board Member Frances “Fran” Allen passed away yesterday. Fran spent her career advancing the field of computing and inspired generations of technologists. She was a computing pioneer – the first woman to receive the A.M. Turing Award (2006) and the first woman to be named an IBM Fellow in 1989. Fran served as a speaker for CRA-W’s Discipline-Specific Mentoring program in 2008 and Career Mentoring Workshop in 2005.
Join the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT) this Friday, August 7 (1:30 – 2:30 pm CT) for a panel discussion examining racial injustice from the perspective of Black professionals in computing. Panelists will provide their stories of overcoming racial injustices to get to where they are today. They will also share advice and insights about systemic changes needed for equity and inclusion. Register here.
Eve Riskin from the University of Washington, recently received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM). Riskin is Associate Dean of Diversity and Access in the College of Engineering, Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Faculty Director of the ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change.
CRA has recently hired Colin Karnes as a research assistant for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). In this role, Colin supports CERP activities, as they relate to CERP’s research and administrative tasks.
Prior to joining CRA, Colin worked as a graduate research assistant at the Department of Public and Nonprofit Studies at Georgia Southern University. Colin holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Georgia Southern University (2019) and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences from the University at Buffalo (2014). He has experience in public education, nonprofit administration, and corporate governance. In his free time, Colin enjoys reading, volunteering, and exploring Washington, DC.
CRA is dedicated to creating an environment that is more welcoming, just, and equitable to all. In the Communications of the ACM article, “CS Teachers, It’s (Past) Time To Learn About Race,” Mark Guzdial encourages CS teachers to make changes to CS education that ensure everyone is welcome and supported.
In this workshop, academic departments will learn about the NSF CISE requirements and expectations for BPC Plans. The workshop will also cover in-depth discussions on BPC Plan components, have BPC experts available for Q&A, and provide time for departments to discuss ideas and make future plans. Following the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to receive additional feedback as they continue to develop and refine their plans.
AnitaB.org, The National Center for Women & Technology (NCWIT) and the STARS Computing Corps (STARS) are conducting a survey to understand the impact of the global pandemic on the conditions of work and educational environments related to computing and technical degree programs and professions. Through the Investigating Compounding Impacts of Racism & COVID-19 on Learning & Employment in Computing & Technology (CIRCLE-CT) Study, we are gathering responses from individuals across the computing and technical ecosystem including K-12 teachers; post-secondary program leaders, educators and students; and individuals in the computing and technical workforce and tech startup communities.
We invite you to participate in the 10-minute survey by clicking below. There will be no compensation for participating in this research study. However, with your consent, we will enter you in a drawing for one of four $50 Amazon gift cards or one of 45 $10 Amazon gift cards. For more information about this study, please contact the Principal Investigator, Dr. Quincy K. Brown, at QuincyB@AnitaB.org. The survey will be open until July 31.
Nominations are now open for the 2021 Microsoft Research Ada Lovelace Fellowship and Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship. Doctoral students must be nominated by the department chair’s office in their field of study by August 14, 2020. Students will then be contacted to submit their proposals by September 21, 2020.
Experts including computing researchers are prized by the federal government. With assignments in federal agencies, on Capitol Hill and in the judicial branch, AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellows (STPF) are on the front line of vital issues that impact society. The STPF fellowship program is the premier opportunity for outstanding scientists and engineers to learn first-hand about policymaking and contribute their STEM-informed perspective to American government.
CRA is dedicated to creating an environment that is more welcoming, just, and equitable to all. Many want to take action in this area but are not sure how. Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones wrote an article, “What Can CS Departments Do?” detailing a set of recommendations for computing departments to improve inclusiveness: Some of my recommendations […]
On Monday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) disclosed its intent to remove its current, temporary exemptions on F-1 and M-1 visas. The exemptions allowed students on visas to remain in the USA during the spring and summer even if they were taking all their classes online because of the pandemic. The removal of the exemptions would mean that any students on student visas who are not taking at least some classes in person will cease to be in compliance. Thus, if they are enrolled in colleges or universities that will move their fall classes online for safety of their community, those students would be forced to either (a) transfer to another institution where they must take classes in person, despite any health risk, or (b) leave the country. It also means that foreign students accepted for fall at those institutions will not be granted visas to enter the USA.
July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. We welcome four new members to our board of directors: Alex Aiken, Cindy Bethel, Liz Bradley and Fatma Özcan. Aiken, Bethel, and Özcan were elected earlier this year, and their terms run from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023. Also beginning July 1, Bradley replaces Mark Hill as the CCC Chair and representative on the board. Hill continues on the CRA board in an elected position.
Retiring from the board as of June 30, are Susan Davidson, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, and Barbara Ryder. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
To support departments developing a Departmental BPC Plan, the Computing Research Association (CRA) will host a series of workshops funded by NSF. The first two workshops in this series will be held virtually on July 13-14, 2020 and August 6-7, 2020.
These two workshops will present the same content on BPC plans, and include hands-on activities and real-time feedback for writing these plans. At the end of the workshop, the participants will have their own draft Departmental BPC Plan. Following the workshops, the participants will also have the opportunity to receive additional feedback as they continue to refine their BPC plans.
With this particularly challenging academic year coming to an end, and the upcoming NSF CISE program submissions, it is a good time to update everyone on the NSF CISE Pilot Program for Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plans. All Medium and Large CISE Core Programs, Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC), and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) project proposals require an approved BPC Plan by the time of award. CRA and NCWIT have led an effort to develop the BPCnet.org portal as a resource for the community to assist in developing Departmental BPC Plans and Individual BPC Plans.
You are invited to participate in the NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Proposal Writing Workshop, to be held as an interactive online meeting on Friday, September 18th from 1pm – 5pm EST. This event is intended for PIs working in CISE-relevant research areas planning on submitting an NRT proposal for the fiscal year 2021 competition.
The amount of pain and suffering we are witnessing and feeling is only a snapshot of a broader social reality. We, and everyone before us, have had a role in arriving at where we are today. As such, it is of paramount importance to step up and take a stance. It is our responsibility and a moral imperative to not stand by and simply witness the events around us. We must collectively find our voice and reject racism and inequality. Silence perpetuates, doubt reinforces, and rationalization of incident after incident only compounds the pain so many in our society continue to endure.
Important notice to all applicants: the application deadline has been extended by 5 days to Wednesday, June 17, 2020 at 11:59 pm EDT in recognition of the unrest and protests across the nation. If possible, please try to begin your application through Task 2, Academic Information, by the initial deadline of June 12, 2020 at 11:59 pm EDT.
CRA-WP is honored to present the recipients of the inaugural Skip Ellis Early Career Award and the 2020 Anita Borg Early Career Award. Tawanna Dillahunt of the University of Michigan and Michel A. Kinsy of Boston University have been selected as the Skip Ellis Early Career Award recipients. Olga Russakovsky of Princeton University has been selected as the Anita Borg Early Career Award recipient.
Applications are now open for the Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Program for 2020.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) recently announced the election of new officers and members at large. CRA Board Member and Vice Chair Nancy M. Amato has been elected for a four-year Member-at-Large term. She will serve from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2024. Additionally, CCC Council Member Elisa Bertino has been elected Secretary/Treasurer of ACM for a two-year term from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020. Bertino is the Samuel D. Conte Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University.
After twelve years of sustained growth in undergraduate enrollment, there may be signs of a slowdown in that there are, on average, fewer new undergraduate majors in 2019-20 than there were in 2018-19. Nevertheless, the average number of CS majors continued its rise in 2018-19, both in U.S. CS departments and overall.
The following is a letter to the community from Margaret Martonosi (Assistant Director) and Erwin Gianchandani (Deputy Assistant Director) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE). The CCC announced the CIFellows 2020 project last week and highlighted the upcoming 5/26 webinar earlier this week.
We will be hosting a one-hour CIFellow 2020 Informational Webinar on Tuesday, May 26th at 3:00PM ET. There will be a brief 10-minute presentation on the program, followed by a Q&A. Presenters will be CCC Chair Mark D. Hill and CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura. Please register for the webinar here. Please note that the webinar will be recorded and posted on the CIFellow 2020 webpageafter the event.
Congratulations to CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura (Georgia Tech) for being appointed a Regents’ Professor by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. Regents’ Professorships are granted to outstanding tenured, full professors, based on excellence in research and contributions to their profession and to Georgia Tech.
Vijay Kumar from the University of Pennsylvania has been selected as the recipient of the prestigious 2020 IEEE Robotics and Automation Technical Field Award. He was honored for “Contributions to cooperative robotics; networked mobile manipulation systems, particularly unmanned aerial vehicles; and leadership in robotics research, policy, and education.” CRA provided funding support to Kumar when he spent a year at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Obama administration.
ACM has announced a special category of the ACM Gordon Bell Prize to recognize outstanding research achievements that use high performance computing applications to understand and combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the ACM Gordon Bell Special Prize for High Performance Computing-Based COVID-19 Research. Financial support of the $10,000 cash prize that accompanies the award is provided by Gordon Bell, a pioneer in high performance computing and parallel computing.
In advance of the 2019 CRA Taulbee Report, which will be published in the May 2020 issue of CRN next week, we’d like to share a preview of the degree, enrollment, faculty and diversity numbers for bachelor’s and doctoral level programs in the departments responding to the survey.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) have come together to launch a conference series on the Foundations of Data Science. The inaugural event, the ACM-IMS Interdisciplinary Summit on the Foundations of Data Science, took place in San Francisco in 2019. Starting in 2020, they will have an annual […]
The Computing Research Association extends a heartfelt congratulations to former board member and CRA-W Co-Chair Leah H. Jamieson for receiving the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal to honor her “contributions to the promotion, innovation, and inclusivity of engineering education.”
Recently, the National Academy of Sciences announced the election of 120 members and 26 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. One of the newly elected members is Jennifer Rexford, who is a Computing Community Consortium Council member and former CRA board member.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) invites the academic computing community to complete a brief survey about the broadening participation in computing (BPC) plans required for proposals submitted to some programs of the NSF CISE Directorate.
After careful consideration of the current and projected situation surrounding the pandemic, CRA’s 2020 Conference at Snowbird planning committee has unfortunately decided to cancel the in-person conference scheduled to take place at Snowbird, Utah, July 21-23, 2020.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is aware of the disruption to undergraduate employment and education opportunities caused by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. We understand that many internships are being canceled, leaving students without expected opportunities this Summer. The Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) previously issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL; NSF 20-016) expressing interest in funding supplements to active CISE awards for Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), consistent with NSF’s REU Sites and Supplements solicitation (NSF 19-582). In light of COVID-19, and to enable the CISE research community to provide additional opportunities to engage undergraduates who are US citizens and permanent residents in research pathways, CISE reiterates this interest via this DCL.
The American Academy of Arts& Sciences recently announced that more than 250 outstanding individuals have been elected to the Academy in 2020. Three former CRA board members and a council member were among those honored.
Daniela Rus, a former Computing Community Consortium Council member, has been appointed to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
From my calendar, March 4, 2020: Working on a Mobicom submission, meeting a faculty candidate one-on-one, meeting with two students for an ongoing research project, meeting with the undergraduate lead for the Bits of Good student organization, talking by phone to a department chair about a two-body opportunity. Anticipating my younger daughter coming home for spring break. Going to yoga.
4 weeks later: BlueJeans presentations by three project participants, BlueJeans faculty candidate talk, Skype research meeting with two students on same ongoing research project, Zoom call about CRA strategic planning, BlueJeans student presentation for Bits of Good organization, one more BlueJeans meeting. Daughter is home for good. Yoga by YouTube.
Much is the same. Surprisingly much is the same. But also everything is different.
CRA-WP is excited to announce that the deadline for the 2020 CRA-WP GHC Research Scholars has been extended to May 15, 2020.
Encourage an undergraduate student to apply for an opportunity to attend the 2020 Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC 20)!
Program Description: This CRA-WP program provides guidance to research-interested undergraduate women to navigate the vast offerings at the Grace Hopper Celebration Conference (GHC) and opportunities to meet and interact with students and mentors with similar interests in small-group settings. The program will include gatherings on the first and last days of GHC, as well as research-focused activities that all Research Scholars will be required to attend.
CRA members have elected three new members to its Board of Directors: Alex Aiken, Cindy Bethel and Fatma Özcan. Nancy Amato, Carla Brodley, Dan Grossman and Kim Hazelwood were re-elected to the CRA board. Mary Hall and Mark Hill, who held non-elected positions on the board, have also been elected. All of their terms run from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023. CRA would like to thank everyone who agreed to run this year.
There have also been changes to the appointed members to the board. Kathleen Fisher has been appointed the new ACM representative, replacing Mary Hall and joining Alexander Wolf. Beginning July 1, Liz Bradley will replace Mark Hill as the CCC Chair and representative on the board.
Retiring from the board as of June 30, are Susan Davidson, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, and Barbara Ryder. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
Submissions are now open for an international program of graduate fellowships in computational and data science. The ACM SIGHPC Computational and Data Science Fellowships were created to increase the diversity of students pursuing graduate degrees in data science and computational science, including women as well as students from racial/ethnic backgrounds that have not traditionally participated in the computing field. The program will support students pursuing degrees at institutions anywhere in the world.
ACM has opened the ACM Digital Library to all. For the next three months, there will be no fees assessed for accessing or downloading work published by ACM.
CRA has recently hired Maddy Hunter as a program associate for the Computing Community Consortium (CCC). In this role, she supports CCC staff and council members by handling administrative and logistical matters surrounding meetings, conferences and workshops.
CRA continues to monitor the situation concerning COVID-19 and its potential impact on our upcoming CRA’s Conference at Snowbird, July 21-23, 2020. At the moment, the circumstances remain too uncertain for us to make any decisions about whether the conference will take place as planned.
The Computing Research Association today announced it has selected the CARES movement – the Committee to Aid Reporting on Discrimination and Harassment Policy Violations – as the recipient of the 2020 CRA Distinguished Service Award for positively transforming the computing research community rapidly and fundamentally. CARES provides a resource for helping people experiencing issues related to discrimination, harassment, or bullying.
Today ACM named Patrick M. (Pat) Hanrahan and Edwin E. (Ed) Catmull recipients of the 2019 ACM A.M. Turing Award. They are recognized for fundamental contributions to 3-D computer graphics, and the revolutionary impact of these techniques on computer-generated imagery (CGI) in filmmaking and other applications.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor the CRA Taulbee Survey with the 2020 Service to CRA Award in recognition of 50 years of providing an invaluable resource to CRA as well as to the computing community.
The Computing Research Association today announced Carla Ellis as the recipient of the 2020 CRA A. Nico Habermann Award. For more than 30 years, Ellis has worked tirelessly to address diversity at all stages of the computing education pipeline. She has contributed significantly to initiatives and organizations dedicated to increasing participation of women and under-represented groups in computing research, including Systers, the CRA Committee on Widening Participation (CRA-WP), and the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT).
CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected two 2020 CRA-E Graduate Fellows – Ian Ludden from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Jean Salac from the University of Chicago.
The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 6, 2020. This workshop will be held at the new headquarters of the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, VA. 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 (CCF, CNS, IIS and OAC) and recent NSF CAREER awardees. The workshop is also open to multidisciplinary researchers with a CISE-specific focus, including cyber-infrastructure. The workshop includes presentations and discussions on proposal preparation, experience sharing, a mock panel, and meetings with Program Directors from various research programs within CISE. In order to attend this event, registration is required on or before March 2, 2020. For more information and to register, please visit: https://cisecareerworkshop.web.unc.edu/
CRA is pleased to announce the 2020 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition. Petition nominations must be signed by the Designated Voting Representatives of at least five Constituent Member Organizations that are current in dues payment.
By Meredith Ringel Morris, Sr. Principal Researcher & MSR Dissertation Grant Chair We are currently accepting proposals for the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant through March 30, 2020. You can read more about the grant and find instructions to submit a proposal at http://aka.ms/Dissertation-Grant. We encourage you to share this announcement within your communities either directly with your […]
Recently, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced it has elected 87 new members and 18 international members. Among those elected were two former CRA board members: Joel Emer from NVIDIA and former NSF CISE AD Jim Kurose. Congratulations to all members of the computing community who were recognized.
The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2020 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Lenore Cowen from Tufts University and Samir Khuller from Northwestern University.
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.
Leila De Floriani has been appointed to serve as one of the two IEEE-CS representatives on the CRA board of directors. De Floriani joins Greg Byrd and replaces David Ebert on the board. CRA would like to thank Ebert for his contributions during his term of service on the board.
CRA Director of Programs Erik Russell was recently announced the winner of the AccessComputing 2019 Capacity Building Award. The award recognizes individuals whose work and accomplishments have changed the way the world views people with disabilities and their potential to succeed in challenging computing careers and activities.
The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting nominations for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides 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.
This work uses the same methodology as previous work to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised faculty searches for the current hiring season. While the number of 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.
Alexander Wolf has been appointed to serve as one of the two ACM representatives on the CRA board of directors. Wolf joins Mary Hall and replaces Andrew Sears on the board. CRA would like to thank Sears for his contributions during his term of service on the board.
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2020 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.
The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce its newest award, the Skip Ellis Early Career Award, which will recognize outstanding scientists and engineers with exceptional potential for leadership in computing. The award joins the Anita Borg Early Career Award for Women in advancing excellence and equal opportunity in computing research. Nominations for the inaugural Skip Ellis Early Career Award are now open and will close on February 15.
The ACM recently named 58 of its members as ACM Fellows for wide-ranging and fundamental contributions in areas including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, combating cybercrime, quantum computing and wireless networking. CCC Council and CRA-WP Board Member Maria L. Gini, former CRA Board Member Lise Getoor, and former CCC Council Members Elizabeth F. Churchill and Robin R. Murphy were among those honored.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2019 elected Fellows. The Fellows are recognized with this lifetime honor for their extraordinary achievements in advancing science. Fellows are elected annually by the AAAS Council from the list of approved nominations from the Section Steering Groups. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows to the Section on Information, Computing & Communication.
The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Pre‐Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2020. The event will be held on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 from 8:30 AM- 4:00 PM. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.
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.
The biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird is the flagship invitation-only conference for the leadership of the North American computing research community. The upcoming conference will be held July 21-23, 2020 in Snowbird, Utah. The New Chairs Workshop will take place on July 21, 2020.
Gathering data on scientific collections at risk in Ukraine
In: Research /The US Department of State, the Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections (IWGSC), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI) are working together to help identify, and where possible assist with efforts to save/protect priceless Ukrainian archival, cultural, and scientific collections under threat.
CRA-E REU Support Program Survey
In: Featured Announcements, Education /CRA-E is asking members of the community who mentor or plan to mentor undergraduate researchers, to complete this brief survey (2 required questions). Feedback will allow us to better adapt the program to different needs and audiences. For your feedback to have maximum impact, please complete the survey by June 10, 2022.
Department of Commerce’s New National AI Advisory Committee Members Announced
In: Featured Announcements, People /Recently, the Department of Commerce announced the appointment of 27 experts to the new National AI Advisory Committee (NAIAC). Among them were several individuals affiliated with CRA.
CRA Board Member Carla Brodley Receives the 2021 ACM Frances E. Allen Award for Outstanding Mentoring
In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards, CRA-WP /ACM has named Carla E. Brodley the recipient of the inaugural ACM Frances E. Allen Award for Outstanding Mentoring. She is recognized for significant personal mentorship and leadership in creating systemic programs that have increased diversity in computer science by creating mentoring opportunities for thousands at Northeastern and other universities across the United States. Brodley is a member of the CRA Board and former member of the CRA-WP Board.
Best Practices on Using the Cloud for Computing Research Workshop
In: CRA, Industry /The Computing Research Association’s newest committee, Computing Research Association-Industry, held their first workshop at the end of March on Best Practices on Using the Cloud for Computing Research. It brought together 30 participants in a hybrid format in Washington, DC from industry, academia, and government. This workshop was based off of a very successful September 2021 roundtable event, in which over 50 members of the community attended. The goal of the workshop was to continue the momentum from the roundtable and identify best practices on using the cloud for computing research in three different areas, education, collaboration, and research.
In Memoriam: Former CRA Board Member and CRA-WP Co-Chair Andrea Danyluk
In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA-WP /CRA is sad to announce that on March 3, 2022, Andrea Pohoreckyj Danyluk passed away at age 59 after a hard-fought battle with pancreatic cancer. The CRA community is deeply saddened by the loss of an amazing mentor, friend, and champion for diversity. She was family to many of her former students, colleagues, and friends. Through trying times, Danyluk calmly navigated the group forward, making time and space for people to voice their opinions and concerns. In recognition of her successful and impactful efforts to build inclusive and diverse communities in computing, the Computing Research Association selected Andrea Danyluk as the recipient of the 2022 CRA A. Nico Habermann Award. Andrea profoundly impacted the lives of her family, friends, students, and colleagues. She will forever be remembered for her warm spirit, boundless energy, and infectious laughter.
Virtual Roundtable on Building Stronger Regional Academia-Industry-Government Computing Research Partnerships
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Industry /The Computing Research Association-Industry Committee is delighted to announce an upcoming virtual Roundtable on Building Stronger Regional Academia-Industry-Government Computing Research Partnerships on Wednesday, April 27th from 3:00-4:30 PM ET. Regional hotspots for innovative and high impact computing research, including the Boston area and Silicon Valley, are iconic. But how did these regions develop as they did and what are key elements in the collaboration between academia, industry, and government that make them successful?
In this roundtable, CRA-Industry will convene computing research partners across academia, industry, and government from Atlanta, Georgia to understand elements of successful approaches and to discuss the value of partnerships and best practices leading to success.
Confirmed speakers include Erwin Gianchandani (National Science Foundation Senior Advisor for Translation, Innovation, and Partnerships), Charles Isbell (Dean of Computing and The John P. Imlay Jr. Chair at Georgia Tech), Phyllis Schneck (Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer for Northrop Grumman) and Peter M. Williams (Director of Community Strategy & Engagement for BlackRock Atlanta). Read more about them here.
Please register here if you are interested in joining the webinar.
CSGrad4US: Second Year Call for NSF Fellowship Opportunity for CS Bachelor’s/Master’s Degree Holders to Return for PhD
In: Featured Announcements, Funding, For Students /The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate has announced the second year of the CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship program. Goal and Motivation To increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields. The fellowship program, which will provide 3-year fellowship opportunities for […]
Faculty Startups and Corporate External Research
In: Featured Announcements, Industry /Chris Ramming, Senior Director of Research and Innovation at VMware, CRA Board member, and Computing Research Association-Industry Steering Committee member, recently presented on Faculty Startups and Corporate External Research during Innov8rs Connect’s Startup Collaboration & Ecosystem Engagement February 15-17, 2022 event.
2022 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop
In: Featured Announcements, Career Mentoring Workshop /CRA hosted the 2022 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop in person on February 24-25 in Washington, DC. More than 120 participants engaged in a variety of panels and mentoring activities with senior researchers, including several CRA board members, and representatives from government agencies.
Eugene Spafford Appointed to the CRA Board of Directors
In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors /Eugene H. Spafford Appointed to the CRA Board of Directors
CMD-IT 2022 Academic Careers Workshop: Applications Due April 4
In: Diversity, Mentoring, Opportunities /The Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Computing and Information Technology (CMD-IT) 2022 Academic Careers Workshop will be held in person, June 9-12 in Chicago, IL.
NSF CISE CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop 2022
In: Featured Announcements, Funding, NSF /The National Science Foundation’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) will hold a virtual CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop on Zoom April 4-5, 2022. Register here.
Katherine Yelick Receives the 2022 CRA Distinguished Service Award
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, Distinguished Service /The Computing Research Association today announced it has selected Katherine Yelick, the Robert S. Pepper Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, as the recipient of the 2022 CRA Distinguished Service Award for her outstanding and sustained service contributions to the computing research community.
CRA and CCC Welcome Program Associate Catherine Gill
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CCC /The Computing Research Association recently hired Catherine Gill as a Program Associate for the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) subcommittee.
CRA Education Committee Selects New Graduate Fellow – Yasra Chandio
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Education /CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2022 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Yasra Chandio from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
CRA and CCC Welcome Program Associate Haley Griffin
In: Featured Announcements, People, CCC /The Computing Research Association recently hired Haley Griffin as a Program Associate for the CCC subcommittee. In this role, she will support the CCC mission by facilitating workshops, completing administrative tasks, and assisting with communications deliverables.
Darko Marinov and Jelani Nelson Receive the 2022 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
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 2022 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Darko Marinov from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Jelani Nelson from the University of California Berkeley.
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.
CRA-Industry Launches New Website and Logo
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Industry /The Computing Research Association’s newly formed Industry Committee (CRA-I) is pleased to announce the release of our new logo and website.
CRA-I was created in the Fall of 2020 with the goal of reaching out to industry partners involved in computing research and giving them new opportunities to convene and connect on topics of mutual interest with academia and government.
Call for Nominations: The National Medal of Science
In: Awards, NSF /The National Science Foundation is currently seeking nominations for the National Medal of Science (NMS), the highest recognition the nation can bestow on scientists and engineers.
Congratulations to New Members of the National Academy of Engineering
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /Congratulations to all members of the computing community who were recognized.
2022 CRA Board of Directors Election Slate; Petition Nominees Sought
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /CRA is pleased to announce the 2022 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition, which are due by February 28.
CRA Directors Erik Russell and Burçin Tamer featured on the Modern Figures Podcast
In: Featured Announcements, People, Taulbee, Diversity, CERP, CRA-WP /CRA Directors Erik Russell and Burçin Tamer share inspiring stories of CRA broadening computing efforts on the Modern Figures Podcast.
Webinar on How to Improve Diversity and Inclusion in the Systems and Networking Community: February 2
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity /On Wednesday, February 2 at 8 AM PST the Networking Channel will host a webinar titled, “How can we improve diversity and inclusion in the systems and networking community?”
NSF Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Challenge – $200K in prizes available
In: Funding /The Taking Action: COVID-19 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Challenge is accepting submissions until the deadline of January 31, 2022.
The Last Mile Fellowship to Broaden Computing-Related REU Participation
In: Funding /The Last Mile Education Fund is offering $10,000 fellowships to low-income students from underrepresented groups who are participating in a computing-related Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) during Summer 2022.
Congratulations to Newly Elevated IEEE Fellows
In: Featured Announcements, People /The IEEE recently announced the 2022 newly elevated Fellows. Among them are several individuals involved with CRA.
2021 AAAS Fellows Announced
In: Featured Announcements, People /The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2021 Fellows. The honor recognizes diverse accomplishments, including pioneering research, leadership within a given field, teaching and mentoring, fostering collaborations and advancing public understanding of science.
2022 CRA Conference at Snowbird Update
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /This year’s CRA Conference at Snowbird will explore the tremendous opportunities for computing research to dramatically benefit the human condition, as well as the related responsibility for computing research to consider the risks inherent in the work we do. Ensuring socially responsible intentions and practices is critical to realizing the future potential of computing research.
Congratulations to the 2021 ACM Fellows!
In: Featured Announcements, People, ACM /The ACM recently named 71 of its members as ACM Fellows for wide-ranging and fundamental contributions in areas including algorithms, computer science education, cryptography, data security and privacy, medical informatics, and mobile and networked systems ─ among many other areas. The accomplishments of the 2021 ACM Fellows underpin important innovations that shape the technologies we use every day.
Congratulations to Maria Gini – 2022 ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award Winner
In: People, Awards /CCC Council Member and CRA-WP Board Member Maria Gini was recently named the recipient of the 2022 ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award, one of the major SIGAI awards.
Announcements from CRA-WP
In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards, CRA-WP /Congratulations to both of the CRA-WP Co-Chairs!
CCC Program Associate Position Openings
In: Featured Announcements, CCC /The Computing Research Association (CRA) seeks two highly-motivated individuals to join its staff as Program Associate or Senior Program Associate (depending on qualifications and experience). The positions involve work primarily with CRA’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC) subcommittee, which aims to catalyze the computing research community to pursue innovative, high-impact research. The CCC is run as a cooperative agreement between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and CRA.
CRA-E 2022 SIGCSE TS Pre‐Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty
In: Featured Announcements, Education /The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Pre-Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2022. The event will be held on Wednesday, March 2, 2022 from 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM EST. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.
Senior Program Associate Khari Douglas Leaves the CCC
In: People, CCC /Senior Program Associate Khari Douglas is leaving the CRA and the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) after six years.
NCWIT Nominations Open for Distinguished Faculty Members, Educators, and Staff
In: CRA, Awards /The NCWIT Academic Alliance recently announced that nominations are open for two NCWIT Higher Education Recognitions: the Joanne McGrath Cohoon Service Award and
the Harrold and Notkin Research and Graduate Mentoring Award.
2022 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Recipients
In: Featured Announcements, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /Congratulations to the recipients of the 2022 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 created papers for major conferences, as well as producing software, apps and algorithms.
Tracy Camp Named Computing Research Association Executive Director
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, CRA Board of Directors, CRA-WP, Education /The Computing Research Association recently announced Dr. Tracy Camp will become its next Executive Director starting July 1, 2022. Camp is currently the Department Head of Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines. She brings to the role strong experience as a leader in the computing research community at the national level, a history spearheading diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in computing, and a detailed vision for leading the organization into the future.
Nominations Open for the 2022 CRA-WP Early Career Awards
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards, CRA-WP /CRA-WP welcomes your nominations for the Early Career Awards honoring Anita Borg and Clarence “Skip” Ellis. Nominations are due February 15, 2022, at 11:59 PM ET.
Learn more about the award eligibility and the nomination process: https://cra.org/cra/cra-wp/early-career-awards
Technology Leaders Create Endowed Professorship Fund at University of Washington in Honor of Former CRA and CCC Chair Ed Lazowska
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People, CCC /The University of Washington (UW) Allen School recently shared the story behind the creation of a new professorship honoring Ed Lazowska in recognition of his incredible impact on the computing research community. The Endowed Professorship in Computer Science & Engineering in Honor of Edward D. Lazowska was the brainchild of Peter Lee of Microsoft and […]
Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2022
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /This work uses the same methodology applied over eight years to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised tenure-track searches for the current hiring season. This work also provides an opportunity to continue to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty hiring in Computer Science for hires starting in 2022.
We analyzed ads from 400 institutions seeking to fill hundreds of tenure-track faculty positions in Computer Science. This number is a 70% increase from last year at this time (mid-November) and is a comparable number to the 394 institutions searching for 2020. The number of tenure-track positions sought is doubled from last year and up 6% from two years ago indicating a recovery in demand after a one-year drop due to the pandemic. The number of BS/BA institutions seeking faculty is at an eight-year high with top PhD and private PhD institutions at eight-year highs in the number of positions being sought.
NITRD 30th Anniversary Commemoration
In: Featured Announcements, CCC /Join us on Thursday, December 2, 2021, at 12pm EST for a special virtual event marking the 30th anniversary of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program. For three decades, the NITRD program has coordinated federal investment at the frontiers of computing, networking, data, and software, leading to many of the breakthrough information technologies that define our lives today, like the modern Internet as well as 4G, LTE, and 5G wireless networks, expanding access to broadband connectivity, information, and other resources; vehicle-to-vehicle communication, enhancing driver safety and reducing traffic congestion; and machine learning and predictive modeling, advancing understanding of human diseases like COVID-19 leading to therapeutics.
CRA-E Webinar Available: The Ph.D. in CS – Getting There and Being Successful
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Education /Members of the CRA-Education Committee hosted a webinar titled “The Ph.D. in CS: Getting There and Being Successful.” The webinar is designed to help undergraduates evaluate whether a Ph.D. program is right for them, and how to determine which program is a great fit.
Candidates Sought for CRA Board of Directors
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /The Computing Research Association seeks your help in recruiting candidates for its Board of Directors. We want individuals who have 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. Candidates may nominate themselves by completing this form. The deadline for receipt of nominations is December 17, 2021.
2021 CRA Academic Member Book Released
In: Featured Announcements /Published online each fall, the CRA Academic Member Book highlights institutions that are member departments of CRA. Each academic member department is invited to submit a one page pdf about their department. Thanks to all the departments that took the time to prepare a submission.
This year’s book is available at: https://cra.org/cra/2021-Member-Book
Register for This Year’s Final Departmental BPC Plan Working Session: November 18
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Diversity, NSF, CERP, For Researchers /BPCnet.org will be hosting its last working session for this year on Thursday, November 18th, 2021, from 3:00 PM- 5:00 PM ET.
BPCnet.org Releases New Tool in the Statistics and Data Hub
In: NSF, CERP, For Researchers /BPCnet.org has a new Statistics and Data Hub resource update that allows users to access publicly available computing-specific data.
2022 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop – Applications Open
In: Featured Announcements, Career Mentoring Workshop /The Computing Research Association will offer an in-person Career Mentoring Workshop, February 24-25, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
Click here to apply. The workshop application deadline is December 10, 2021.
Nominations Open for CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Awards, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2022 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program Accepting Nominations
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, For Students, Education, Opportunities /The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting nominations for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program.
Best Practices on Using the Cloud for Computing Research
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Best Practices, For Researchers, Industry /In September 2021, CRA-I held its second roundtable focused on Best Practices on using the Cloud for Computing Research.
Third National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Task Force Meeting and CCC Response to the NAIRR Implementation Plan
In: Featured Announcements, Research, Policy, Industry, CCC /The CCC, Computing Research Association-Industry (CRA-I), and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) submitted a joint response to the NAIRR Implementation Plan.
CRA and CERP Welcome Roohia Meer
In: Featured Announcements, People, CERP /CRA has recently hired Roohia Meer as a program assistant for the Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). She supports CERP’s efforts aimed at broadening participation in computing research and education.
CRA-WP 2022 Distributed Research Experience for Undergraduates (DREU) – Applications Open!
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Mentoring, CRA-WP, Opportunities /DREU interns have the opportunity to be directly involved in a research project and interact with graduate students and professors on a daily basis. This experience is invaluable for those who are considering graduate school; DREU will provide a close-up view of what graduate school is really like and increase interns’ competitiveness as an applicant for graduate admissions and fellowships. Faculty mentors will have the opportunity to work on their research project with new students from other institutions and to mentor future graduate students.
Attend Upcoming Departmental BPC Plan Working Sessions from BPCnet.org
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Diversity, CERP, Opportunities /The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE) announced an updated Core Programs solicitation (NSF 21-616) with new guidelines for submitting Project Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plans.
Applications Now Open for the MGB-SIAM Early-Career Fellowship
In: Funding, Awards, For Researchers, Opportunities /Applications are now open for the MGB-SIAM Early Career (MSEC) Fellowship. The MSEC Fellowship recognizes the achievements of early career applied mathematicians – particularly those belonging to racial and ethnic groups historically excluded from the mathematical sciences in the United States – and provides support for professional activities and career development.
CRA’s CV Database Initiative Turns Three
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, For Students, Opportunities /The CRA CV Database is now open for applications for the 2021-22 recruiting season. It can be accessed through https://cra.org/cra/cv-database/. Candidates will be able to upload their resumes, research and teaching statements, job objectives and other preferences, and a link to a short presentation video. Recruiters will be able to search this information and are encouraged to contact candidates starting mid-November.
Nominations Open for 2022 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, Awards, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award, Opportunities /The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored.
2022 CRA-WP Graduate Cohort Workshops – Applications Open!
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, CRA-WP, Opportunities /CRA-WP will host two Graduate Cohort Workshops in 2022. The Grad Cohort Workshop for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills (GC-IDEALS) is designed specifically for graduate school populations underrepresented in computing research. The Grad Cohort Workshop for Women (GC-Women) is designed for women students in their first, second, or third year of graduate school […]
CRA-WP Programs Highlighted in Open Access Government Article
In: Featured Announcements, NSF, CRA-WP /NSF highlighted CRA-WP resources in an article recently published in Open Access Government. The article “Computing, Communication & Information Systems,” authored by Nina Amla with Joydip Kundu and Fernanda Pembleton from NSF CISE shared the mission and major themes supported by the CISE Directorate.
Taulbee, Talent, and Trends: CRA Session at Upcoming DOE ASCAC Meeting
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee, Diversity, CERP, CRA-WP /CRA will be represented during the upcoming DOE Advanced Scientific Computing Advisory Committee (ASCAC) meeting. Attend CRA session “Taulbee, Talent, and Trends” from 1:00-1:45 PM ET on September 30, 2021.
Expanding the Pipeline: Celebrating 10 Years of the CRA Data Buddies Project
In: Featured Announcements, CERP, Data Buddies /The Data Buddies Project has been running strong since 2010. This article dives into some of the history of the Data Buddies Project and CERP while also highlighting the project over the years. The article concludes with a look into how the project operates today.
CRA Taulbee Survey Announcement
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee Announcements /The 2020 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As has been our recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.
Taulbee Schedule
The Taulbee Survey is open to all academic units that grant doctorates in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or Information. If you have any questions, contact Betsy Bizot at bizot@cra.org/cra
Nominations Open for 2022 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /The Computing Research Association (CRA) 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 wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
CRA Executive Director Andrew Bernat Retires After Nearly Two Decades of Leadership
In: Featured Announcements, People /After nearly 20 years at the helm of the Computing Research Association, Executive Director Andrew Bernat has retired from his position, marking the close of his incredible career that has spanned more than 40 years. Over the course of his career, he was founding member and chair of the Computer Science Department at the University of Texas at El Paso, a NSF Program Director and finally executive director of CRA since 2002. Under his leadership the association has seen a dramatic, positive transformation, more than tripling in size and launching significant new efforts in research visioning, widening participation, and postgraduate support, while remaining the organization of record for computing research issues in Washington policy circles.
CRA-Industry Virtual Roundtable on Best Practices on Using the Cloud for Computing Research – September 15
In: Featured Announcements, Research, Industry /The CRA-Industry Committee invites you to attend the Virtual Roundtable on Best Practices on using the Cloud for Computing Research on September 15.
CERP to Support New NSF INCLUDES Alliance Focused on Increasing Equity and Broadening Participation in STEM
In: Featured Announcements, NSF, CERP /The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) will support one of the new INCLUDES Alliances as a consultant representing BPCnet.org, a clearinghouse for the community to learn about and engage with ongoing projects to address underrepresentation in Computing. Through this collaboration, CERP will work to expand the BPCnet.org Statistics and Data Hub, an online tool that currently provides computing-related data at the K-12 and postsecondary levels.
CISE Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program Webinar
In: Research, Mentoring, NSF, CERP /Consider registering for NSF’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program solicitation webinar on August 6th, 2021 starting at 12:00 pm ET.
CRA-Industry Senior Program Associate Position Open
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Opportunities, Industry /The Computing Research Association (CRA) seeks a full-time employee to join our team as a Senior Program Associate for the CRA Industry standing committee (CRA-Industry). CRA-Industry is a newly formed standing committee that convenes industry partners on computing research topics of mutual interest and connects our partners with CRA’s academic and government constituents for mutual […]
CRA/CERP Program Assistant Position Open
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CERP, Opportunities /The Computing Research Association (CRA) seeks a full-time employee to join our team as a Program Assistant working with the CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). The following description outlines the general nature of this position and is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities and skills necessary for this […]
CERP Receives Contract with NSF CISE to Evaluate REU Programs
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, NSF, CERP /Recently, CERP was contracted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) to evaluate the CISE Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program, starting spring of 2022. For more information, visit https://cra.org/cra/cerp/cerp-reu-evaluation/
Announcing the 2021 Computing Innovation Fellows
In: Featured Announcements, Funding, NSF, Computing Innovation Fellows /This past spring, the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its Computing Community Consortium (CCC) announced funding for a cohort of Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) for 2021, with strong support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program sponsors two-year postdoctoral research positions in computing, as well as career development and cohort building activities, to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent Ph.D. graduates. The program aims to address the continued disruption in hiring practices at academic institutions due to COVID-19.
CRA Launches Opportunity Board to Assist with Postdoc and Mentor Matching
In: Featured Announcements, Funding, For Students, Mentoring /The CRA is excited to announce the launch of an Opportunity Board to enable recent new PhD graduates and members of the community that are looking for postdocs to connect. This is a continuation of the Opportunity Board used to match potential postdocs and mentors during the CIFellows 2021 process. The board allows for the posting of post doc opportunities by potential mentors and posts by those looking for a postdoc opportunity. We encourage members of the community to use this as a resource.
Register Today for CRA-Industry Committee Virtual Roundtable: July 14
In: CRA /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!
CRA-E Announces Four New Committee Members
In: Featured Announcements, Education /The CRA Education Committee (CRA-E) recently welcomed four new members to the committee: Janet Davis, Gary Holness, Victoria Interrante, and Brandon Myers. Christine Alvarado (University of California, San Diego) and Ran Libeskind-Hadas (Claremont McKenna College) will be leaving the committee after its August board meeting. Christine has served on the board from 2017-2021, and Ran co-founded the committee, serving as co-chair from 2011-2017 and board member from 2011-2021. Both have contributed significantly to the mission of CRA-E with work on various projects and awards. CRA-E thanks them both for contributions during their service on the committee.
CRA Welcomes New Board Leadership, Board Members
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /In February, the CRA board of directors elected board officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2021. Nancy Amato is chair; Dan Grossman is vice-chair; Ran Libeskind-Hadas is secretary; and James Allan is treasurer. Today, CRA welcomes three new members to its board of directors: Diana Franklin, Eve Schooler and Katie Siek. Their terms run from July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2024.
Registration Open for First CRA-Industry Committee Virtual Roundtable: Corporate Responsibility and Computing Research
In: Featured Announcements, Opportunities, Industry /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!
Margaret Martonosi Receives the 2021 ACM/IEEE-CS Eckert-Mauchly Award
In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards /The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society recently announced that former CRA and CRA-WP Board Member Margaret Martonosi is the recipient of the 2021 Eckert-Mauchly Award. She was cited for contributions to the design, modeling, and verification of power-efficient computer architecture. The Eckert-Mauchly Award is known as the computer architecture community’s most prestigious award
CRA-WP Presents the 2021 CRA-WP Early Career Awards Honoring Skip Ellis and Anita Borg
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Awards, CRA-WP /CRA-WP is honored to announce the recipients of the 2021 Skip Ellis Early Career Award and Anita Borg Early Career Award.
CRA Executive Director Job Description and Advertisement
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People, Opportunities /The Computing Research Association (CRA)—the nation’s premier member organization of academic departments, laboratories, and industry centers aimed at advancing computing research to change the world—seeks an inclusive, transparent, and enterprising leader to serve as its next Executive Director (ED).
2022 SIAM Major Prizes – Nominations Open!
In: Awards /Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is accepting nominations for major prizes that will be awarded in 2022. If you know someone who meets the criteria for one of the prizes below and deserves to be recognized for their achievements, please nominate them!
CRA Education Committee Selects New Graduate Fellow
In: Featured Announcements, People, Education /CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2021 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Nadia Ady from the University of Alberta.
CRA-Industry Committee Announces Virtual Round Table Series
In: Featured Announcements /CRA-Industry, a standing committee of the CRA, was created in the Fall of 2020 with the goal of reaching out to industry partners involved in computing research and giving them new opportunities to convene and connect on topics of mutual interest. As a part of the CRA, CRA-Industry also facilitates the interaction between industry partners and other organizations deeply involved in computing research including academic institutions and government agencies. You can learn more about CRA-Industry by visiting our web page and/or signing up for our mailing list.
2020 Taulbee Survey: Bachelor’s and Doctoral Degree Production Growth Continues but New Student Enrollment Shows Declines
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Taulbee /This article and the accompanying figures and tables present the results from the 50th annual CRA Taulbee Survey, which documents trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant the Ph.D. in computer science, computer engineering, or information.
CRA Executive Director Andrew Bernat Announces Retirement
In: Featured Announcements, People /After nearly 20 years at the helm of the Computing Research Association, Executive Director Andrew Bernat announced he will retire from his position as of September 1. Bernat joined CRA in 2002 and under his leadership the association has seen a dramatic, positive transformation, more than tripling in size and launching significant new efforts in research visioning, widening participation, and postgraduate support, while remaining the organization of record for computing research issues in Washington policy circles.
New CRA Executive Director Search
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Opportunities /CRA has engaged the services of Isaacson Miller to help with the search. If you would like to nominate someone for consideration for the position (including yourself!) or if you have general inquiries, please go to https://www.imsearch.com/search-detail/S7-971.
Apply Now to the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program
In: CRA, Mentoring, CRA-WP, Education /Are you interested in mentoring prospective graduate students through the application and reentry process?
The mentor and coach application is now available on the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program webpage. The goals of the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program are:
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.
Applications received by June 1st will be given preference.
For questions regarding eligibility, please email csgrad4us@cra.org/cra.
Celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Diversity, For Researchers /Today, May 20, 2021, marks the tenth Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). The purpose of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access/inclusion and people with different disabilities. In honor of GAAD, we’re sharing resources to learn more about accessibility in higher education.
CCC Announces New Council Members Starting July 2021
In: Featured Announcements, People /CRA, in consultation with NSF, has appointed five new members to the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council with terms starting on July 1.
Sven Koenig, University of Southern California
Chandra Krintz, University of California, Santa Barbara
William Regli, University of Maryland
Mona Singh, Princeton University
Ufuk Topcu, University of Texas at Austin
CRA and CRA-WP Board Member Ayanna Howard Named ACM Athena Lecturer for Contributions to Robotics, AI and Broadening Participation in Computing
In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards, ACM /The recipient of the 2021- 2022 ACM Athena Lecturer Award is Ayanna Howard, Dean of The Ohio State University College of Engineering.
Her citation reads as follows:
For fundamental contributions to the development of accessible human-robotic systems and artificial intelligence along with forging new paths to broaden participation in computing through entrepreneurial and mentoring efforts.
To view the press release, please visit: https://awards.acm.org/about/2021-athena
Submissions Open for Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship
In: Funding, Opportunities /Microsoft Research is currently accepting submissions for this year’s Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship.
Nominations Open for the Inaugural IEEE Frances E. Allen Medal
In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards, CRA-WP /Last year the IEEE announced the creation of the IEEE Frances E Allen medal, recognizing the contributions of Frances “Fran” E. Allen as an American computer scientist and pioneer in the field of optimizing compilers.
Nominations for this award are open now and are due by June 15. Please honor Fran Allen and outstanding members of our research community by submitting a nomination.
CRA and CERP Welcome Kristi Kelly
In: People /CRA has recently hired Kristi Kelly as a research associate for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). As part of the CERP team, Kristi’s responsibilities include management of IRB submissions, survey development, and data analysis and reporting.
Former CRA-WP Board Member Anna Karlin Elected to National Academy of Sciences
In: People /This year’s class of newly elected members includes a record number of women, including former CRA-WP Board Member Anna Karlin. She is the Microsoft Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science at the University of Washington. She has been active in several CRA-WP activities including Grad Cohort, Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall, and Career Mentoring Workshops.
Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Program Solicitation Webinar
In: Featured Announcements, NSF /The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is hosting a webinar on the Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) program solicitation (NSF 21-571) on May 4, 2021 starting at 2:00 pm Eastern Time.
CRA and CRA-WP Welcome Elyse Okwu
In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA-WP /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.
CRA Receives NSF Award to Develop a Mentoring Program for NSF’s CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship
In: Featured Announcements, Funding, Diversity, Mentoring, NSF, CRA-WP, Education /In response to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate’s recently announced CSGrad4US Fellowship program, the Computing Research Association’s Education (CRA-E) and Widening Participation (CRA-WP) committees are working to develop a CSGrad4US Mentoring Program for recipients of the CSGrad4US Fellowship.
Pandemic Informatics: Variants of Concern (VOC)
In: Featured Announcements, Research, Resources /We are pleased to announce the second addendum to the Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Pandemic Informatics: Preparation, Robustness, and Resilience quadrennial paper on variants of concern (VOC).
CIFellows 2021 Application Now Open
In: Featured Announcements, Computing Innovation Fellows /The CIFellows 2021 application site is now open.
NSF Extends Application Deadline to May 19, 2021, for CSGrad4US: New NSF Fellowship Opportunity for CISE Bachelor’s Degree Holders to Return for PhD
In: Featured Announcements, Funding, Diversity, NSF, Education /The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate has announced the new CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship program that aims to increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields. The new fellowship, which will provide 3-year fellowship opportunities for new Ph.D. students in the computing disciplines, was released in response to the increased demand for people with a Ph.D. in computer science (CS), the continued decrease of domestic students pursuing research and completing a Ph.D., and the overall small number of bachelor’s degree recipients in CS pursuing graduate school.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: Racial Equity in STEM Education (EHR Racial Equity)
In: Resources, Diversity, NSF /The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) is soliciting proposals for projects addressing systemic racism in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce development through research and practice. Those who have been impacted by the inequities caused by system racism should be the primary focus for all proposals. Competitive proposals will be clear with respect to how the work will advance racial equity and address system racism.
CIFellows 2021 Webinar Thursday, April 15th, 2:30 PM ET
In: Featured Announcements, Computing Innovation Fellows /We will be hosting a one-hour CIFellow 2021 Informational Webinar on Thursday, April 15th at 2:30PM ET. There will be an introduction by NSF, a presentation of the program, concluding with a Q&A session. Please register here for the webinar.
Submit Requests for Supplemental Funding to the NSF CISE BPC Program
In: Research, Resources, NSF /PIs with active medium and large CISE Core programs awards are invited to submit supplemental funding requests to engage more members of the CISE research community in significant BPC efforts as part of their project’s BPC plan. Supplemental funding requests should be submitted by the BPC deadline (June 14).
CRA/CCC Announces CIFellows 2021 Program
In: Featured Announcements, For Students /The Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium (CCC) are pleased to announce a new Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) cohort for 2021. This program recognizes the continued disruption to hiring in academic institutions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As before, this program aims to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent and soon-to-be […]
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: Reflections on Black in Computing
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity /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[b] to the global computing community. The letter began with, “The recent killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police has sparked a movement that began at the birth of our nation. Though George Floyd may have been the most recent instance, we should not forget the lives of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Philando Castille, Tanisha Anderson, Atatiana Jefferson, Eric Garner, Charleena Lyles, Eula Love, Michael Brown, Khalif Browder, Botham Jean, Tamir Rice, Latasha Harlins, Amadou Diallo, Mary Turner, Emmett Till, and too many other Black people who have been murdered …”
CCC Releases Additional Quadrennial Papers on Smart Technologies for Older Adults and the Integration of Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing with AI and IoT
In: Featured Announcements, Policy /As a continuation of our 2020 series, we are delighted to release two more papers titled: “Taking Stock of the Present and Future of Smart Technologies for Older Adults and Caregivers” and “Imagine All the People: Citizen Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Computational Research.”
CRA and CERP Welcome Taniya Ross-Dunmore
In: CRA, People /CRA has recently hired Taniya Ross-Dunmore as a research assistant for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). In this role, she will assist in CERP’s research and evaluation projects and tasks. Taniya holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in psychology from Spelman College where she obtained experience in data collection and evaluation, research methods, psychometrics, and more.
Prior to joining the CRA CERP team, she worked as a registered behavioral technician for children with autism and aided in the facilitation of a program which aimed to increase young women of color in the STEM and art fields. In her free time, she enjoys painting, reading, and Netflix.
2021 CRA Board of Directors Election Results
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /CRA members have elected three new members to its Board of Directors: Diana Franklin, Katie Siek and Eve Schooler. James Allan, Stephanie Forrest, Ayanna Howard, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Rachel Pottinger, and Chris Ramming were re-elected to the CRA board. All of their terms run from July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2024. Vivek Sarkar will remain on the board as the co-chair of the CRA Industry Committee. CRA would like to thank everyone who agreed to run this year.
Check Out CRA and CRA-WP Board Member Ayanna Howard on “The View”
In: People /This week, CRA and CRA-WP Board Member Ayanna Howard was a guest on “The View” talk show.
CRA Conference at Snowbird Update
In: Featured Announcements /After careful consideration of the current and projected situation surrounding the pandemic, CRA has unfortunately decided to cancel the in-person CRA Conference at Snowbird scheduled to take place this August. At this time, there are simply too many uncertainties to move forward.
We believe interaction is a critical feature of this conference. Given we held a virtual version last year, we have decided not to organize a hybrid or entirely virtual meeting this year, as this is typically an off year for Snowbird. CRA is currently planning to hold a full in-person Conference at Snowbird on July 19-21, 2022.
REU Participation Encourages Students to Pursue Graduate Degrees
In: Featured Announcements, CERP /Using CRA Data Buddies Survey data, this analysis presents changes in undergraduate students’ highest degree intentions over the course of a year. Students who participated in an REU during that year showed an interest in pursuing a higher-level academic degree than those who did not participate in an REU.
Pandemic Informatics: Vaccine Distribution, Logistics, and Prioritization
In: Featured Announcements, Resources /In Fall 2020, the Computing Research Association released a series of planned white papers produced through its subcommittees (including the Computing Community Consortium), exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Called Quadrennial Papers, the white papers attempt to portray a broad picture of computing research detailing potential research directions, challenges, and recommendations for policymakers and the computing research community.
One of those white papers Pandemic Informatics: Preparation, Robustness, and Resilience outlined a strategy to reduce the impact of global pandemics stressing early detection, predicting the public’s reaction and developing effective policies.
Several months later, the pandemic is still ongoing but we are facing a new and different set of challenges that are both surprising and yet also somehow predictable. The authors of the paper have produced a March 22nd, 2021 Addendum to address current issues.
See the March 22nd, 2021 Pandemic Informatics: Preparation, Robustness, and Resilience Addendum here for more details.
CIFellows Spotlight: Improving System Efficiency and Reliability with Causal Learning
In: CRA, For Researchers, Computing Innovation Fellows /The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is excited to announce the new website feature, “CIFellows Spotlight”, which will highlight the work of the Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) going forward. Announced in May 2020, the CIFellows program was created, with strong support from NSF, to provide recent PhD graduates in computing research with the opportunity to continue their work despite the hiring disruptions in academic institutions due to COVID-19. These articles will give the CIFellows the opportunity to share their work with the community and dive deeper into the details of their current project(s).
Yi Ding began her CIFellowship in January 2021 after receiving her PhD from University of Chicago this past December. Ding is at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Michael Carbin, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and leader of the Programming Systems Group.
SIGCSE 2021 Panel Recap: How Student Surveys Drive Change: Using the Data Buddies Department Report from the Computing Research Association
In: Featured Announcements, CERP, Data Buddies /On Monday, March 15, CRA’s Burçin Tamer was a panelist at the SIGCSE 2021 session, “How Student Surveys Drive Change: Using the Data Buddies Department Report from the Computing Research Association.” Tamer and panelists discussed how departments can use their students’ responses to the Data Buddies survey to make meaningful changes in their department.
SIGCSE Panel March 17- Exploring the Data on Dual Pandemics: How Racism and COVID-19 Have Impacted the Computing Community
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Researchers /At SIGCSE 2021, CRA’s Betsy Bizot will be a panelist for the session, “Exploring the Data on Dual Pandemics: How Racism and COVID-19 Have Impacted the Computing Community“. Bizot will discuss the results from two CRA surveys about the COVID-19 disruption from summer 2020 and a few tidbits from this year’s CRA Taulbee Survey ahead of full publication in May. The session will be held from 1:00 PM – 2:45 PM EDT on Wednesday, March 17.
Introducing the CERP Bulletin
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, CERP /The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) is excited to launch a new blog called the CERP Bulletin to share news, research and evaluation findings, promote resources and community platforms, and provide helpful context to CERP’s mission. The CERP Bulletin will include CERP research activity, infographics, evaluation reports, and interesting CERP-related articles.
We encourage you to stay updated on CERP through the Bulletin by signing up for our mailing list, which you can do here.
This post is brought to you by the CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). CERP provides social science research and comparative evaluation for the computing community. Volunteer for Data Buddies by signing-up here.
2021 CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awardees Announced
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /Mary Jane Irwin was selected to receive the 2021 A. Nico Habermann Award in recognition of her more than 30 years of diversity efforts, both in academia and in professional organizations. James Kurose was selected to receive the 2021 Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his exemplary service to the computing research community. Through a career spanning more that 35 years, he has distinguished himself as national leader in numerous impactful service roles in the computing research community.
Tijana Milenkovic and Saad Biaz Receive the 2021 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
In: Featured Announcements, Research, 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 2021 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Tijana Milenkovic from University of Notre Dame and Saad Biaz from Auburn University. 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.
2021 CRA Leadership Summit and Board Meeting Highlights
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Industry /On February 22-23, CRA held its annual Computing Research Leadership Summit for the senior leadership of CRA member societies and winter board meeting.
Cloud Access for NSF CISE Research
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, For Researchers /An increasing number of NSF CISE solicitations, including the CISE Core Programs (for which SMALL Projects do not have a submission deadline), are eligible for cloud access via the CloudBank portal to the AWS, Azure, GCP, and IBM clouds.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: CMD-IT Standing Against Racial Injustices Video Now Available
In: Resources, Diversity /A video recording of the “Standing Against Racial Injustices” conversation series organized by the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT) is now available. If you missed the event, we encourage you watch and share!
Applications Open for the 2021 CMD-IT Academic Careers Workshop
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, For Researchers, CRA-WP /The goal of the 2021 CMD-IT Academic Careers Workshop is to mentor assistant- and associate-level faculty, senior doctoral students, and postdocs in computing about academic careers.
“Valuing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Our Computing Community” Panel on March 3rd
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, NSF /CRA Board Member Timothy M. Pinkston has organized and will moderate the panel, “Valuing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Our Computing Community” from 1:30 to 3 PM (EST) on March 3rd at this year’s co-located HPCA’21, PPoPP’21, CGO’21 and CC’21 conferences (virtual due to COVID-19).
National Academy of Engineering Announces Newly Elected Members
In: Featured Announcements, People /The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has elected 106 new members and 23 foreign members. Several computing researchers are among those elected this year, including those with CRA connections. Among them are Margaret Martonosi and Kunle Olukotun.
NSF CISE to Hold Workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 5
In: Featured Announcements, NSF /The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 5, 2021.
2021 Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant Accepting Proposals
In: Research, Funding, Resources, For Researchers /We are currently accepting proposals for the 2021 Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant through March 22, 2021.
2021 CRA Board of Directors Election Slate; Petition Nominees Sought
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /CRA is pleased to announce the 2021 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition, which are due by February 22.
CRA Looking to Develop a Mentoring Program for NSF’s CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship
In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, CRA-WP, Education /In response to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate’s recently announced CSGrad4US Fellowship program, the Computing Research Association’s Education (CRA-E) and Widening Participation (CRA-WP) committees, with CRA support, are exploring the development of a CSGrad4US Mentoring Program to support recipients of the CSGrad4US Fellowship.
Changing the Face of Computer Science Video Campaign
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, For Students /Inspire or encourage a student to try computer science, and let them know they belong. Together let’s change the face of computer science.
New NSF Fellowship Opportunity for CISE Bachelor’s Degree Holders to Return for PhD
In: Featured Announcements, Funding, For Students, Mentoring, NSF, CRA-WP, Education /NSF CISE has announced the new CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship program that aims to increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields.
Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship Accepting Nominations
In: Research, Funding /The Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship recognizes emerging leaders in the field of computing who have exceptional talent for research and innovation. Qualifying faculty must have received their terminal degree in May 2016 or later, and their research must be closely related to the general research areas carried out by Microsoft Research. These full-time faculty members must also conduct research, advise graduate students, and teach in the classroom in North or South America. Provisions of the award include $100,000 USD awarded annually for two years starting in the fall of 2021.
Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards Nominations: Deadline Extended to February 8
In: CRA, Awards /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2021 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award. The deadline has been extended to February 8.
ACM-W’s “Celebrating Technology Leaders” Web Series
In: CRA, CRA-WP, ACM /ACM-W’s “Celebrating Technology Leaders” web series brings stories and advice from engaging speakers, with diverse careers in computing, directly to you.
Get Involved With CRA-WP Opportunities
In: Featured Announcements, CRA-WP /CRA-WP is accepting applications for two programs: Scholarships for Women Studying Information Security and Distributed Experiences for Undergraduates. Nominations are due March 31 for two award programs: Skip Ellis Early Career Award and Anita Borg Early Career Award.
Congratulations to the 2020 ACM Fellows!
In: CRA /The ACM recently named 95 of its members as ACM Fellows for outstanding contributions that underpin today’s computing innovations.
Nominations Open for Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards
In: Awards /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2021 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
Congratulations to Newly Elected AAAI Fellows
In: People /The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) recently elected its 2021 Fellows. The AAAI Fellows program recognizes individuals who have made significant, sustained contributions — usually over at least a ten-year period — to the field of artificial intelligence. Three individuals involved with CRA were among those elected Fellows this year – Ayanna Howard, Chad Jenkins and Holly Yanco.
New CRA Board Member: Forrest Shull
In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA welcomes Forrest Shull as a new Board Member. Shull is President of IEEE-CS and replaces Greg Byrd as one of the IEEE-CS representatives on the CRA Board, serving along with Leila De Floriani.
Updated Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2021
In: Featured Announcements /This updated work follows a full study released in November 2020, on faculty hiring in Computer Science for hires starting in 2021. That work analyzed hiring based on ads through mid-November 2020 and found significant decreases in the number of institutions searching and the number of positions being sought. This updated work considers ads through the end of December 2020 and is intended to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on whether searches have been delayed or simply will not materialize this hiring season.
I2O PostDoc Fellowship- Deadlines February 1st and March 1st, 2021
In: Funding /The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is broadening its commitment to young scientists through a new Information Innovation Office (I2O) PostDoc Fellowship Program focused on postdoctoral researchers in the field of computer science with grants sized to support each fellow for up to two years.
New CRA Board Member: Arvind Krishnamurthy
In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA welcomes Arvind Krishnamurthy as a new Board Member. Krishnamurthy is the Vice President of the USENIX Board of Directors and replaces Brian Noble as the USENIX representative on the CRA Board. Noble joined the CRA Board in 2017, and CRA thanks him for his term of service.
CRA-E 2021 SIGCSE TS Virtual Pre‐Symposium Event: Application Deadline February 1
In: Featured Announcements, Education, Opportunities /The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Virtual Pre‐Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2021. The event will be held on Friday, March 12, 2021 from 1:00 – 5:00 PM EST. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda. 2020 event information is available here.
2021 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Recipients
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /Congratulations to the recipients of the 2021 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.
CRA Board Member Timothy Pinkston Featured in People of ACM
In: Featured Announcements, People /CRA Board Member Timothy Pinkston is featured in this week’s “People of ACM”. In the Q&A, Pinkston discusses topics such as what prompted him to establish his research group, deadlock-free adaptive routing techniques, the importance of CISE’s Expeditions in Computing program, and efforts to broaden participation in computing.
Nominations Sought for New CCC Council Members
In: Featured Announcements, Opportunities /To fulfill its mission, the CCC needs visionary leaders — people with great ideas, sound judgment, and the willingness to work collaboratively to see things through to completion. The Council is composed of 20 researchers representing the breadth and diversity of computing today.
Please help the computing community by nominating outstanding colleagues for the Council.
New CRA Board Member: Timothy M. Pinkston
In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA welcomes Timothy M. Pinkston as a new Board Member. Pinkston replaces Mark D. Hill as an academic member on the Board. Hill recently moved into industry with a position at Microsoft as Partner Hardware Architect with Azure, requiring him to step down from the Board. We would like to thank Hill for his term of service on the CRA Board.
IEEE Computer Society Build Your Career Webinar Series: Solutions Thinking 101 on December 17
In: For Researchers, Opportunities /The IEEE Computer Society Build Your Career Webinar Series focuses on topics that help you hone your professional skills. Webinars focus on topics that include effective communication, tips for email writing, personal brand management, career transition, interviewing skills, and more. New topics are covered each month. You are invited to Solutions Thinking 101, which takes […]
Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2021
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /This work uses the same methodology as previous work to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised tenure-track searches for the current hiring season. This work also provides an opportunity to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty hiring in Computer Science for hires starting in 2021.
Congratulations to Newly Elevated IEEE Fellows
In: People /IEEE recently named its 2021 class of newly elevated Fellows. IEEE Fellow is a distinction reserved for select IEEE members whose extraordinary accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest are deemed fitting of this prestigious grade elevation. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elevated to Fellows.
2020 AAAS Fellows Announced
In: Featured Announcements, People /The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2020 Fellows. The honor recognizes diverse accomplishments, including pioneering research, leadership within a given field, teaching and mentoring, fostering collaborations and advancing public understanding of science. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: Join CMD-IT on December 2 for Standing Against Racial Injustices – Commanding Our Voice
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /Part 2 of the CMD-IT Standing Against Racial Injustice conversation brings together a group of Black industry tech professionals for a breadth of conversation on how we create the change we want to see and how Commanding Our Voices drives Inclusion, Innovation and Impact to our community, society and the nation.
CRA-E Releases Report on Best Practices for Scaling Undergraduate CS Research Opportunities
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Education /Undergraduate enrollments in CS have grown considerably and continue to grow. Yet opportunities for undergraduates to engage in CS research have not grown proportionally. Engaging undergraduates in research has tremendous benefits for students, and is critical to the health of the North American CS PhD pipeline.
The CRA’s Education committee has released a new report documenting best practices and concrete suggestions for departments wishing to expand undergraduate research opportunities in CS (without overwhelming their faculty!). The report is based on a broad examination of existing structured research programs at universities across North America. It compiles the main challenges departments face in implementing undergraduate research programs, and provides best practices for addressing these challenges.
CCC Quadrennial Papers: Artificial Intelligence
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /As part of the rollout of the 2020 Computing Research Associations (CRA) Quadrennial Papers, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to publish the final group of papers around the “Artificial Intelligence (AI)” theme, including papers on AI being deployed at the edge of the network, cooperation between AI and humans, new approaches to understanding AI’s impact on society, AI-driven simulators, and the next generation of AI. The Quadrennial Papers are intended to help inform the computing research community and those who craft science policy about opportunities in computing research to help address national priorities. This group of papers is the final installation of the CCC’s contribution, in addition to the previous themes of Broad Computer Science, Core Computer Science, and Socio-Technical Computing.
Applications Open for 2021 CRA-WP Graduate Cohort Workshops: Deadline November 30
In: CRA /Applications are now open for the 2021 CRA-WP Graduate Cohort Workshops.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Women will likely be a virtual workshop on April 23-24, 2021. Apply here.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills – The IDEALS Workshop (formerly the Grad Cohort Workshop for URMD) will be a virtual workshop on March 11-12, 2021. Apply here.
Both applications will close on November 30.
CRA-WP Renames the Grad Cohort for URMD Workshop
In: Featured Announcements /CRA-WP has renamed the Grad Cohort for URMD Workshop to the Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills – The IDEALS Workshop.
Nominate Outstanding Mid-Career Colleagues for the ACM Prize in Computing: Deadline January 15
In: Research, Awards, ACM /The ACM Prize in Computing recognizes an early to mid-career fundamental, innovative contribution in computing that exemplifies the greatest achievements in the discipline.
NSF Dear Colleague Letter: Career-Life Balance (CLB) Supplemental Funding Requests
In: NSF /With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), NSF draws attention to the opportunity for supplemental funding to help researchers, who are confronted with a short-term increase in dependent care responsibilities, ensure that the research activities supported by an NSF award can continue.
CRA-E Spotlights Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers in the Highlights Series
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Education /The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Highlights series is now in its third year of featuring outstanding undergraduate researchers from universities across North America. It is one of the many CRA-E activities that supports the computing research pipeline by honoring undergraduate research and promoting graduate education and research careers in computing fields.
Each article describes the journey of a successful undergraduate researcher, from finding research opportunities to disseminating their work. The highlights series features students from the Finalists and Honorable Mentions of the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher competition, with the goal of offering guidance to the next generation of undergraduate researchers and to share how research has shaped their career aspirations. CRA-E chooses a diverse set of students for the highlights series to reflect the wide range of undergraduate institutions, research areas, and paths to research.
CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program Accepting Nominations
In: Featured Announcements, Education /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.
2020 Quadrennial Papers: Socio-Technical Computing and Diversity & Education
In: CRA /Today CRA released its third set of 2020 Quadrennial Papers, part of a series of white papers produced though its subcommittees, exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Today’s release focused on papers around the themes of Socio-Technical Computing and Diversity & Education.
Subscribe to the New NSF CISE Newsletter
In: Featured Announcements, NSF, For Researchers, Computing Innovation Fellows /The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate just announced a new newsletter that will share “periodic updates about CISE and NSF broadly, including up-to-date information about [their] newest programs and activities.” The first newsletter released today highlights three recent major activities that the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its committees were heavily involved in.
CCC Quadrennial Papers: Broad Computer Science
In: Featured Announcements, Policy /As part of the rollout of the 2020 Computing Research Association’s (CRA) Quadrennial Papers, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to publish the second group of papers around “Broad Computer Science,” including papers on pandemic informatics, infrastructure for AI, High Performance Computing (HPC) and Quantum, robotics in the workforce and a new research ecosystem for secure computing. The Quadrennial Papers are intended to help inform the computing research community and those who craft science policy about opportunities in computing research to help address national priorities. As part of CCC’s contribution, in addition to the theme of Core Computer Science from last week, two more sets of Quadrennial Papers organized around the themes of Artificial Intelligence and Socio-Technical Computing will be released over the next several weeks.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: NCWIT Conversations for Change Webinar Tomorrow
In: CRA, People, Resources, Diversity /Numerous events of 2020 have placed a national spotlight on the inequities and inequalities that are present in K-16 education and society at large. In this conversation, Dr. Nicki Washington discusses how her personal journey in computing influenced her research on identity in computing, including the development of her “Race, Gender, Class, and Computing” course and why “teaching is political.”
CCC Council Member William Gropp Voted IEEE CS 2022 President
In: People /Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member William “Bill” Gropp has been voted IEEE Computer Society 2021 president-elect and will serve as president in 2022!
CRA Releases ‘2020 Quadrennial Papers’ Focused on Illuminating Computing Research Challenges and Opportunities for the Next Four Years
In: Featured Announcements, Policy /Today the Computing Research Association (CRA) released the first of more than a dozen planned white papers produced through its subcommittees, exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Called Quadrennial Papers, the white papers attempt to portray a broad picture of computing research detailing potential research directions, challenges, and recommendations for policymakers and the computing research community. The release of the 2020 Quadrennial Papers covers five thematic areas: Core Computer Science, Broad Computing, Socio-Technical Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Diversity & Education.
NSF AD for CISE Margaret Martonosi Video on the Importance of Departmental BPC Plans
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, NSF, CERP /Listen to NSF AD for CISE Margaret Martonosi discuss the importance of Departmental BPC Plans in this new video.
CRA’s CV Database Initiative Turns Two
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /Recruiting continues to be one of the top computing research community challenges. Thus, CRA plans to strengthen the CV Database initiative and take additional actions in 2020-21.
Expanding the Pipeline – CAHSI introduces National Virtual Research Experience for Undergraduates
In: CRA, Research /To identify and broadly engage the next generation of computer science researchers, the Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions (CAHSI), an NSF INCLUDES Alliance, piloted a national virtual Research Experience for Undergraduates (vREU) during the summer of 2020. Funded by an NSF RAPID grant, the pilot provided undergraduate research experiences for 50 students and 20 faculty drawn from 20 colleges and universities widely distributed throughout the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico. The program used the Affinity Research Group (ARG) model to guide faculty mentors throughout the experience. ARG is a CAHSI signature practice with a focus on deliberate, structured faculty and student research skills development. At weekly meetings, Drs. Morreale, Villa, and Gates discussed and provided resources for specific skills that were appropriate at a specific point in time of a student’s research experience. Faculty mentors put skills development into immediate practice throughout their summer research program.
2020 CRA Academic Member Book Released
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /Published online each fall, the CRA Academic Member Book highlights institutions that are member departments of CRA. Each academic member department is invited to submit a one page pdf about their department. Thanks to all the departments that took the time to prepare a submission.
Nominations Open for CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2021 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
An Important Message from USENIX
In: Featured Announcements /To help make up for a budgetary shortfall, USENIX is seeking donations large and small from individuals and corporations.
Call for Submissions: Departmental BPC Plans
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Diversity, CERP, For Researchers /The Computing Research Association (CRA) and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) are calling upon the academic community to create and submit Departmental BPC Plans to BPCnet.org.
Departmental BPC Plans are important because they help departments:
CRA Board Member Vivek Sarkar Selected to Receive the 2020 ACM/IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award
In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards /The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) have named CRA Board Member Vivek Sarkar of Georgia Institute of Technology as the recipient of the 2020 ACM/IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. Sarkar is recognized for “foundational technical contributions to the area of programmability and productivity in parallel computing, as well as leadership contributions to professional service, mentoring, and teaching.”
Attend the Upcoming Departmental BPC Plan Workshop Starting on October 29
In: Featured Announcements, CERP /The Computing Research Association (CRA) is hosting the third workshop in its series of Departmental BPC Plan workshops starting on October 29, 2020. All departments with faculty submitting CISE proposals are welcome to attend this workshop.
The structure for this workshop is as follows:
On the presentation day, academic departments will learn about the NSF CISE requirements and expectations for BPC Plans. The workshop will also cover in-depth discussions on BPC Plan components and have BPC experts available for Q&A.
The two writing days are optional, but strongly encouraged. For each writing day, attendees will dedicate a few hours to writing a BPC plan with available assistance from BPC experts. Of importance, you are not required to attend the presentation day if you would like to attend the writing days. For example, previous workshop participants could use these days to further develop their drafts.
Click here to sign up for the workshop. The deadline to sign up for the presentation day is 11:59 pm (ET), October 25, 2020. Those signing up for the writing days only will be accepted on a rolling basis. All notifications and action items related to the workshop will be sent in advance.
2021 NSF Alan T. Waterman Award Nominations Open
In: Awards /The National Science Foundation is pleased to accept nominations for the 2021 Alan T. Waterman Award. Each year, the Foundation bestows the Waterman Award to recognize the talent, creativity, and influence of a singular young researcher. The award consists of a $1,000,000 prize, a medal, a certificate, and a trip to Washington, DC, to receive the award. For details about the Waterman Award’s history, the nomination procedure and the selection criteria please visit http://www.nsf.gov/od/waterman/waterman.jsp.
Nominations Open for 2021 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. It recognizes those 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.
CRA-WP Career Mentoring Workshop: Application Deadline October 12
In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, CRA-WP /Applications are now open for the 2020 CRA-WP Early and Mid-Career Mentoring Workshop! The purpose of the workshop is to provide historically underserved groups in computing research and education with support to further develop your career. Apply today to join sessions on career tracks in education, research and industry/government laboratories, participate in group mentoring, and build one-on-one mentoring relationships with senior researchers. Deadline: October 12.
How Computing May Change Our World by CRA Board Member and CCC Chair Emeritus Mark D. Hill
In: Research, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA Board Member and CCC Chair Emeritus Mark D. Hill recently held a virtual presentation to CRA staff on “How Computing May Change Our World.” The talk is a great introduction on current topics facing computing and is approachable for audiences who do not have a computer science background. Much of the work discussed is based on visioning work Hill collaborated on when he was Chair of the CCC.
CERP Announces Webinar for Data Buddies Survey
In: Featured Announcements, Resources /The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) recently published a webinar featuring the Data Buddies Survey (DBS). This webinar details some of the background of the Data Buddies Survey, tips for good response rates, benefits for participating departments, and requirements for participating departments. This webinar is designed for a broad audience, including prospective DBS participants. You can view the webinar by clicking here.
CRA Taulbee Survey Announcement
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee Announcements /The 2020 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As has been our recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.
Announcing the 2020 Computing Innovation Fellows
In: Featured Announcements /This past spring, when hiring practices were rapidly changing due to COVID-19, the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its Computing Community Consortium (CCC) launched the CIFellows 2020 program, with strong support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program aims to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent and soon-to-be PhD graduates in computing. This effort was inspired by the CRA/CCC’s NSF-funded Computing Innovation Fellows Programs with cohorts starting 2009, 2010, and 2011, which funded a total of 127 fellows after the 2008 recession.
Cultural Competence in Computing (3C) Fellows Program Now Accepting Applications
In: People, Resources, Diversity /Undergraduate computing departments have long suffered from issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). However, there has been, to date, no large-scale effort that focuses on addressing issues of systemic racism and bias that directly impact not only students from minoritized groups, but also faculty (as issues of race, gender, and intersectionality impact hiring, […]
NSF CISE Distinguished Lecture: Former CRA Board Member Moshe Y. Vardi on Lessons from COVID-19
In: People /Former CRA Board Member, Moshe Vardi from Rice University will present “Lessons from COVID-19: Efficiency vs Resilience,” as part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Distinguished Lecture series on September 17, 2020 from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM ET.
Nominations Open for 2021 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /The Computing Research Association (CRA) 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 wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
Highlights from the CRA Virtual Conference 2020
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /For nearly 50 years, the Computing Research Association (CRA) has brought the leadership of the computing research community together every other year at Snowbird, UT to discuss community issues. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted our plans to hold an in-person event this year, just like it has disrupted much of our way of life, both professionally and personally. After canceling the in-person event, CRA quickly pivoted to provide the conference in an online format with specialized content addressing the current environment and challenges during these unprecedented times. CRA Board members Ran Libeskind-Hadas and James Allan stepped up as chair and co-chair of the Virtual Conference.
Conference sessions provided a community forum to share best practices for continuing to navigate the unpredictable challenges imposed during the coronavirus pandemic and addressing community issues around race, equity, and equality. The conference videos are now available here and lightning talk videos are available here.
Richard Ladner Receives 2020 National Science Board Public Service Award
In: People, Diversity, Awards /The National Science Board (NSB) has named computer scientist and disability advocate Richard Ladner as the 2020 recipient of its Public Service Award. This award is granted to individuals and groups that have contributed substantially to increasing public understanding of science and engineering.
CRA Committee on Industry/Academia Interactions Releases Report
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Industry /Recent trends such as increasing industry demands for technical talent from academia, as well as changes in the academic environment with increased industry interactions have prompted the need for a fresh look at the relationships between academia and industry. A CRA ad hoc committee on Industry/Academia Interactions was studied these trends and determined how CRA can have an impact.
Reports on Surveys of Computer Science Faculty and Academic Units/Chairs: COVID-19 Impact
In: Featured Announcements, Research, Resources, For Researchers, Education /CRA conducted two surveys about the COVID-19 disruption in summer 2020. CRA Director of Statistics and Evaluation Betsy Bizot recently presented these results at the ACM Education Advisory Committee Meeting.
In Memoriam: Frances Allen
In: People /CRA is sad to report that former CRA and CRA-W Board Member Frances “Fran” Allen passed away yesterday. Fran spent her career advancing the field of computing and inspired generations of technologists. She was a computing pioneer – the first woman to receive the A.M. Turing Award (2006) and the first woman to be named an IBM Fellow in 1989. Fran served as a speaker for CRA-W’s Discipline-Specific Mentoring program in 2008 and Career Mentoring Workshop in 2005.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: Join CMD-IT for Standing Against Racial Injustices – Sharing Our Stories
In: Featured Announcements, Resources /Join the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT) this Friday, August 7 (1:30 – 2:30 pm CT) for a panel discussion examining racial injustice from the perspective of Black professionals in computing. Panelists will provide their stories of overcoming racial injustices to get to where they are today. They will also share advice and insights about systemic changes needed for equity and inclusion. Register here.
Eve Riskin Recognized with Presidential Award
In: Awards /Eve Riskin from the University of Washington, recently received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM). Riskin is Associate Dean of Diversity and Access in the College of Engineering, Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Faculty Director of the ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change.
CRA and CERP Welcome Colin Karnes
In: People /CRA has recently hired Colin Karnes as a research assistant for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). In this role, Colin supports CERP activities, as they relate to CERP’s research and administrative tasks.
Prior to joining CRA, Colin worked as a graduate research assistant at the Department of Public and Nonprofit Studies at Georgia Southern University. Colin holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Georgia Southern University (2019) and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences from the University at Buffalo (2014). He has experience in public education, nonprofit administration, and corporate governance. In his free time, Colin enjoys reading, volunteering, and exploring Washington, DC.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: CS Teachers, It’s (Past) Time To Learn About Race
In: Diversity /CRA is dedicated to creating an environment that is more welcoming, just, and equitable to all. In the Communications of the ACM article, “CS Teachers, It’s (Past) Time To Learn About Race,” Mark Guzdial encourages CS teachers to make changes to CS education that ensure everyone is welcome and supported.
Apply for the Departmental BPC Plans Workshop on August 6-7th!
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /The Computing Research Association (CRA) is hosting the second workshop in its series of Departmental BPC Plan workshops on August 6-7, 2020.
In this workshop, academic departments will learn about the NSF CISE requirements and expectations for BPC Plans. The workshop will also cover in-depth discussions on BPC Plan components, have BPC experts available for Q&A, and provide time for departments to discuss ideas and make future plans. Following the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to receive additional feedback as they continue to develop and refine their plans.
Investigating Compounding Impacts of Racism & COVID-19 on Learning & Employment in Computing & Technology (CIRCLE-CT)
In: Research /AnitaB.org, The National Center for Women & Technology (NCWIT) and the STARS Computing Corps (STARS) are conducting a survey to understand the impact of the global pandemic on the conditions of work and educational environments related to computing and technical degree programs and professions. Through the Investigating Compounding Impacts of Racism & COVID-19 on Learning & Employment in Computing & Technology (CIRCLE-CT) Study, we are gathering responses from individuals across the computing and technical ecosystem including K-12 teachers; post-secondary program leaders, educators and students; and individuals in the computing and technical workforce and tech startup communities.
We invite you to participate in the 10-minute survey by clicking below. There will be no compensation for participating in this research study. However, with your consent, we will enter you in a drawing for one of four $50 Amazon gift cards or one of 45 $10 Amazon gift cards. For more information about this study, please contact the Principal Investigator, Dr. Quincy K. Brown, at QuincyB@AnitaB.org. The survey will be open until July 31.
Quick link to survey: bit.ly/NSFRAPIDsurvey
CRA Board Member Vivek Sarkar Named Georgia Tech School of Computer Science Chair
In: People /Today, the Georgia Tech College of Computing announced CRA Board Member Vivek Sarkar is the new chair of its School of Computer Science (SCS).
Nominations Open for 2021 Microsoft Research Fellowships
In: Funding, For Students, Opportunities /Nominations are now open for the 2021 Microsoft Research Ada Lovelace Fellowship and Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship. Doctoral students must be nominated by the department chair’s office in their field of study by August 14, 2020. Students will then be contacted to submit their proposals by September 21, 2020.
AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships: Impact Policy with a Life-changing Fellowship in Washington
In: Policy, For Researchers /Experts including computing researchers are prized by the federal government. With assignments in federal agencies, on Capitol Hill and in the judicial branch, AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellows (STPF) are on the front line of vital issues that impact society. The STPF fellowship program is the premier opportunity for outstanding scientists and engineers to learn first-hand about policymaking and contribute their STEM-informed perspective to American government.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: What Can CS Departments Do?
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /CRA is dedicated to creating an environment that is more welcoming, just, and equitable to all. Many want to take action in this area but are not sure how. Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones wrote an article, “What Can CS Departments Do?” detailing a set of recommendations for computing departments to improve inclusiveness: Some of my recommendations […]
CRA Joins Science and Higher-Ed Community in Working to Reverse ICE Rule on Student Visa Holders That Could Force Hundreds of Thousands to Leave U.S.
In: Featured Announcements /On Monday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) disclosed its intent to remove its current, temporary exemptions on F-1 and M-1 visas. The exemptions allowed students on visas to remain in the USA during the spring and summer even if they were taking all their classes online because of the pandemic. The removal of the exemptions would mean that any students on student visas who are not taking at least some classes in person will cease to be in compliance. Thus, if they are enrolled in colleges or universities that will move their fall classes online for safety of their community, those students would be forced to either (a) transfer to another institution where they must take classes in person, despite any health risk, or (b) leave the country. It also means that foreign students accepted for fall at those institutions will not be granted visas to enter the USA.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: Black in Computing Open Letter
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Diversity /CRA is dedicated to creating an environment that is more welcoming, just, and equitable to all. Last month, the Black in Computing group and Allies put out “An Open Letter & Call to Action to the Computing Community” with a curated list of actionable items.
CRA Welcomes New Board Members
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. We welcome four new members to our board of directors: Alex Aiken, Cindy Bethel, Liz Bradley and Fatma Özcan. Aiken, Bethel, and Özcan were elected earlier this year, and their terms run from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023. Also beginning July 1, Bradley replaces Mark Hill as the CCC Chair and representative on the board. Hill continues on the CRA board in an elected position.
Retiring from the board as of June 30, are Susan Davidson, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, and Barbara Ryder. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
Announcing CRA Workshop Series on Departmental Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plans
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Researchers /To support departments developing a Departmental BPC Plan, the Computing Research Association (CRA) will host a series of workshops funded by NSF. The first two workshops in this series will be held virtually on July 13-14, 2020 and August 6-7, 2020.
These two workshops will present the same content on BPC plans, and include hands-on activities and real-time feedback for writing these plans. At the end of the workshop, the participants will have their own draft Departmental BPC Plan. Following the workshops, the participants will also have the opportunity to receive additional feedback as they continue to refine their BPC plans.
Request for Community Feedback on BPCnet.org
In: Featured Announcements, Resources /With this particularly challenging academic year coming to an end, and the upcoming NSF CISE program submissions, it is a good time to update everyone on the NSF CISE Pilot Program for Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plans. All Medium and Large CISE Core Programs, Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC), and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) project proposals require an approved BPC Plan by the time of award. CRA and NCWIT have led an effort to develop the BPCnet.org portal as a resource for the community to assist in developing Departmental BPC Plans and Individual BPC Plans.
Upcoming NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Proposal Writing Workshop for the CISE Community
In: Research /You are invited to participate in the NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Proposal Writing Workshop, to be held as an interactive online meeting on Friday, September 18th from 1pm – 5pm EST. This event is intended for PIs working in CISE-relevant research areas planning on submitting an NRT proposal for the fiscal year 2021 competition.
CRA’s Position
In: Featured Announcements /The amount of pain and suffering we are witnessing and feeling is only a snapshot of a broader social reality. We, and everyone before us, have had a role in arriving at where we are today. As such, it is of paramount importance to step up and take a stance. It is our responsibility and a moral imperative to not stand by and simply witness the events around us. We must collectively find our voice and reject racism and inequality. Silence perpetuates, doubt reinforces, and rationalization of incident after incident only compounds the pain so many in our society continue to endure.
CI Fellows 2020 – Application Deadline Extended to June 17
In: Featured Announcements, People /Important notice to all applicants: the application deadline has been extended by 5 days to Wednesday, June 17, 2020 at 11:59 pm EDT in recognition of the unrest and protests across the nation. If possible, please try to begin your application through Task 2, Academic Information, by the initial deadline of June 12, 2020 at 11:59 pm EDT.
CRA-WP Announces Recipients of the Inaugural Skip Ellis Early Career Award and the 2020 Anita Borg Early Career Award
In: CRA, People, Diversity, Awards /CRA-WP is honored to present the recipients of the inaugural Skip Ellis Early Career Award and the 2020 Anita Borg Early Career Award. Tawanna Dillahunt of the University of Michigan and Michel A. Kinsy of Boston University have been selected as the Skip Ellis Early Career Award recipients. Olga Russakovsky of Princeton University has been selected as the Anita Borg Early Career Award recipient.
CI Fellows 2020 – Applications Open Now
In: Featured Announcements, Computing Innovation Fellows /Applications are now open for the Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Program for 2020.
CRA Vice Chair Nancy Amato Elected ACM Member-at-Large
In: People, ACM /The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) recently announced the election of new officers and members at large. CRA Board Member and Vice Chair Nancy M. Amato has been elected for a four-year Member-at-Large term. She will serve from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2024. Additionally, CCC Council Member Elisa Bertino has been elected Secretary/Treasurer of ACM for a two-year term from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020. Bertino is the Samuel D. Conte Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University.
2019 Taulbee Survey: Total Undergrad CS Enrollment Rises Again, but with Fewer New Majors; Doctoral Degree Production Recovers from Last Year’s Dip
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee /After twelve years of sustained growth in undergraduate enrollment, there may be signs of a slowdown in that there are, on average, fewer new undergraduate majors in 2019-20 than there were in 2018-19. Nevertheless, the average number of CS majors continued its rise in 2018-19, both in U.S. CS departments and overall.
NSF DCL: Announcing the CIFellows 2020 Postdocs Project
In: Featured Announcements, Computing Innovation Fellows /The following is a letter to the community from Margaret Martonosi (Assistant Director) and Erwin Gianchandani (Deputy Assistant Director) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE). The CCC announced the CIFellows 2020 project last week and highlighted the upcoming 5/26 webinar earlier this week.
CIFellows 2020 Application Guidelines Updated and May 26th Webinar
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /We will be hosting a one-hour CIFellow 2020 Informational Webinar on Tuesday, May 26th at 3:00PM ET. There will be a brief 10-minute presentation on the program, followed by a Q&A. Presenters will be CCC Chair Mark D. Hill and CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura. Please register for the webinar here. Please note that the webinar will be recorded and posted on the CIFellow 2020 webpageafter the event.
CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura Named Regents’ Professor
In: People /Congratulations to CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura (Georgia Tech) for being appointed a Regents’ Professor by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. Regents’ Professorships are granted to outstanding tenured, full professors, based on excellence in research and contributions to their profession and to Georgia Tech.
Vijay Kumar Receives the 2020 IEEE Robotics and Automation Technical Field Award
In: People /Vijay Kumar from the University of Pennsylvania has been selected as the recipient of the prestigious 2020 IEEE Robotics and Automation Technical Field Award. He was honored for “Contributions to cooperative robotics; networked mobile manipulation systems, particularly unmanned aerial vehicles; and leadership in robotics research, policy, and education.” CRA provided funding support to Kumar when he spent a year at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Obama administration.
Computing Innovation Fellows Program 2020
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Computing Innovation Fellows /The Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium (CCC) are pleased to announce a new Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Program for 2020. This program recognizes the significant disruption to the academic job search caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic uncertainty and aims to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent and soon-to-be PhD graduates in computing.
ACM Gordon Bell Special Prize for HPC-Based COVID-19 Research: Call for Nominations
In: For Researchers, ACM /ACM has announced a special category of the ACM Gordon Bell Prize to recognize outstanding research achievements that use high performance computing applications to understand and combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the ACM Gordon Bell Special Prize for High Performance Computing-Based COVID-19 Research. Financial support of the $10,000 cash prize that accompanies the award is provided by Gordon Bell, a pioneer in high performance computing and parallel computing.
2019 Taulbee Report Sneak Preview
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee, Taulbee Announcements /In advance of the 2019 CRA Taulbee Report, which will be published in the May 2020 issue of CRN next week, we’d like to share a preview of the degree, enrollment, faculty and diversity numbers for bachelor’s and doctoral level programs in the departments responding to the survey.
ACM-IMS Foundations of Data Science Conference: Call for Papers
In: For Researchers /The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) have come together to launch a conference series on the Foundations of Data Science. The inaugural event, the ACM-IMS Interdisciplinary Summit on the Foundations of Data Science, took place in San Francisco in 2019. Starting in 2020, they will have an annual […]
Former CRA Board Member and CRA-W Co-Chair Leah H. Jamieson Receives the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal
In: Featured Announcements, People /The Computing Research Association extends a heartfelt congratulations to former board member and CRA-W Co-Chair Leah H. Jamieson for receiving the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal to honor her “contributions to the promotion, innovation, and inclusivity of engineering education.”
National Academy of Sciences Announces Elected Members
In: People /Recently, the National Academy of Sciences announced the election of 120 members and 26 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. One of the newly elected members is Jennifer Rexford, who is a Computing Community Consortium Council member and former CRA board member.
CRA Survey on NSF CISE Departmental BPC Plans
In: Featured Announcements, Research /The Computing Research Association (CRA) invites the academic computing community to complete a brief survey about the broadening participation in computing (BPC) plans required for proposals submitted to some programs of the NSF CISE Directorate.
Update on 2020 CRA Conference at Snowbird
In: Featured Announcements /After careful consideration of the current and projected situation surrounding the pandemic, CRA’s 2020 Conference at Snowbird planning committee has unfortunately decided to cancel the in-person conference scheduled to take place at Snowbird, Utah, July 21-23, 2020.
CISE REU Supplemental Funding
In: Featured Announcements /The National Science Foundation (NSF) is aware of the disruption to undergraduate employment and education opportunities caused by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. We understand that many internships are being canceled, leaving students without expected opportunities this Summer. The Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) previously issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL; NSF 20-016) expressing interest in funding supplements to active CISE awards for Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), consistent with NSF’s REU Sites and Supplements solicitation (NSF 19-582). In light of COVID-19, and to enable the CISE research community to provide additional opportunities to engage undergraduates who are US citizens and permanent residents in research pathways, CISE reiterates this interest via this DCL.
American Academy of Arts & Sciences Announces New Elected Members
In: People /The American Academy of Arts& Sciences recently announced that more than 250 outstanding individuals have been elected to the Academy in 2020. Three former CRA board members and a council member were among those honored.
Former CCC Council Member Daniela Rus Appointed to White House Science Council
In: People /Daniela Rus, a former Computing Community Consortium Council member, has been appointed to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Message from the CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura
In: Featured Announcements /To the computing research community –
From my calendar, March 4, 2020: Working on a Mobicom submission, meeting a faculty candidate one-on-one, meeting with two students for an ongoing research project, meeting with the undergraduate lead for the Bits of Good student organization, talking by phone to a department chair about a two-body opportunity. Anticipating my younger daughter coming home for spring break. Going to yoga.
4 weeks later: BlueJeans presentations by three project participants, BlueJeans faculty candidate talk, Skype research meeting with two students on same ongoing research project, Zoom call about CRA strategic planning, BlueJeans student presentation for Bits of Good organization, one more BlueJeans meeting. Daughter is home for good. Yoga by YouTube.
Much is the same. Surprisingly much is the same. But also everything is different.
2020 CRA-WP GHC Research Scholars Program – 2020 Application Closed
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Mentoring, CRA-WP /CRA-WP is excited to announce that the deadline for the 2020 CRA-WP GHC Research Scholars has been extended to May 15, 2020.
Encourage an undergraduate student to apply for an opportunity to attend the 2020 Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC 20)!
Program Description: This CRA-WP program provides guidance to research-interested undergraduate women to navigate the vast offerings at the Grace Hopper Celebration Conference (GHC) and opportunities to meet and interact with students and mentors with similar interests in small-group settings. The program will include gatherings on the first and last days of GHC, as well as research-focused activities that all Research Scholars will be required to attend.
Learn More & Apply Today: http://bit.ly/2020GHCRS
2020 Board Election Results and New Appointed Board Members
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /CRA members have elected three new members to its Board of Directors: Alex Aiken, Cindy Bethel and Fatma Özcan. Nancy Amato, Carla Brodley, Dan Grossman and Kim Hazelwood were re-elected to the CRA board. Mary Hall and Mark Hill, who held non-elected positions on the board, have also been elected. All of their terms run from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023. CRA would like to thank everyone who agreed to run this year.
There have also been changes to the appointed members to the board. Kathleen Fisher has been appointed the new ACM representative, replacing Mary Hall and joining Alexander Wolf. Beginning July 1, Liz Bradley will replace Mark Hill as the CCC Chair and representative on the board.
Retiring from the board as of June 30, are Susan Davidson, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, and Barbara Ryder. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
ACM SIGHPC Computational & Data Science Fellowships Accepting Nominations
In: Research /Submissions are now open for an international program of graduate fellowships in computational and data science. The ACM SIGHPC Computational and Data Science Fellowships were created to increase the diversity of students pursuing graduate degrees in data science and computational science, including women as well as students from racial/ethnic backgrounds that have not traditionally participated in the computing field. The program will support students pursuing degrees at institutions anywhere in the world.
Open Access to ACM Digital Library During Coronavirus Pandemic
In: Research /ACM has opened the ACM Digital Library to all. For the next three months, there will be no fees assessed for accessing or downloading work published by ACM.
CRA and CCC Welcome Maddy Hunter
In: Featured Announcements, People /CRA has recently hired Maddy Hunter as a program associate for the Computing Community Consortium (CCC). In this role, she supports CCC staff and council members by handling administrative and logistical matters surrounding meetings, conferences and workshops.
CRA’s Conference at Snowbird
In: Featured Announcements /CRA continues to monitor the situation concerning COVID-19 and its potential impact on our upcoming CRA’s Conference at Snowbird, July 21-23, 2020. At the moment, the circumstances remain too uncertain for us to make any decisions about whether the conference will take place as planned.
CARES Movement Receives the 2020 CRA Distinguished Service Award
In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards, Distinguished Service /The Computing Research Association today announced it has selected the CARES movement – the Committee to Aid Reporting on Discrimination and Harassment Policy Violations – as the recipient of the 2020 CRA Distinguished Service Award for positively transforming the computing research community rapidly and fundamentally. CARES provides a resource for helping people experiencing issues related to discrimination, harassment, or bullying.
ACM Names 2019 Turing Award Recipients
In: Research, People, Awards /Today ACM named Patrick M. (Pat) Hanrahan and Edwin E. (Ed) Catmull recipients of the 2019 ACM A.M. Turing Award. They are recognized for fundamental contributions to 3-D computer graphics, and the revolutionary impact of these techniques on computer-generated imagery (CGI) in filmmaking and other applications.
CRA Taulbee Survey Receives 2020 Service to CRA Award
In: Featured Announcements, Awards /The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor the CRA Taulbee Survey with the 2020 Service to CRA Award in recognition of 50 years of providing an invaluable resource to CRA as well as to the computing community.
Carla Ellis Receives the 2020 CRA A. Nico Habermann Award
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, A. Nico Habermann /The Computing Research Association today announced Carla Ellis as the recipient of the 2020 CRA A. Nico Habermann Award. For more than 30 years, Ellis has worked tirelessly to address diversity at all stages of the computing education pipeline. She has contributed significantly to initiatives and organizations dedicated to increasing participation of women and under-represented groups in computing research, including Systers, the CRA Committee on Widening Participation (CRA-WP), and the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT).
CRA Education Committee Selects Two New Graduate Fellows
In: Featured Announcements, People, Education /CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected two 2020 CRA-E Graduate Fellows – Ian Ludden from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Jean Salac from the University of Chicago.
NSF CISE CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop
In: Featured Announcements /The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 6, 2020. This workshop will be held at the new headquarters of the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, VA. 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 (CCF, CNS, IIS and OAC) and recent NSF CAREER awardees. The workshop is also open to multidisciplinary researchers with a CISE-specific focus, including cyber-infrastructure. The workshop includes presentations and discussions on proposal preparation, experience sharing, a mock panel, and meetings with Program Directors from various research programs within CISE. In order to attend this event, registration is required on or before March 2, 2020. For more information and to register, please visit: https://cisecareerworkshop.web.unc.edu/
2020 Board of Directors Election Slate; Nominees By Petition Sought
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /CRA is pleased to announce the 2020 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition. Petition nominations must be signed by the Designated Voting Representatives of at least five Constituent Member Organizations that are current in dues payment.
2020 Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant Accepting Proposals
In: Research /By Meredith Ringel Morris, Sr. Principal Researcher & MSR Dissertation Grant Chair We are currently accepting proposals for the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant through March 30, 2020. You can read more about the grant and find instructions to submit a proposal at http://aka.ms/Dissertation-Grant. We encourage you to share this announcement within your communities either directly with your […]
National Academy of Engineering Announces New Members
In: Featured Announcements, People /Recently, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced it has elected 87 new members and 18 international members. Among those elected were two former CRA board members: Joel Emer from NVIDIA and former NSF CISE AD Jim Kurose. Congratulations to all members of the computing community who were recognized.
Lenore Cowen and Samir Khuller Receive the 2020 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
In: Featured Announcements, People, 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 2020 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Lenore Cowen from Tufts University and Samir Khuller from Northwestern University.
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.
Leila De Floriani Appointed to the CRA Board of Directors
In: Featured Announcements /Leila De Floriani has been appointed to serve as one of the two IEEE-CS representatives on the CRA board of directors. De Floriani joins Greg Byrd and replaces David Ebert on the board. CRA would like to thank Ebert for his contributions during his term of service on the board.
CRA Director of Programs Erik Russell Receives AccessComputing’s 2019 Capacity Building Award
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People /CRA Director of Programs Erik Russell was recently announced the winner of the AccessComputing 2019 Capacity Building Award. The award recognizes individuals whose work and accomplishments have changed the way the world views people with disabilities and their potential to succeed in challenging computing careers and activities.
CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program Accepting Nominations
In: Featured Announcements, Education /The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting nominations for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides 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.
Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2020
In: Featured Announcements /This work uses the same methodology as previous work to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised faculty searches for the current hiring season. While the number of 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.
Alexander Wolf Appointed to the CRA Board of Directors
In: People /Alexander Wolf has been appointed to serve as one of the two ACM representatives on the CRA board of directors. Wolf joins Mary Hall and replaces Andrew Sears on the board. CRA would like to thank Sears for his contributions during his term of service on the board.
2020 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Recipients
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers /Congratulations to the recipients of the 2020 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.
Nominations Open for the Skip Ellis Early Career Award
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards /The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce its newest award, the Skip Ellis Early Career Award, which will recognize outstanding scientists and engineers with exceptional potential for leadership in computing. The award joins the Anita Borg Early Career Award for Women in advancing excellence and equal opportunity in computing research. Nominations for the inaugural Skip Ellis Early Career Award are now open and will close on February 15.
Congratulations to the 2019 ACM Fellows
In: CRA /The ACM recently named 58 of its members as ACM Fellows for wide-ranging and fundamental contributions in areas including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, combating cybercrime, quantum computing and wireless networking. CCC Council and CRA-WP Board Member Maria L. Gini, former CRA Board Member Lise Getoor, and former CCC Council Members Elizabeth F. Churchill and Robin R. Murphy were among those honored.
Congratulations to Newly Elevated IEEE Fellows
In: People /CCC Council Member Ian Foster and CRA Board Members Mary Hall and Vivek Sarkar have recently been named IEEE Fellows.
AAAS Honors 2019 Elected Fellows
In: Featured Announcements, People /The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2019 elected Fellows. The Fellows are recognized with this lifetime honor for their extraordinary achievements in advancing science. Fellows are elected annually by the AAAS Council from the list of approved nominations from the Section Steering Groups. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows to the Section on Information, Computing & Communication.
CRA-E 2020 SIGCSE Pre‐Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty
In: Featured Announcements, Education /The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Pre‐Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2020. The event will be held on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 from 8:30 AM- 4:00 PM. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.
CRA Welcomes Nicole Beck
In: People /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.
Save the Date: 2020 CRA Conference at Snowbird
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /The biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird is the flagship invitation-only conference for the leadership of the North American computing research community. The upcoming conference will be held July 21-23, 2020 in Snowbird, Utah. The New Chairs Workshop will take place on July 21, 2020.