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Maximizing Opportunity and Building Capacity: Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington


This article describes strategies we have employed at the University of Washington to increase the prominence and impact of our program. In the past few years we have been elevated from a department to the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, we have begun construction on a second building that will double our space, and we have received legislative investments that will double our enrollment while preserving our ability to closely mentor students. While we have some important advantages (principal among them Seattle’s emergence as a leading center of technology in multiple sectors) and some particular circumstances (such as our role as a public university, dependent upon legislative support and bearing regional responsibilities), we believe that many of these strategies will be usable by others.

New Computing Faculty Workshops in Summer 2017


The third New Computing Faculty Workshop will be held August 6-8, 2017 in San Diego. The goal of the workshop is to help computing faculty at research intensive universities to be better and more efficient teachers. By learning a little about teaching, we will help new faculty (a) make their teaching more efficient and effective (e.g., students learn more with less input time from faculty) and (b) make their teaching more enjoyable. The workshops were described in Communications of the ACM in the May 2017 issue.

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Call for Nominations! — 2017 CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute


As part of its mission to develop a next generation of leaders in the computing research community, the Computing Research Association’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC) announces the fourth offering of the CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI), intended to educate computing researchers on how science policy in the U.S. is formulated and how our government works. We seek nominations for participants.

Expanding the Pipeline: Broadening Participation in Computing Fields by Preparing More Professionals with Disabilities


Most broadening participation efforts have focused on women and underrepresented minorities. However, for more than 10 years, AccessComputing has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to increase the successful participation of students with disabilities in academic programs and careers. AccessComputing addresses underrepresentation by providing multiple activities for students with disabilities.

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Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Margo Seltzer


“What are computer users doing that is wasting their time?” This question guides my research. I construe computer systems research quite broadly; if I can build it, it’s a systems problem. This breadth has let me pursue questions in visualization as well as operating systems; machine learning and computer architecture; file systems, performance analysis, graph processing, databases, and numerous other areas. Some people might say I have a short attention span; I just like to claim that I have broad interests!

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The Social Science Side of CERP


The CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) turns four years old this month. During the past four years, CERP has been working steadily toward its goal of building diversity in computing through evaluation and social science research. CERP is staffed by Director Jane Stout, Research Scientist Burcin Tamer, and Research Associate Heather Wright. As seen on CERP’s About page, CERP staff are an eclectic mix of social scientists with expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods and a passion for diversity research.

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Jeannette Wing to Lead Columbia University’s Data Science Institute


On May 1, Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger announced that Jeannette M. Wing, currently corporate vice president of Microsoft Research, will become the Avanessians Director of Columbia’s Data Science Institute and Professor of Computer Science. From Columbia’s Announcement: “Jeannette Wing is a pioneering figure in the world of computer science research and education. Her addition to the […]

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Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Sarita Adve


What value should a memory read return? The answer to this simple question is surprisingly complex for modern systems running parallel software. The memory consistency model, which governs this answer, is a fundamental part of the hardware-software interface, but has been one of the most challenging and contentious areas in parallel hardware and software specification. […]

Profiles in Computing: Yerika Jimenez


As a little girl growing up in the Dominican Republic, Yerika Jimenez, currently a Ph.D. student in computing at the University of Florida, noticed she had a knack for fixing things – cell phones, TVs, radios. Everyone in her community would bring her broken items, and she would return them repaired. A few years later, when Jimenez was nine years old, her family settled in New Jersey, and her fascination with technology continued.

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CERP Offers New Resource


Since May 2013, the CERP team has published a graphic in each issue of Computing Research News (CRN) that analyzes the experiences of underrepresented students and professionals in computing. Each month, this newsletter will share the infographic published in CRN and news about CERP. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, subscribe here.

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CRA-E Selects New Graduate Student Fellow


CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) is pleased to welcome its new 2017 CRA-E Graduate Student Fellow – Booma Sowkarthiga Balasubramani. The Graduate Fellows Program was established in 2015 to give graduate students the opportunity to contribute to CRA-E projects, engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students, and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.

2017 CRA Computing Leadership Summit


On Monday, February 27, in Washington, D.C., the Computing Research Association hosted its annual Computing Leadership Summit for the senior leadership of CRA member societies (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Association for Computing Machinery, CS-Can/Info-Can, IEEE Computer Society, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and USENIX Association) and the CSTB.

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2017 Board Election Results


CRA members have elected two new members to its board of directors: Carla Brodley and Kim Hazelwood. Current board members Nancy Amato, Susan Davidson, Dan Grossman, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, Barbara Ryder and Ellen Zegura were re-elected to the CRA board. Also beginning July 1, Brian Noble will be the USENIX representative to the CRA board replacing Margo Seltzer. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2017 are David Culler, Mary Czerwinski and Seltzer. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.

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Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Dan Grossman


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

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CRA Releases Report on Surge in Computer Science Enrollments


Generation CS: Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments Surge Since 2006 Across the United States and Canada, universities and colleges are facing a significant increase in enrollment in both undergraduate computer science (CS) courses and programs. The current enrollment surge has exceeded previous CS booms, and there is a general sense that the current growth in enrollment […]

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Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Mary Czerwinski


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

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2017 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award Winners Announced


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