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.
This work directly follows previous work that analyzed current and future Computer Science needs via advertised tenure-track faculty searches for 2019. This follow-on work looked to understand the relative success of institutions in hiring the tenured/tenure-track faculty in the areas of Computer Science that were being sought.
Recently, ACM named 62 Distinguished Members for outstanding contributions to the field. Several from the CRA community were recognized for outstanding educational contributions to computing, including CRA Board Member and CRA-WP Co-Chair Andrea Danyluk. Congratulations to all!
On September 11, 21 computing researchers from across the country visited Washington, D.C. to make the case for federally funded computing research. The volunteers, traveling from as near as Virginia and Maryland, and as far away as Wyoming and Montana, participated in over 50 House and Senate meetings. Their message to Congress was very simple: Federally supported computing research is vital to the nation’s future. Using their own research and individual stories as support, and reinforced with additional information from CRA, they made the “Federal case” for computing to Members of Congress and their staff. Those Members of Congress now know more about the expertise and interesting (and important) computing work that occurs in their districts and states, and our participants have a sense of just who represents them in Congress. And they’ve hopefully started a lasting dialogue on both sides.
The goal of the upcoming CUE.NEXT workshops — organized by Larry Birnbaum (Northwestern), Susanne Hambrusch (Purdue), and Clayton Lewis (UC Boulder) — is to initiate a national dialog on the role of computing in undergraduate education. Computing educators and CS departments, as well as colleagues and academic units representing other stakeholder disciplines, will work together to define and address the challenges. Three NSF funded workshops are scheduled to take place in Chicago (November 18 and 19), DC (December 5 and 6) and Denver (January 2020).
The ACM Prize in Computing recognizes an early to mid-career fundamental, innovative contribution in computing that exemplifies the greatest achievements in the discipline. The award is given for achievements during the early years of an individual’s career – candidates are typically within 8-16 years of the terminal degree. The award is presented each June at the ACM Awards Banquet and is accompanied by a prize of $250,000.
The eleventh biennial Career Mentoring Workshop will be offered by the Computing Research Association on February 27 and 28, 2020 in Washington, DC. This exciting workshop provides advice and mentoring activities for those starting an academic computing research career. Most attendees are in their first or second year as assistant professors. The workshop, consisting of a series of panels, is interspersed with opportunities to network with senior researchers and representatives from government agencies.
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.
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.
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.
Teaching is hard — and teaching computer science can be even harder. With the growing need for computer science teachers in the classroom and an increased focus on access to computer science education, the role of the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) is more important than ever. With the mission of supporting K–12 teachers in the field, CSTA provides educators with the professional development events and community they need to improve their craft.
At the 2019 Grad Cohort for Women Workshop, more than 400 graduate students spent two days building both professional and support networks, while also attending sessions on how to succeed in graduate school. In three new videos, students, speakers, and sponsor representatives share their thoughts on the program’s impact. Check out these three 2019 Grad […]
Since 2017, the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) has been asking CISE Principal Investigators to include meaningful BPC plans in proposals submitted to a subset of CISE’s research programs. To support departments in preparing for this new effort, teams of 2-3 administrators and faculty members from computing institutions are invited to apply to participate in a workshop focused on Department Plans for Broadening Participation in Computing.
Each year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) recognizes an outstanding young researcher in a field of science or engineering with the Alan T. Waterman Award. Nominations for the 2020 Waterman Award are now being accepted and are due, via https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/honawards/index.jsp, by October 21, 2019.
National Science Foundation Director France Córdova today named former CRA board member, current CRA-WP co-Chair, and current Princeton Computer Science professor Margaret Martonosi as the next head of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate at NSF. Martonosi will assume the role of Assistant Director, CISE on February 1, 2020.
Recently, CRA Board Member and CRA-WP Co-Chair Margaret Martonosi was selected to receive the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) Aristotle Award.
The 2019 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.
It is with great excitement that we share with our friends, colleagues, and broader computing community that CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is now officially CRA Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP).
Last Friday, September 6 was the last day for former CRA Board Member Jim Kurose in his role as Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). CRA was thrilled was when Kurose was appointed to the position, and we appreciate his dedication and service to the community over the years.
As we noted an year ago at this time, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is an important but, from our experience, often overlooked funding opportunity for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) community. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported areas who are pursing full-time, research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. As the deadline of October 22, 2019, approaches for applicants who fall within CISE fields of study, we want to be sure you all – as members of our community – are aware of this opportunity for your undergraduate seniors and first-year graduate students.
As a first step to address recent recruiting challenges in the computing research community, the Computing Research Association (CRA) launched the CV Database initiative in Fall 2018. This initiative provides a database of candidates for academic and industrial/government laboratory research positions. 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 2019-20. The CRA has reviewed usage data from the first year application cycle and made adjustments to improve the user experience and process. The CV Database will re-open for the 2019-20 recruiting season in mid-September 2019. In mid-October 2019, recruiter access to the CV Database will be made available to all CRA academic members. Additionally, industrial and government laboratory CRA member institutions that sponsor Grad Cohort 2020 at the silver level and above will receive access.
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.
This article examines gender and residency/ethnicity differences in PhD specialty areas as reported to the CRA Taulbee Survey from 2012-2018. The Taulbee Survey is conducted each fall and, among other questions, asks doctoral departments of Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Information for data about each PhD they awarded in the previous academic year. The data on each new PhD includes gender, residency/race/ethnicity, and PhD specialty area. A total of 12,968 PhDs were awarded by Taulbee respondents during the 7 year period from 2012-2018. Of those, the specialty area was listed as Other or Unknown for 3,328. Those individuals are omitted from the analyses described here; individuals where gender was not provided or where residency/ethnicity was listed as Unknown are not included in the analysis by that category.
CRA has recently hired Evelyn Yarzebinski as a research associate for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). In this role, Evelyn supports CERP activities through administrative and research efforts, such as contributing to the CERP website and blog, data management, and analysis.
The annual CRA Data Buddies Survey will open October 2019. If your department is not yet a member, sign up here to learn more about your students and how your department compares to other similar departments.
In 2017, CRA published the Generation CS report on the surge in undergraduate computer science enrollments, based on data gathered through an Enrollments Survey of doctoral and non-doctoral academic units of computer science in fall 2015.Since then, enrollments have continued to grow. In fall 2018, as part of the Taulbee Survey of doctoral departments, CRA included some questions to assess the current impact. Are academic units still struggling, or has the increase become the new normal? What changes have occurred in department resources or policies? What is the observed impact on students and faculty, including student diversity?
Four years ago, I left a tenured faculty position at Grinnell, a selective liberal arts college, to found a brand new computer science program at Whitman, another selective liberal arts college. Since establishing this program, I’ve started to receive mailings not only from my own Ph.D. program, but from a range of graduate programs in computer science and related fields.
If you’re reading this, you probably care about attracting graduate student applicants from institutions like mine. If you don’t, you should: Baccalaureate colleges are second only to “very high research activity universities” in their institutional-yield ratios for graduates who go on to receive a doctorate in science or engineering.
I am writing to share the timeline and process for the strategic planning effort that CRA is undertaking, as well as to highlight some of the opportunities for you to be involved. The ultimate goal of strategic planning is to determine how CRA can best serve its members and the computing research community. Given the many challenges and opportunities, it is imperative that we clearly understand the needs of our members and focus our activities to address those needs.
On Tuesday June 25th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2019 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows to the CRA office. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. At the CRA office, the fellows attended a presentation by Brian Mosley, policy analyst in CRA’s Office of Government Affairs, covering the policy concerns and issues that the association works on and attempts to influence at the federal level.
As many of you know, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has a long history of investing in education and workforce development across all areas of science and engineering, including CISE areas.
The ACM Future of Computing Academy is a new initiative enabling early-career researchers, practitioners, educators, and entrepreneurs to develop a strong and influential collective voice to help shape the future of computing. It consists of talented professionals who are committed to making a positive and lasting impact on ACM and the global computing profession. ACM is now accepting applications for membership. The application deadline is 23 August 2019.
Proposals for Cycle 20 of the U.S.-Egypt S&T Joint Fund will be accepted until September 5. This year there is a new research focus on artificial intelligence/machine learning applications in the areas of health, energy, water, and agriculture. Collaborative Research Grants provide up to $400,000 USD for a joint U.S. and Egyptian research team. Junior Scientist Grants provide up to $30,000 for training visits to U.S. institutions.
CRA recently published two videos on the 2019 Grad Cohort for URMD – one targeted at sponsors and the other targeted at potential attendees. In both videos, students, speakers, sponsor representatives, and CRA Director of Programs Erik Russell share their experiences, the impact it has and the benefits it delivers to sponsors.
We are pleased to announce CRA’s annual reports for the fiscal years 2016-17 and 2017-18 are now available for download as a PDF file. The CRA fiscal year runs from July 1 – June 30 of each year. These reports highlight the activities of CRA and its committees.
Former CRA Board Member David Bader will direct the new institute for data science at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The institute will focus on cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and development in all areas pertinent to digital data. It will bring existing research centers in big data, medical informatics and cybersecurity together with new research centers in data analytics and artificial intelligence, cutting across all NJIT colleges and schools, and conduct both basic and applied research.
My name is Jesse Anderson, and I am thrilled to be CRA’s Tisdale Fellow this summer. I am a rising sophomore double-majoring in computer science and journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a minor in math. Within my university, I am heavily involved in the Maryland Lead Program, the Girl Up Club, and the Association for Women in Computing. I am the president of the Girls Who Code club.
July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. In February, the CRA board of directors elected new board officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2019. Ellen Zegura is chair; Nancy Amato is vice-chair; Ran Libeskind-Hadas is secretary; and James Allan is treasurer.
We welcome three new members to our board of directors: Lorrie Cranor, Divesh Srivastava and Marvin Theimer. Their terms run from July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2022. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2019 are Ron Brachman, Chris Johnson, Josep Torrellas, and Min Wang. CRA would like to thank all retiring board members for contributions during their service on the board.
The CCC welcomed new council members, and Khari Douglas was promoted to CCC senior program associate focusing on engagement.
The NSF International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program is now accepting applications – this is a program where CISE communities have not leveraged very well in the past, having only 7 of the 158 active IRES awards. The program supports international research and research-related activities for U.S. science and engineering students. If you have (or are considering reaching out to) international research partners who would be willing to host and train undergraduate and graduate students in research, this is a fantastic opportunity to advance science through such collaborations. See list of active IRES awards to explore the rich set of topics that has been supported thus far, and to help identify appropriate IRES collaborations – communicate this information to your students as well.
Today, Cornell University announced that CRA Board Secretary Greg Morrisett has been named the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech, effective August 1. Morrisett is currently the dean of Computing and Information Sciences at Cornell University and an international expert in software security. He joined the CRA board of directors in 2012 and has served two year terms on the executive committee as board secretary. Morrisett has also been a member of the CCC Council since 2017.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society recently announced that CRA Board Member and CCC Chair Mark D. Hill of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the recipient of the 2019 Eckert-Mauchly Award. Hill was cited for contributions to the design and evaluation of memory systems and parallel computers. The Eckert-Mauchly Award is known as the computer architecture community’s most prestigious award.
The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a 1 hour webinar on June 12th, 2019 to provide the CISE community with information and answer questions about the revised Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research Initiation Initiative (CRII) solicitation that seeks to help early-career PIs. The solicitation may be found on the NSF website here. A revised FAQ for program will also be posted on the solicitation website shortly. To Join the Webinar, please register before June 11th by visiting https://nsf.gov/events/event_summ.jsp?cntn_id=298656.
The 2019 CISE/Computer Systems Research (CSR) Aspiring Investigators Workshop, will be held at the National Science Foundation on June 20-21, 2019. The goal of the workshop is to familiarize aspiring investigators with the scope of activities supported by CSR, various funding opportunities within the program, and crosscutting programs in which CSR plays a significant role. Aspiring investigators will hear from NSF personnel, as well as other senior investigators on best practices in putting proposals together, developing strong education and outreach programs, maximizing broader impact, and intellectual property and commercialization opportunities. The workshop is open to investigators from institutions eligible to receive NSF funding, who have not received prior regular research grants (excluding CRII and SGER grants) from CSR.
This November, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will host Rising Stars, an academic career workshop for women in EECS. At this workshop, female graduate students and postdocs who are interested in faculty careers will learn how to navigate academic life while meeting new mentors and peers. This year’s event, to be held in Urbana, IL during Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 2019, will bring together more than 60 top young women in EECS for two days of research presentations, poster sessions, and candid discussions about navigating academic life.
Today, President Trump announced his intent to appoint former CRA Board Chair Daniel A. Reed to the National Science Board (NSB). Reed will serve as a member of the NSB for the remainder of a six-year term, expiring May 10, 2024. He is currently senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah. Reed served on the CRA board of directors from 1999-2009.
Omidyar Network, Mozilla, Schmidt Futures, and Craig Newmark Philanthropies recently announced the Stage I winners of the Responsible Computer Science Challenge. They are awarding $2.4 million to 17 initiatives that integrate ethics into undergraduate computer science courses.
Former CRA Board Member Lance Fortnow will take over as dean of the College of Science at Illinois Institute of Technology on August 15. Fortnow is currently professor and chair of the School of Computer Science of the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also a former member of the CCC Council.
CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2019 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Joslenne (Joss) Peña. Joss is a Ph.D. candidate and Sloan MPHD Scholar in Informatics at Penn State University (PSU) under the direction of Mary Beth Rosson. She earned her M.S. in Information Sciences and Technology in 2015 (also at PSU). Joss completed a 14-month internship as a research intern in the Human-Centered Systems group at Honeywell Aerospace. Broadly, her research interests are in human-computer interaction, design, computer science education, and human factors psychology. Specifically, her dissertation work is investigating non-programmers’ behaviors and attitudes in higher education through small exposures to coding and how their trajectories relate to a reexamined view of computational thinking.
A recent Forbes article written by Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and a former CRA board member, addresses “Why We Need Inclusive Teaching In Every Classroom.” In the article, Klawe interviews Colleen Lewis, a computer science professor at Harvey Mudd, about Lewis’ work to develop, incorporate, and disseminate inclusive teaching practices. Lewis researches […]
Recently, former CRA Board Chair James Foley was inducted into the 2019 Georgia Tech College of Computing Hall of Fame. He was one of six luminaries from the Georgia Tech computing community inducted this year.
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC)’s recently launched Catalyzing Computing podcast is now included on the NSF’s Science360 Radio stream. Science360 Radio showcases shows from radio and podcast series, and also includes webcasts, events, in-depth interviews, and documentaries from NSF and other contributors. Catalyzing Computing focuses on topics of interest within the computing research community and is hosted by CCC […]
On March 22-23, CRA hosted the second annual Graduate Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD Grad Cohort) in picturesque Waikoloa Village, Hawaii. The location provided beautiful scenery as students spent two days learning how to succeed in graduate school and networked with a diverse group of peers and senior researchers.
The Data Buddies Survey came to a close at the end of February 2019. CERP wishes to thank all the departments who made data collection possible, with special appreciation extended to departments with at least a 20% response rate.
The Computing Research Association has released its latest white paper, “Creating Institutional Homes for Computing: Transforming a Department into a School or College.” This white paper addresses the growing interest and trend in transforming a department of computer science, usually housed within a college of engineering or science, into a school or college of computing. It follows up on a successful panel at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird on Schools and Colleges of Computing and a second panel on transitioning to Colleges of Computing at the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has announced it’s 2018 Prize in Computing award to Shwetak Patel, of the University of Washington and Google and a Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council Member. The ACM Prize in Computing is their second most prestigious award in all of computing (after the Turing Award – known as the Nobel Prize in Computing). Patel is the recipient of the 2018 ACM Prize in Computing for contributions to creative and practical sensing systems for sustainability and health. In just a decade, he has had incredible impact in the applications of AI and sensing in two broad areas – developing methods for disaggregating energy and water usage in the home and developing new methods of health sensing and advancing clinical science through the use of commodity sensors.
CRA Board Member Charles Isbell has been named the next dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, effective July 1. Isbell serves as the AAAI representative to the CRA Board.
Submissions opened March 15 for the ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational & Data Science Fellowships. The 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.
The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline concluded its fall 2018 Data Buddies Survey. The survey was modified to provide additional insight on student experiences in computing degree programs. These new data will be used in annual reporting and program evaluation.
My research explores algorithmic methods for determining whether a pair of species are likely to have coevolved and, if so, finding the “best” scenarios that explain their evolutionary histories. This work explores the computational complexity of these reconciliation problems, seeks to develop efficient reconciliation algorithms where possible, and, ultimately, to implement these algorithms in practical tools for biologists and educators.
Convention tells us that research involves a selection of topic, literature review, framework development, refining/defining your research question, developing a design, collecting data, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions, but at a community college the formality cannot always be used as a rule, but as a guideline for developing a realistic, learning opportunity. Community college participation in undergraduate research is an important part of education, but can be easily fall by the wayside to address life challenges often faced by community college students. However, given the opportunity to participate, research can be a rewarding and valuable skill that should be afforded to more students.
On February 25, CRA hosted its annual Computing Research 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). Several engaging talks at the Leadership Summit provided useful information on current issues important to the organizations.
In partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT), CRA announces an initial launch of BPCnet.org, a resource portal designed to amplify the NSF CISE Directorate’s efforts in broadening participation in computing (BPC). CRA anticipates that BPCnet.org will provide a much-needed clearinghouse for the community to learn about and engage with ongoing projects to diversify computing.
Colleges and universities across the country are experiencing a significant influx of students in their undergraduate computer science (CS) courses. Many of these students are seeking the “traditional,” CS-centric undergraduate degrees that have evolved over decades, along with changes in our field. But many other students are quite different from the students whom we have found in our undergraduate majors. While they are interested in computing, they are more interested in creatively applying sophisticated computational skills and methods to a range of disciplines from biology to linguistics to art. They understand that CS knowledge is critical to helping them succeed in nearly any job, that “every field is becoming an information field.”
CRA members have elected three new members to its board of directors: Lorrie Cranor, Divesh Srivastava and Marvin Theimer. The CRA board of directors has elected new board officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2019. At the February board meeting, Ellen Zegura was elected chair; Nancy Amato was elected vice-chair; Ran Libeskind-Hadas was elected secretary; and James Allan was elected treasurer.
The CRA board of directors is pleased to announce its selections for the 2019 CRA Awards.
Edward Felten – Distinguished Service Award Winner
Maria Gini – A. Nico Habermann Award Winner
This CRA-W program provides guidance to research-interested students on how to navigate the vast offerings at the GHC conference and opportunities to meet and interact with students and mentors with similar interests in small-group settings
By Meredith Ringel Morris, Principal Researcher & MSR Dissertation Grant Chair Broadening participation in computing is a core part of Microsoft‘s values; accordingly, we are excited to continue the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant that aims to recognize, support, and mentor diverse doctoral students as they complete their dissertation research in computing-related fields. This grant is open to doctoral students in their fourth […]
The National Science Foundation is initiating a national search for the Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).
Recently, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) elected 86 new members and 18 foreign members. This brings the total U.S. membership to 2,297 and the number of foreign members to 272. Former CRA Board Member Margo Seltzer was among those elected.
Find out what participants thought about the 2018 CRA-W Grad Cohort for Women in this recently released video. In testimonials collected at the end of the workshop, a resounding theme was the participants’ renewed motivation to complete their Ph.D.
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.
The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2019 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Jennifer Rexford from Princeton University and Westley Weimer from the University of Michigan. 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.
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is launching the “Catalyzing Computing” podcast, which will focus on topics of interests within the computing research community. The podcast is hosted by CCC Program Associate Khari Douglas and will feature interviews with researchers and policy makers about their background and experiences in the computing community. You can stream or download the podcast on Soundcloud now.
Today’s New York Times features an article “The Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting Into Class.” The story explores how the increasing student demand for computer science courses is outstripping the supply of professors. The article cites CRA Taulbee data and quotes several current and former CRA board members.
My computer science research career started during my college internship at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, during the early 1970s in the center that later produced UNIX and the portable C compiler. This experience taught me that computing was broader than the introduction to scientific programming in my undergraduate studies in applied math. (There was no computer science undergraduate major at the time.) For most of my career, I was interested in deriving descriptions of program execution behaviors from code in order, for example, to optimize program time and/or memory performance, to validate desirable properties such as correctness or data security, or to refactor code for ease of maintenance.
Increasingly, jobs rely on the ability to use computers to interpret, understand, and trust data. For example, my students and I have worked with ornithologists who cannot understand the representations of their bird sightings, civil engineers who cannot easily use their own building data, finance experts who cannot trace money between companies and their subsidiaries, and an XML document company whose clients cannot understand data that appears outside of their reports. In each case, the data users have been hampered because their data is exceedingly difficult to understand and trust, even though the users are experts in their fields. One reason for this difficulty is that the organization of the data is often designed for computers, not for people (i.e., for storage, not accessibility). Another reason is that data often come from different sources, leaving users with the challenge of integrating data that they neither understand nor trust.
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2019 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 organizers of the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird session, “Increasing Diversity in Computing is Easier Than You Think: Some Small Steps that Make a Big Difference,” recently published a list of 10 small steps departments can take to increase diversity at their institutions.
This work uses the same methodology as work over the past five years to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions by examining 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.
We analyzed ads from 409 institutions seeking to fill hundreds of tenure-track faculty positions in Computer Science. There was a small one-year increase in the number of institutions searching but there has been a 83% increase over the five years of our studies. The number of tenure-track positions sought shows a one-year increase of 5% and a 118% increase over the five years.
The ACM recently named 56 of its members as ACM Fellows for transformative contributions and advancing technology in the digital age. The Fellows were honored for significant contributions in areas including computer architecture, mobile networks, robotics, and systems security. From the ACM Press Release: The accomplishments of the 2018 ACM Fellows underpin the technologies that define the digital age […]
Three CRA contributors were recently recognized on Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in Tech List. From Forbes: “The Top 50 Women In Tech is an unranked assessment of technologists in five categories: Moguls, Founders, Innovators, Engineers and Warriors. The list showcases the breadth and depth of entrepreneurial women who are changing the world.” CRA and […]
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2018 Elected Fellows. The Fellows are recognized with this lifetime honor for their extraordinary achievements in advancing science. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows to the Section on Information, Computing & Communication.
The 2018 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference, presented by CMD-IT, was held September 19-22 in Orlando, Florida. The Tapia conferences bring together undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, researchers, and professionals in computing from all backgrounds and ethnicities.
Research shows that it takes 25 minutes to reach full productivity after an interruption, yet we are interrupted every 3 minutes. And even without external interruptions, our focus is fragmented. We look at any given desktop window for an average of only 40 seconds, constantly self-interrupting to check email or Facebook. We also try to complete multiple tasks at once, even though we all know that multitasking typically fails. Our tendency to be easily distracted kept our hunter-and-gatherer ancestors alive when they needed to attend to potential predators, but now, in the safety of our offices, it is amazing we manage to get anything done. Chances are you won’t even read this entire article in one go.
It is an exciting, impactful, and important time to be in computer science, not only as a researcher or educator, but also as an expert serving the community – and we want to invite you to consider opportunities for service at the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Former CRA Board Member Sarita Adve (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) was recently named the 2018 recipient of the ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. She is being recognized “for research contributions and leadership in the development of memory consistency models for C++ and Java, for service to numerous computer science organizations, and for exceptional mentoring.” […]
The number of faculty openings in computing has increased significantly in recent years, which has placed stress on the faculty recruiting process. Both academic departments and faculty candidates go through an arduous process. CRA has started a new service intended to improve the recruiting process for academic and industrial/government laboratory research positions. Candidates for these positions […]
The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) has just announced a new program, NSF 19-507, NSF Quantum Computing & Information Science Faculty Fellows (QCIS-FF). This program aims to grow academic research capacity in the computing and information science fields to support advances in quantum computing and/or communication over the long term.
A new initiative, backed by the foundations of Pierre Omidyar, Eric Schmidt, Craig Newmark and Mozilla aims to convince the nation’s computer science departments to spend more time teaching the ethics of the profession alongside the basics of coding.
We will again host two Graduate Cohort Workshops in 2019. The CRA URMD Grad Cohort Workshop is designed specifically for underrepresented minorities in computing and persons with disabilities in graduate school in computing fields. The CRA-W Grad Cohort Workshop is designed for women students in their first, second, or third year of graduate school in computing fields. The workshops will include a mix of formal presentations, informal discussions and social events. By attending Grad Cohort, participants will be able to build mentoring relationships and develop peer networks that are intended to form the basis for ongoing activities during their graduate career and beyond. Both applications are open now and will close on November 15.
The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting applications 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.
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.
The VMware academic team is pleased to announce the third annual award in support of the computer science research community. The objective of this award is to call attention to a valuable and promising body of emerging computer science systems research and provide support for continued advances by an emerging research leader.
The 2018 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.
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.
The Computing Research Association seeks a highly motivated individual to serve as a Deputy Director for the Computing Community Consortium. The Deputy Director works with the CCC Director, Council Members, and the CRA staff to ensure that the CCC succeeds in its mission: to serve as a catalyst and enabler for the computing research community, to provide mechanisms for the community to identify compelling research visions for the future of the field and to articulate those visions to key stakeholders.
These guidelines were established to articulate successful strategies for mentoring African-American doctoral students in Computing Sciences (CS). iAAMCS defines “student mentoring” as the process of supporting, encouraging and guiding students’ academic and social progress with the goal of facilitating career and personal development. Grounded in project-based results and similar empirical research, the following guidelines emerged: (1) recruit strategically, (2) establish community, (3) foster a research culture, (4) provide holistic advising, (5) provide funding and (6) promote professional development. iAAMCS hopes that institutions, departments and faculty use these guidelines to bolster the participation of African-American students pursuing doctoral degrees in CS.
Although the iAAMCS Guidelines serve as best practices for mentoring African-American students in computing, these strategies are useful for optimal mentoring all students.
The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2018 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
The CRA Distinguished Service Award is presented to a person or multiple people who have made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. The CRA A. Nico Habermann Award is presented to a person or multiple people who have made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented groups in the computing research community.
The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
In the report of the CRA Taulbee Survey published in the May 2018 CRN, there is an error in specialty area labeling in Tables D4 (Employment of New PhD Recipients by Specialty) and D4a (Detail of Industry Employment). In both D4 and D4a, the column labels for High Performance Computing and Human Computer Interaction were swapped. In addition, in D4a the column labels in alphabetical sequence between Informatics: Biomedical/Other Science and Social Computing/Social Informatics were incorrect.
On Friday, June 29th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2018 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows to the CRA office in Washington, D.C. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. Additionally, they took two class credits at George Mason University, and attended briefings at institutions such as the U.S. Capitol, Department of State, World Bank, and Federal Reserve. The fellows were in the office to attend a presentation by Brian Mosley, policy analyst in CRA’s Office of Government Affairs, covering the policy concerns and issues that the association works on and attempts to influence legislation and other concerns at the federal level.
As a researcher, I am fascinated by the challenge of advancing the high-level foundations of computer software (programming models, compilers, and runtimes) to productively exploit the latest advances in computing systems. While there has been a long tradition of research in this area since the dawn of computing, the rapid evolution of hardware has continuously fueled a need for new software technologies as old approaches quickly become obsolete. Current explorations of new hardware directions that go beyond Moore’s law have further amplified the motivation for this research direction.
From July 16-18, the Computing Research Association (CRA) held its biennial Conference at Snowbird with more than 300 people in attendance. Every two years, the chairs of computing and information departments, as well as the leaders of government and industrial laboratories from across the country and the world, gather in Snowbird, Utah, to network and discuss common issues concerning the future of the field.
The National Academies’ Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine recently released a study on the sexual harassment of women in academic sciences, engineering, and medicine, specifically looking at how it affects the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in these fields. The report examines the factors that predict high rates of sexual harassment and includes recommendations for addressing and preventing sexual harassment. Evidence reviewed in the study shows that organizational climate is the strongest predictor of sexual harassment in an environment and that it can either encourage or discourage sexually harassing behavior. Please join GUIRR for a webinar with two members of the authoring committee—Gilda Barabino, dean of the Grove School of Engineering at the City College of New York, and Vicki Magley, professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut—to discuss why addressing organizational climate is important to preventing sexual harassment and how certain policies and strategies recommended in the report can be applied in academia and industry to prevent sexual harassment.
Stuart Reges’ recent article entitled “Why Women Don’t Code” elicited strong reactions. I am a colleague of Reges’ in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington (UW). Like a number of my colleagues, I found myself surprised and troubled by his article.
CRA has recently hired Alejandra Guzman as a program associate. In this role, Alejandra supports CRA and CRA-W program activities with meeting planning, workshops, outreach activities, and committee support.
CRA and CRA-W Board Member Ayanna Howard was recently named the recipient of the 2018 Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing from the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Information Technology (CMD-IT). “The Richard A. Tapia Award is awarded annually to an individual who demonstrates significant research leadership and strong commitment and contributions to diversifying computing.
CRA-W will hold early and mid career mentoring workshops for women on November 3-4 in Phoenix, AZ. The goal of these workshops is to provide an environment for mentoring, practical information, advice, and support among computing researchers.
To achieve their educational mission, computing departments at research universities increasingly depend on full-time teaching faculty who choose teaching as a long-term career. This memo discusses the need for teaching faculty, explores the impact of teaching faculty, and recommends best practices.
For the past 30 years I have had two passions – machine learning (ML) that makes a difference in the real world and increasing diversity in computer science (CS). For the first 26 years, I focused on my first passion and developed new approaches to ML though applications to remote sensing, neuroscience, digital libraries, astrophysics, content-based image retrieval of medical images, computational biology, chemistry, evidence-based medicine, detecting lesions in the MRIs of epilepsy patients, and predicting disease progression for MS patients. For the last four years, my focus has been on my second passion: increasing diversity in CS.
In April, NSF requested input from the research community on a policy change to eliminate/reduce deadlines for core programs in the CISE Directorate, and we passed along your feedback. This month, NSF announced a change to remove deadlines for all proposals to the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program.
Recently, Nancy Amato, a robotics expert and CRA board member, was selected to lead the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science. She will be the first woman to hold this position at the University.
NSF CISE/IIS has several open program director positions. We encourage you consider serving in this role and sharing the opportunity with your colleagues.
This work directly follows previous work that analyzed current and future Computer Science needs via advertised tenure-track faculty searches for 2018. This follow-on work looks to understand the relative success of institutions in hiring the tenured/tenure-track faculty in the areas of Computer Science that were being sought.
We are less than two weeks away from the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird. CRA is excited to welcome the computing research leadership to this invitation-only biennial conference in Snowbird, Utah July 16-18.
July 1 marked a new fiscal year for CRA. We welcome seven new members to our board of directors: James Allan, Mark Hill, Ayanna Howard, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Margaret Martonosi, Rachel Pottinger, and Chris Ramming. Retiring from the board as of June 30 are Sarita Adve, Joel Emer, Greg Hager, Julia Hirschberg, H.V. Jagadish, Farnam Jahanian, and Elizabeth Mynatt. CRA would like to thank each of them for contributions during their service on the board.
The National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) brings together organizations throughout the United States that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, computer science, and mathematics. NGCP serves more than 35,000 programs in 41 states and uses a collective impact model that builds the capacity of educational programs.
I’m Amita, a rising junior at Columbia University in New York City where I’m majoring in computer engineering and minoring in political science. I’m also really interested in data science and just joined the WuLab at Columbia’s Data Science Institute.
The fourth (and last NSF-funded) New Computing Faculty Workshops will be held August 5-10, 2018 in San Diego. The goal of the workshops is to help new computing faculty 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 and (b) make their teaching more enjoyable. We want students to learn more and teachers to have fun teaching them.
On April 13-14, more than 400 women graduate students in computing from more than 150 institutions converged on San Francisco, CA, for the 2018 CRA-W Graduate Cohort for Women (CRA-W Grad Cohort). Throughout the two-day workshop, professional connections were made, new friendships were formed, and mentoring relationships with senior researchers were established.
CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2018 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Robert (“Rob”) Bowden. Rob is a Ph.D. student in computer science at Harvard University. After earning his undergraduate degree at Harvard in 2013, he spent a year working as the course preceptor for Harvard’s CS50 course, and then returned to graduate school with Margo Seltzer as his adviser. Rob’s Ph.D. research includes work on file systems and code synthesis. His current work focuses on how to use the vast amount of CS50 solutions generated by students to not only detect errors in student programs but also propose ways to fix them. Rob’s goal is to advance automated program repair of buggy solutions to introductory programming assignments.
This article and the accompanying figures and tables present the results from the 47th annual CRA Taulbee Survey. The survey, conducted annually by the Computing Research Association, 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 (CS), computer engineering (CE), or information (I). Most of these academic units are departments, but some are colleges or schools of information or computing.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor Mary Fernández with the 2018 Service to CRA Award for her work in transforming the visual identity and communications of the organization. Mary was a member of the CRA Board from 2009 to 2015, during which time she spearheaded several key initiatives to re-brand and revitalize communications.
Recently ACM announced that former CRA and CRA-W board member Jan Cuny has been named the recipient of the 2017 ACM Distinguished Service Award. She received the award for the establishment and tireless promotion of projects that have nationally transformed computer science education by increasing and diversifying access to high-quality CS education. From the announcement: When she joined […]
As you prepare to attend the biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird, we invite you to join an important event that is being organized by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) on Monday, July 16, 2018, from 10:00am to 1:00pm, in Salt Lake City, UT (this event will take place just prior to the main conference, and just a short distance away from Snowbird). This three-hour workshop will be an opportunity for the CISE community – and as department chairs, you all are a key part of this community! – to gather regarding a new effort on Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC). This effort involves the NSF/CISE core research programs, as well as the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace and Cyber-Physical Systems programs. The effort therefore impacts nearly all faculty who submit proposals to NSF/CISE.
Two recent articles have addressed the shortage of Computer Science professors at many institutions.
Inside Higher Ed featured an article titled “System Crash” on CS student complaints that their departments can’t meet demand. The article highlights the CRA Generation CS Report, the National Academies study, and Craig Wills’ November 2017 CRN article on faculty search results. The article places the concerns of students at specific institutions within the national context.
CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) recently underwent staffing changes when former Director Jane Stout left the CRA. Burçin Tamer, Ph.D., is now the Director of CERP and Heather Wright is the Associate Director. Under their leadership, CERP will extend its reach as a resource for the computing community through its Data Buddies Project, evaluation services, and other activities. Heather and Burçin are both excited to make contributions to the computing community and drive the broader mission of CRA to facilitate the development of strong, diverse talent in the field.
Our friends at the National Science Foundation (NSF) have asked for research community input on a proposed policy change to eliminate/reduce deadlines for core programs in the CISE Directorate. Given the increased pressures on securing federal funding and, in some cases, reduced capacity for grant management at computing research institutions, do you think the Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Directorate should follow the lead of the BIO and GEO directorates and consider eliminating or reducing deadlines for proposal submissions? What positive or negative impact could such a shift have on our community?
Supporting, celebrating, and advocating for women in computing is the mission that lies at the heart of the activities of ACM-W. Our longstanding projects of scholarships, celebrations, and student chapters provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to increase their technical knowledge while networking and building community. Recently we have begun to expand our activity to include projects that support populations of women in computing beyond students. This article provides an overview of all of our projects, old and new.
Approximately 100 graduate students in computing and more than 20 speakers assembled on March 16-17 in San Diego, CA, to convene the inaugural CRA Graduate Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD Grad Cohort). It was the first gathering of its kind hosted by CRA. This new iteration of the Grad Cohort Workshop focused on the following underrepresented groups in computing: Alaska Native, Black/African American, Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, and persons with disabilities. The workshop aimed to increase representation from these groups in computing research by building and mentoring nationwide communities through their graduate studies, and is modeled on the highly successful CRA-W Grad Cohort Workshop for Women.
After serving for more than five years as CERP director, Jane Stout has left CRA to pursue a senior project director position for YOUGOV. During Jane’s tenure at CRA, she oversaw the Data Buddies Project; led CERP in evaluation work for the CRA-W, CCC, and CRA-E; and obtained an NSF grant to conduct computing education research focusing on diversity. Jane also gave numerous talks and interviews on the importance of diversity in computing and shared CERP’s research findings with the computing community.
While she will be missed by her colleagues at CRA, CERP, and the CRA-W community, we wish all the best for her as she embarks on this next stage of her career.
Last fall, the CRA Education Committee added a new resource to its website for “Teaching Computer Science: Capacity Building and Scaling.” Across the United States and Canada, universities and colleges are facing significant increases in undergraduate computer science (CS) enrollments. This surge has exceeded all previous CS program booms and there is a general sense that the current enrollment growth is substantially different than that of the mid-1980s and late 1990s. CRA’s Generation CS Study provides excellent insight into enrollment trends and their impact on computer science units, diversity, enrollment management strategies, and more.
The Computing Alliance for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) is a consortium of Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) committed to consolidating the strengths, resources, and efforts of public, private, federal, state, and local organizations that share the core value of increasing the number of Hispanics who pursue and complete baccalaureate and advanced degrees in computing areas. CAHSI plays a critical role in evaluating, documenting, and disseminating effective practices that support students in computing disciplines at the critical junctures in the academic pipeline.
The 2018 NSF Workshop for Aspiring Principal Investigators (PIs) in Computer Systems Research (CSR) will help aspiring PIs gain a better understanding of the CSR program and prepare them for developing competitive CSR proposals in the future.
CRA-E’s new “Undergraduate Research Highlights” series showcases outstanding research done by undergraduate students at universities and colleges across North America. Each article features the story of a successful undergraduate researcher and offers personal insights into their experiences with finding an advisor, undertaking new research projects, and discovering how research can impact their personal and professional futures.
ACM has named John L. Hennessy, former president of Stanford University, and David A. Patterson, professor emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley, recipients of the 2017 ACM A.M. Turing Award for pioneering a systematic, quantitative approach to the design and evaluation of computer architectures with enduring impact on the microprocessor industry. Patterson is a former CRA Board Chair and will be a plenary speaker at the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird, and Hennessy was the keynote speaker at the 2012 CRA Conference at Snowbird.
Submissions opened March 15 for the ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational & Data Science Fellowships. The 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.
CRA members have elected five new members to its board of directors: James Allan, Maria Ebling, Ayanna Howard, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, and Rachel Pottinger. Current board members Michael Franklin, Stephanie Forrest, Kathryn McKinley, Greg Morrisett, and Vivek Sarkar were re-elected to the CRA board. Their terms run from July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2021. CRA […]
Please nominate colleagues and peers who have extraordinarily advanced the scientific enterprise for this prestigious honor. Nominations and three letters of support must be submitted to NSF by April 16, 2018.
CRA Board Member Farnam Jahanian has been named President of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). From 2011 to 2014, Jahanian served as Assistant Director (AD) for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation (NSF). In 2015, he was elected to the CRA Board of Directors and also received the CRA Distinguished Service Award. Jahanian is currently […]
On Monday, February 26, in Arlington, VA, the CRA hosted its annual Computing Research 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.
This year, the CRA Board of Directors selected two recipients of the 2018 A. Nico Habermann Award: Juan E. Gilbert from the University of Florida and Manuel A. Pérez Quiñones from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Both individuals are being recognized for their contributions aimed at increasing the number and success of members of underrepresented groups in the computing research community. Gilbert has had an incredible impact on diversifying the field of computer science, especially on increasing the number of African-American Ph.D. recipients and faculty members in all of the institutions in which he has worked. Pérez Quiñones has tirelessly and passionately worked throughout his career for diversity and inclusion in computing at all levels, spanning from high school to Ph.D., especially for Latino/as.
Paul Messina was selected as the 2018 recipient of the CRA Distinguished Service Award for his significant contributions to the advancement of high performance computing and decades of service to the field. Messina has an incredible record of building and managing large-scale, diverse research activities. Over the course of his career, he has designed, directed, and otherwise executed numerous initiatives that have influenced U.S. policy and programs resulting in the U.S. leadership position in high-performance computing.
The ACM/IEEE Computer Society George Michael Memorial HPC (GMM) Fellowship is endowed in memory of George Michael, one of the founding fathers of the SC Conference series. The fellowship honors exceptional PhD students throughout the world whose research focus is on high performance computing applications, networking, storage or large-scale data analytics using the most powerful computers that are currently available. The Fellowship includes a $5,000 honorarium and travel expenses to attend SC18 in Dallas on November 15, where the GMM Fellowships will be formally presented.
CRA has recently hired Daniela Cárdenas as a program assistant. In her new role, Daniela supports CRA and CRA-W program activities with administrative and logistical matters such as planning meetings, workshops, outreach activities, and committee support.
The program for the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird has recently been updated. A third plenary session will consist of a panel on “Diversity in Computing Leadership” chaired by Carla Brodley. The confirmed participants include Shinder Dhillon, Head of Global Diversity & Inclusion – Engineering & Corporate Functions, Microsoft, Brian Reaves, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Dell, Inc., and Ayanna Howard, Chair, School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech.
CRA wishes to thank the computing departments who distributed CERP’s Data Buddies survey during the fall of 2017. These departments’ collective effort provided vital data for CERP’s research and evaluation assessing students’ varied experiences in computing degree programs.
The Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant aims to recognize, support, and mentor diverse doctoral students as they complete their dissertation research in computing-related fields.
The President’s budget request for FY 2019 was released on February 12. CRA Director of Government Affairs Peter Harsha provided his analysis of the request in a post titled, “President’s Budget Request a Mixed Bag for Science, but it Could Have Been Much Worse.”
In addition to honoring exceptionally successful students, these awards identify some of the departments that are particularly effective at cultivating and promoting undergraduate research. A total of 94 colleges and universities have nominated students during the last three years.
The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2018 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Michael Ernst from the University of Washington in Seattle and Catherine Putonti from Loyola University in Chicago.
My research focuses on empowering individuals through computing technologies that more effectively match their knowledge, experience, abilities, and goals. The majority of my recent research has focused on accessibility-related issues. Working with my students, our research employs a broad definition of accessibility, seeking to empower individuals with disabilities as well as individuals who may experience challenges due to the environment in which they are using computing technologies.
The biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird is the flagship invitation-only conference for the leadership of the North American computing research community. A preliminary program is now available and will be updated on the CRA website as additional information becomes available.
The CRA Education Committee is now accepting applications for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in computing fields to contribute to CRA-E projects, network with computer science education advocates on the committee, engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote undergraduate research and education at the national level.
AnitaB.org celebrates and recognizes the success of women technologists with a series of awards presented at the annual Grace Hopper Celebration to honor women making significant contributions to technology.
CRA-Women invites nominations for the Borg Early Career Award (BECA). The award honors the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W and is inspired by her commitment to increasing the participation of women in computing research.
On December 12, 2017, CRA hosted the Summit on Technology and Jobs in Washington, DC. The day was packed with sessions that explored issues surrounding the impact of artificial intelligence and the future of work. Leading technologists, economists, and policy experts offered their views on where technology is headed and what its impact may be, and on policy issues raised by these projections and possible policy responses. Videos and slides from the event are now available.
Greg Byrd has been appointed the new IEEE-CS representative on the CRA board of directors. Byrd joins David Ebert and replaces Tom Conte on the board. CRA would like to thank Conte for his contributions during his term of service on the board. Byrd is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina […]
The sessions will focus on how teaching faculty can strategize their involvement in departmental as well as research activities, different forms of scholarship and leadership activities to pursue, and best practices for success, promotion, and advancement.
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2018 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.
This work uses the same methodology as work from previous years to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions by examining 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.
The ACM recently named 54 of its members as ACM Fellows for transformative contributions and advancing technology in the digital age. They were honored for seminal work in areas including artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, computer graphics, cloud computing, and software engineering.
Join Dr. Jane Stout, Director of the CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) for a webinar titled “Low Diversity in Tech: How Did It Happen and How Do We Fix It?”
Retention and graduation of underrepresented minorities and students with disabilities is critical to creating a strong pipeline of employees for both industry and academia. In early 2017, the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT) announced the call for nominations for the first annual CMD-IT University Award for Retention of Minorities and Students with Disabilities in Computer Science. The University Award was created to recognize a U.S. academic institution that has demonstrated a commitment and shown results for the retention of students from underrepresented groups in undergraduate computer science programs over the last five years.
The CS undergraduate program at the University of Illinois is among the largest in the nation. It has grown by 250 percent over the last decade to nearly 1,800 undergraduates—and it is still growing. In the last four years, the percentage of women in our CS programs rose from 10 percent to more than 25 percent. And our freshmen class in the College of Engineering rose from 11 percent women in 2012 to about 45 percent in 2016.
CRA Executive Director Andrew Bernat, board member H.V. Jagadish and former board member M. Tamer Özsu have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
What does it take to produce application code that performs as close as possible to a parallel architecture’s compute or memory peak performance? This question is one that programmers of high-performance architectures contemplate regularly since using such systems efficiently can solve problems faster, or solve larger or more complex problems.
This question fundamentally changes the approach to programming.
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 16-18, 2018 in Snowbird, Utah.
Facebook has launched an invitation to university faculty to submit short research proposals on hardware and software systems; a total of 5 awards are available. During this proposal cycle, Facebook is especially interested in soliciting proposals for research at the intersection of computer systems and machine learning, including, but not limited to:
The latest US News and World Report (USN&WR) ranking of Computer Science (CS) at global universities does a grave disservice to USN&WR readers and to CS departments all over the world. Last week, we respectfully asked for the ranking to be withdrawn. Unfortunately USN&WR declined.
The methodology used — rankings based on journal publications collected by Web of Science — ignores conference publications and as a consequence does not accurately reflect how research is disseminated in the CS community or how faculty receive recognition or have impact. Furthermore, the list of venues is not public. So while some may debate the soundness of any bibliometric-based rankings, there will be no debate about the flaws in the rankings USN&WR has published; the methodology makes inferences from the wrong data without transparency and, consequently, it arrives at an absurd ranking.
“The Disappearing American Grad Student” in last week’s New York Times explores reasons why foreign students in STEM (and computer science in particular) often outnumber domestic students at the graduate level.
The NAS report discusses strategies central for managing enrollment and resources, and makes recommendations for departments and institutions. Its findings and recommendations provide much-needed guidelines on how institutions can allocate resources to meet growing student demand and to adequately support their computer science department in the increasingly central role of computer science in education and research.
The Sixth Heidelberg Laureate Forum will be held September 23-28, 2018. The application process begins November 6, 2017. The Heidelberg Laureate Forum was created by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies, ACM, the International Mathematical Union, and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters to provide an opportunity for young researchers to spend a week with winners of the ACM Turing Award, ACM Prize in Computing, Abel Prize, Nevanlinna Prize, and Fields Medal.
The New York Times recently published an article on jobs in STEM. The main takeaway from the piece – job opportunities in STEM fields vary widely; but computer science job openings outpace graduates. Here’s a snippet: Much of the public enthusiasm for STEM education rests on the assumption that these fields are rich in job opportunity. Some […]
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has released a new report titled “Assessing and Responding to the Growth of Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments“. The report urges U.S colleges and universities to respond to the ongoing surge in undergraduate enrollments in computer science programs, which is straining resources. The report was prepared by the NAS Committee on […]
The VMware academic team is pleased to announce the second annual award in support of the computer science research community. The objective of this award is to call attention to a valuable and promising body of emerging computer science systems research and provide support for continued advances by an emerging research leader.
For more information about the symposium please see the agenda and symposium website. The event will be livestreamed here starting at 8:30AM EDT on Monday, October 23rd. You can also join the twitter conversation using #CCCsymposium!
Professor Craig E. Wills presents new work that directly follows his previous analysis of current and future computer science needs via advertised tenure-track faculty searches for 2017. This follow-on work looks to understand the relative success of institutions in hiring the tenured/tenure-track faculty in the areas of computer science that were being sought.
The Computing Research Association seeks your help in suggesting nominations for its board of directors. We want individuals who have the time, energy and initiative to work on CRA issues on behalf of the entire CRA community. We have a working board, and all members are expected to be involved with community issues.
This award program honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award recognizes faculty members 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.
Recently, CRA board member Kim Hazelwood (Facebook) and Natalie Enright Jerger (University of Toronto) published an article in Computer Architecture Today that analyzed gender diversity in the sub-discipline. CRA’s Jane Stout provides her commentary.
CRA’s biennial Career Mentoring Workshop will be offered on February 26-27, 2018 at The Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Va.
The workshop provides career advice and mentoring activities for junior assistant professors in computer science and engineering. The workshop will include a series of panels, plus opportunities to network with senior researchers and representatives from government agencies. The 2018 workshop will also feature a session held at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Participants will have the opportunity to visit NSF and meet with NSF CISE program directors.
Applications are open for the upcoming CRA-Women Graduate Student Cohort for Women which will be held April 13-14, 2018 in San Francisco, CA. CRA-W Grad Cohort for Women is a two-day workshop for female students in their first, second, or third year of graduate school in computing fields.
IBM is pleased to announce the 2018 IBM Two-Year Worldwide PhD Fellowship for the academic years of 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. Strong collaboration with faculty, students and universities is vital to IBM. The PhD Fellowship Program advances this collaboration by recognizing and supporting exceptional PhD students who want to make their mark in promising and disruptive technologies. In 2018, the Fellowship Program is focusing on: AI, blockchain, security, and quantum computing. IBM is well positioned to advance these technologies and exploit their ability to transform industries and societies.
Engaging undergraduates in research can be an effective way to increase their confidence, perception of science, and sense of belonging. But at many large research universities, it can be difficult for undergraduate students—especially early undergraduates—to find research opportunities. Furthermore, even when they find opportunities, they might not have the background, training, or support to be successful. These issues are particularly acute for women and other underrepresented groups in computer science as they tend to have less pre-college computer science experience.
This year, CRA Board Chair Susan Davidson received the IEEE TCDE Impact Award for “expanding the reach of data engineering within scientific disciplines.” In this interview, Davidson reveals how her interest in bioinformatics came about and how her career led to this award. Two of her favorite problems have been data integration and data provenance.
If you have ever held a position as an Assistant Professor in computing at a US college/university, we respectfully request that you take a few moments of your time to complete a survey about your experience. The survey solicits feedback on a variety of potential factors that can influence a common expectation in the Assistant Professor rank, publishing and presentation of scholarly research. Analysis of survey responses will hopefully yield results that inform how to better support graduate students and new professors in generating more productive publication and presentation records. Retention of junior faculty is of heightened concern at present due to booming enrollments in many Computer Science programs.
The CRA-Education Committee has added to its website a new resource for “Teaching Computer Science: Capacity Building and Scaling.” Across the United States and Canada, universities and colleges are facing significant increases in undergraduate computer science (CS) enrollments. This surge has exceeded all previous CS program booms and there is a general sense that the current enrollment growth is substantially different than that of the mid-1980s and late 1990s. CRA’s Generation CS Study provides excellent insight into enrollment trends and their impact on computer science units, diversity, enrollment management strategies, and more.
In fall 2017, CRA will be conducting the usual Taulbee Survey and a one-time Teaching Faculty Survey. The Taulbee Survey schedule will be as follows.
By September 8: All doctoral departments will be contacted to update Taulbee user information. The academic unit head will receive an email and so will the Taulbee primary contact, if separate.
September 13: PDF will be available for data gathering.
September 19: Salary section opens for input.
September 25: Main section opens for input.
November 20: Due date for salary section.
December 18: Preliminary salary report available to participants.
January 8, 2018: Due date for the main Taulbee section.
April 2018: Full Taulbee report to CRA members and participating departments.
On December 12, 2017, the Computing Research Association will host a Summit on Technology and Jobs in Washington, DC. The goal of the summit is to put the issue of technology and jobs on the national agenda in an informed and deliberate manner. It will bring together leading technologists, economists, and policy experts who will offer their views on where technology is headed and what its impact may be, and on policy issues raised by these projections and possible policy responses.
The Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN) held the 2017 Change Leader Forum in Westminster, Colorado from June 12 – 14, 2017. The Forum provided attendees an unparalleled opportunity to engage with diversity and inclusion advocates, and learn research based best-practices related to gender equity and inclusion in engineering. Nearly 200 attendees representing a variety of institutions and roles participated in the Forum, including university leaders, corporate partners, engineering faculty, K-12 teachers, and academic diversity officers.
The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) is excited to announce a new and improved version of its Conquer website (conquer.cra.org/cra) for CS undergraduates interested in research and graduate school. The site also hasresources for faculty who are interested in mentoring undergraduate research and helping their students apply to graduate school.
The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2018 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award. The deadline for receipt of nominations is December 8, 2017.
We are excited to announce the eleventh year of the Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship program which aims to recognize, support, and mentor students as they continue their doctoral education in computer science, electrical engineering and mathematics, as well as interdisciplinary studies intersecting with those domains.
Two years ago, the leadership of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee looked to our organization, the Computing Research Association, to endorse an approach to reauthorize funding at a number of key Federal science agencies. The proposed legislation would provide increases for computing research funding at the National Science Foundation while keeping the overall agency budget essentially flat by bolstering computing — along with mathematics, physics, biology, and engineering — at the expense of the social, behavioral, and economic sciences (and the geosciences). The committee Chair hoped that CRA, which represents nearly 200 academic computing departments and industrial research labs — including computing research labs at IBM, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft — would support the approach, given the direct and indirect benefits increased investment in computing research at NSF would have to our member institutions.
Just about every day we learn about a new application of cognitive computing. From predicting schizophrenia to analyzing Wimbledon fan experiences, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence have arrived and are making a measurable difference in our daily lives. But with all the excitement around real-world applications of this powerful technology, it is easy to forget that the Cognitive Era, as we call it at IBM, is still in its infancy. And there is a tremendous amount of work yet to be done. Collaborating with leading minds around the world is the key to fulfilling the true potential of cognitive computing. And that’s why IBM formed the Cognitive Horizons Network (CHN), a network of the world’s leading universities committed to working with IBM to accelerate the development of core technologies needed to advance the promise of cognitive computing.
The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
I study how data and people interact. For more than a decade, I have been studying how to help humans access and manage information. While there is a lot of good work on human-computer interaction and on data visualization, much less work exists on “human-data interaction.” Why can anyone use Google to get information of interest while it is so difficult to get useful information from a structured database? The difference lies in the specificity of the request. A web search engine receives your request and tries to guess your intention. You know that it has a limited understanding of your need, and are happy to have it get you into “the zone,” from where you can explore for yourself. On the other hand, a traditional database query engine can give you complete answers to complex questions but requires that you precisely specify your query. If you make a small mistake, you are out of luck. Wouldn’t it be helpful to devise database query mechanisms that you can actually use and get reasonable results from even if you don’t ask it totally correctly? Complementarily, can the system help you ask a better question in the first place? Similar concerns also apply to the creation of a database, and helping users manage their data.
The 2016 Taulbee Survey report, published in the May 2017 issue of CRN, did not include the results of a component that was introduced in the most recent survey–namely, bachelor’s enrollment data from specific courses in the curriculum. This component was introduced as a result of what was learned in the CRA Enrollment Report (see https://cra.org/cra/data/generation-cs). Unfortunately, we were unable to compile the data in time to feature the results in the May issue.
Given the convergence of burgeoning enrollments in CS across many universities and colleges in the United States and the need to re-imagine the way computer science is taught to address 21st century challenges, the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University is hosting a 2-day summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pending anticipated funding.
Non-tenure-track teaching faculty are becoming more important to doctoral departments to help them meet their educational goals and responsibilities, particularly in response to the current enrollments surge. In the Generation CS report (available at https://cra.org/cra/data/Generation-CS/), 65% of doctoral departments reported in fall 2015 that they had increased the number of teaching faculty on continuing appointments in response to increased enrollments, and an additional 16% were considering it. Similarly, between fall 2006 and fall 2016, the proportion of Taulbee Survey respondents reporting at least one full-time non-tenure-track teaching faculty member increased from 81% to 87% and, more notably, the median number of such teaching faculty at the departments reporting nonzero counts rose from 3 to 6.
CRA’s own Jane Stout, director of the CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP), was recently featured in the article “Q&A: Researcher Shares Strategies to Increase Diversity in Tech,” in EdTech Magazine: Focus on Higher Education. Amy Burroughs, managing editor of EdTech spoke to Jane about why the lack of diversity in tech persists, how institutions benefit from diverse groups and how IT leaders can build more diverse teams. Drawing from her social science background and her current research on factors that influence women and minorities pursuing computing careers, Jane emphasized building a sense of belonging and community and encouraged IT managers to actively recruit women who can serve as role models and mentors. She also encourages IT managers to recognize that there are different types of effective leadership styles.
The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce a new iteration of the Graduate Cohort Workshop designed specifically for underrepresented minorities in computing and persons with disabilities. Applications are now open for the inaugural CRA URM Graduate Cohort Workshop, which will be held March 16-17, 2018 in San Diego, CA.
After serving the CRA-W community as a Program Associate for two and a half years, Melissa Borts has left CRA to return to school. Melissa is returning to her alma mater, the University of Maryland, to pursue her MBA.
On Tuesday, July 11, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2017 class of Eben Tisdale Fellows to the CRA Washington, DC office. These fellows, all of whom are undergraduates at universities and colleges across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. Additionally, they took two class credits at George Mason University, and attended briefings at the U.S. Capitol, Department of State, World Bank, Federal Reserve, and other institutions. The fellows visited the office to attend a presentation by Brian Mosley, CRA’s Office of Government Affairs policy analyst, that covered the policy concerns and issues the association works on and influences at the federal level.
At the CRA Education Committee (CRA-E) meeting in June, Lori Pollock (University of Delaware) stepped up to replace Ran Libeskind-Hadas (Harvey Mudd College) as CRA-E co-chair. She will join current co-chair Susanne Hambrusch (Purdue University), and Ran will remain a member of the CRA-E committee.
The 2017 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing is being held September 20-23 in Atlanta Georgia. This year’s theme, Diversity: Simply Smarter, evokes the basic yet irrefutable concept that diversity is simply the smarter choice.
July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. We welcome four new members to our board of directors: Carla Brodley, Kim Hazelwood, Brian Noble, and Jaime Teevan. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2017 are David Culler, Mary Czerwinksi, Margaret Martonosi, and Margo Seltzer. CRA would like to thank each of them for contributions during their service on the board.
On June 30, Laura Haas, former CRA vice chair, will retire from IBM research after 36 years in order to tackle a new challenge. In August, she will become dean of the new College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
She reflects on her time at IBM a blog post – “Laura Haas: 36 years of making IBM Research ‘Famous for our science, vital to the world.'”
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.
Over the 30 years since I began graduate school, my computer architecture research has explored many topics, but the ongoing theme has been attention to how technology and application trends and constraints influence hardware and system design, particularly at the hardware-software interface.
By Emily Tang, CRA Tisdale Fellow I’ve just finished my second year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I’m majoring in electrical engineering and computer science with additional focuses in linguistics and applied international studies. I’m currently figuring out whether I’d like to pursue studying education technology (in particular technology to assist bilingual learning), […]
The ACM International Computing Education Research (ICER) Conference will hold a workshop on Research on Learning about Machine Learning Organizers: Ben Shapiro (University of Colorado Boulder) Peter Norvig (Google) Rebecca Fiebrink (Goldsmiths University of London) When: Monday, August 21, 2017 09:00-17:00 Machine learning is transforming many areas of computer science. From natural language processing and search […]
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.
With graduate enrollment increasing for women in computer and information sciences, the entry point for the field’s educational pipeline is more robust than ever. Yet, it appears that the challenge remains to increase retention and completion of degrees. In order to expand the pipeline, our efforts must focus on both recruitment of potential talents and support throughout graduate studies that leads to desired career outcomes.
Lydia Tapia, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico, was recently named the recipient of the 2017 CRA-W Borg Early Career Award (BECA). The award honors the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W, and is inspired by her commitment to increasing the participation of women in computing research. The annual award is given to a woman in computer science or engineering who has made significant research contributions and contributed to her profession, especially in the outreach to women.
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.
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.
“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!
Today, more than 50,000 high school students will take the inaugural Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles (AP-CSP) exam. Ruthe Farmer, former senior policy advisor for Tech Inclusion in the White House explains why this is such a significant milestone for computer science education in an article in the Huffington Post.
Former CRA Board Member Alfred Z. Spector was named one of the recipients of the 2016 ACM Software System Award. Mahadev Satyanarayanan, Michael L. Kazar, Robert N. Sidebotham, David A. Nichols, Michael J. West, John H. Howard, Spector and Sherri M. Nichols were honored with the award for developing the Andrew File System (AFS).
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.
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 […]
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. […]
At the CRA board meeting in February, Executive Director Andrew Bernat presented members of the CRA Enrollment Committee: Institution Subgroup with glass awards to thank them for their service on the project, which spanned nearly two years. Former CRA Board Member Tracy Camp leads the CRA Enrollment Committee.
Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) is the North American subsidiary of the corporate research and development organization of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and a Lab and Center member of CRA.
CRA has recently hired Claire Brady as a program manager. In her new role, she is responsible for planning CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) program events and providing support to initiatives that enrich the community’s awareness of CRA, its committees, mission, and services.
Former CRA Board Member Valerie Taylor has been appointed as the next director of the Mathematics and Computer Science (MCS) division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, effective July 3, 2017. She most recently served as the senior associate dean of academic affairs in the College of Engineering and a Regents Professor and the Royce E. Wisenbaker Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University.
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.
The main focus of my recent research has been computer science education and the role computer science can play in defining and advancing its own education research. Learning computational principles and learning to code is hard, and teaching these subjects is even harder. For most computer science topics, we know very little about how different learners’ best learn; how to effectively teach the material to audiences with different abilities, backgrounds, and goals; and how to reliably assess learning.
CRA Board Member Greg Hager Inducted to American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering College of Fellows. CCC’s Cynthia Dwork Co-winner of 2017 Godel Prize.
Microsoft, Inc. and Google are now offering scholarships to support students to attend the ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference. Encourage your students to apply to these scholarship opportunities.
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.
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.
Thanks to the continued support from sponsors, the NCWIT Academic Alliance (AA) is pleased to announce the call for nominations and proposals for the latest round of awards.
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.
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.
At the CRA board meeting on February 28, the CRA board of directors voted to re-elect its current board officers to serve new two-year terms beginning July 1, 2017. The board officers include: Susan Davidson (chair), Susanne Hambrusch (vice chair), Ron Brachman (treasurer), and Greg Morrisett (secretary).
CERP recently extracted Web data to observe the career progression of women who had participated in the CRA-W’s 2008 or 2009 Career Mentoring Workshops (CMWs) compared to a sample of women who had never participated in CMWs. We obtained the comparison sample from a population of women who earned their Ph.D.s in computer science during the same time period as the participants. We collected current career information including job titles (e.g., associate professor) and job setting (e.g., academia vs. industry/labs) for both groups. We then categorized job titles as entry level (e.g., assistant professor, software engineer), mid level (e.g., associate professor, senior engineer), and senior level (e.g., professor, principal program manager), collapsed across job setting. To test for a systematic difference in job rankings between workshop participants and the comparison group, we ran a 2 (Group) x 3 (Job Title Rank) Chi-squared test and found a statistically significant difference in rankings across the two groups, χ2 (2, N = 181) = 8.46, p < 0.05. Specifically, CMW participants were less likely than non-participants to be in an entry level position, p < .05, and more likely to be in a senior level position than non-participants, p < .05.
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.
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 […]
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.
A paper from CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) was recently named an “Exemplary paper” in the 2017 SIGCSE Proceedings. New this year, the SIGCSE program chairs recognized a new category of the top 25% of accepted papers as “Exemplary papers”, highlighted for their accomplishment of high quality, novelty and broad appeal to […]
Today, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced it has elected 84 new members and 22 foreign members. Among those elected were Julia Hirschberg, CRA-W co-chair and former CRA board member, and Katherine Yelick, CCC council member. Several of the members elected have a background in computing research; congratulations to all. Julia Hirschberg: Percy K. and Vida […]
My research involves understanding and facilitating the life cycle of cognitive software, which is substantially different than the life cycle of conventional software. This difference has profound implications for the methodology and tools required to build such software. Cognitive software possesses at least one “cognitive” or “intelligent” component, such as a component implemented using machine learning, neural networks, or rules. Multiple cognitive components will often be involved in a cognitive application or service, but even just one component is enough to impart special and challenging complications.
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 […]
The Computing Research Association released the following statement in response to President Trump’s new Executive Order, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States”:
Yesterday, the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) announced the release of the 2017 Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering (WMPD) report, the federal government’s most comprehensive look at the participation of these three demographic groups in science and engineering education and employment.
CRA wishes to thank the computing departments who distributed CERP’s Data Buddies survey during the fall of 2016! The collective effort of these departments provides data for CERP’s research on students’ experiences and successes in computing degree programs.
CRA brings together people from academia, government labs, and industrial labs. For me, coming from industry, Snowbird is an unbeatable opportunity to take the pulse of academia. One of the hot topics in 2016 was the Data Science juggernaut. I was glad to join Barbara Ryder (Chair) and Lise Getoor (Co-Chair) in organizing the panel session: Data Science in the 21st Century, which was well attended and full of energy and ideas. After CRA’s Committee on Data Science (Lise Getoor, Chair, David Culler, Eric de Sturler, David Ebert, Mike Franklin, and H.V. Jagadish) published the bulletin article Computing Research and the Emerging Field of Data Science, David Culler and I sat down for a follow-up chat: A Conversation on Data Science.
The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) is pleased to announce the “Undergraduate Research Listing Service.” This free service is now available for faculty and other researchers to advertise undergraduate research opportunities and for undergraduates to find such opportunities. The site can be found here: http://conquer.cra.org/cra/research-opportunities.
Krintz believes it is important in computing research to push technology forward by including people with diverse perspectives and ideas. To do that, she supports increasing underrepresented minority participation in computing. “I think it benefits both society and technology in general. Personally, it’s just so inspiring to see young people have new ideas, get excited, and want to go out and change the world.”
In CERP’s 2015 Data Buddies survey, computing majors were asked whether they had thought about changing to a non-computing major during the past year. Thirteen percent of students who responded to this question said that they had. The word clouds here were created using students’ comments about the reasons they considered leaving computing and factors that helped them stay. Some of the most frequently encountered words in students’ reasons for considering leaving computing were “classes”, “hard”, “difficult”, “work”, and “time”. On the other hand, students’ responses regarding the factors that helped them stay in computing contained words such as “job”, “degree”, and “friends”.
The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on March 20, 2017. This workshop will be held at the Hilton Arlington, near the National Science Foundation. 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 (ACI, CCF, CNS, and IIS) and recent NSF CAREER awardees.
CRA Board Member Ellen Zegura was named one of the “10 Women in Networking/Communications That You Should Know” by Networking Networking Women (N2 Women), a discipline-specific community of researchers in the communications and networking research fields. Zegura is a faculty member at Georgia Tech and also a member of the CRA executive committee.
The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting applications for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in computing fields to contribute to CRA-E projects, network with computer science education advocates on the committee, engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote undergraduate research and education at the national level.
CRA-E plans to appoint up to two graduate fellows per year, who will serve as members of the committee, providing a voice for graduate students. The fellows will attend the annual CRA-E meeting (travel expenses funded by CRA-E), serve on a CRA-E subcommittee related to their interests and expertise, and contribute to the CRA-E Conquer site that provides resources for undergraduate research and applying to graduate school.
CRA-Women invites nominations for the Borg Early Career Award (BECA). he award honors the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W and is inspired by her commitment to increasing the participation of women in computing research.
As computer science departments across the country grow rapidly, we all may feel overwhelmed by the staggering growth of our enrollments. While faculty growth still has not caught up with the influx of students, we cannot be anything but happy at the diversity of students who are choosing to become computer science majors. Many people may believe that alumni engagement begins after students earn their diplomas. That assumption is false. Alumni engagement begins the moment that students start their education in our departments. With planning, outreach, and genuine interest in their lives and careers, we make alumni engagement an important part of our mission in the Computer Science department at the University of Maryland (UMD).
You can now view videos from the De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQFpLGNQdPn62wuMuITAbFg. Recently, CRA was a sponsor and participated in the De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work, which focused on the impact of the amazing technologies being developed by the computing research community on the […]
Microsoft is a Lab and Center member of CRA. This article is the second in a series of our industry member profiles.
Jeannette M. Wing joined Microsoft Research in January 2013, after holding positions in academia and government, most recently at Carnegie Mellon University and the National Science Foundation (NSF). From 2007 to 2010, she served as assistant director of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate at the NSF. Wing is a former CRA board member and recipient of the 2011 CRA Distinguished Service Award. Her areas of expertise are in trustworthy computing, formal methods, concurrent and distributed systems, programming languages, and software engineering.
CRA recently was a sponsor and participated in the De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work, which focused on the impact of the amazing technologies being developed by the computing research community on the nature of work and employment. The conference was held at Rice University with primary funding from the De Lange Conference Fund at Rice, which brings top experts and major figures to its campus in order to focus on a topic of great concern to society.
Tanya Amert, a computer science Ph.D. student at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found herself drawn to computer science because she enjoyed figuring out how things work. At 13 years old, she was a big fan of the Neopets website and online community. Amert noticed some users had customized homepages, and her interest grew even more. Despite not knowing any HTML at the time, she learned how to look at the source code and figured out how to change the color of the scroll bar within the CSS. “I discovered that specific lines of HTML made that happen. And I thought that was mind boggling and awesome.”
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has announced its 2016 Elected Fellows. Former CRA Board Treasurer Phillip Bernstein (Microsoft Research) and current CRA Board Member Josep Torrellas (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) were both elected Fellows.
This year’s nominees were a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several were authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others had made presentations at major conferences, and some had produced software artifacts that were in widespread use.
The mission of the CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is to increase the success and participation of women in computing research and education at all levels. There are several ways you can get involved by mentoring students, submitting proposals and sharing these opportunities with your colleagues and students.
The ACM recently named 53 of its members as ACM Fellows for major contributions in areas including artificial intelligence, cryptography, computer architecture, high performance computing and programming languages.
A recent White House blog post by Ruthe Farmer, Senior Policy Advisor for Tech Inclusion, emphasizes that Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) is an opportunity to join the #CSforAll movement and give every student the opportunity to learn computer science. On that note, with the kick off of CSEdWeek yesterday, the White House released a fact sheet detailing the great scope of CS for All efforts, including a new CSforAll program solicitation from NSF called Computer Science for All: Researcher Practitioner Partnerships (CS for All: RPP).
The eighth annual Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) will be held next week, December 5 – 11. CSEdWeek is “a call to action to raise awareness of computer science education and computing careers for students, educators, and the public.” This is a great opportunity to raise awareness about the impact of computing and the critical need for computer science education. Originally conceived by the Computing in the Core coalition, Code.org organizes CSEdWeek as a grassroots campaign supported by 350 partners and 100,000 educators worldwide.
In February, Ayanna Howard from Georgia Institute of Technology received the 2016 A. Nico Habermann Award for her sustained commitment to increasing diversity in computing. Howard is currently a CRA-W board member, and at Georgia Tech, she has provided research opportunities to dozens of undergraduates – more than 75% of whom are underrepresented minorities or women, and a majority of these students have gone on to graduate school. Nominations for the 2017 A. Nico Habermann Award are due on Friday, December 9.
By Shar Steed, CRA Communications Specialist Earlier this year, Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College (HMC), received the CRA Distinguished Service award for her tireless commitment to and profound impact on the computing research community. Nominations for the 2017 Distinguished Service Award are due on Friday, December 9. Throughout her career thus far, Klawe has […]
Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) shared a summary of actions to take to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in science and technology. The post titled, “Raising the Floor: Sharing What Works in Workplace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” was written by Megan Smith, the U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and […]
The Heidelberg Laureate Forum was created by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies, ACM, the International Mathematical Union, and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters to provide an opportunity for young researchers to spend a week with winners of the ACM Turing Award, ACM Prize in Computing, Abel Prize, Nevanlinna Prize, and Fields Medal. To date four have been held and all have been viewed as a major success by the laureates and the 200 young researchers in computer science and mathematics who attended each forum. Details can be found at http://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/. The inclusion of the ACM Prize in Computing is new this year and will further enrich the computing content of the Forum.
The wealth of faculty searches in Computer Science during this hiring season for positions starting in 2017 again affords the opportunity to study areas of Computer Science where departments are choosing to invest in new faculty hires. While the number 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.
We analyzed ads from 347 institutions seeking to fill hundreds of tenure-track faculty positions in Computer Science. There is a 30% one-year (and 56% two-year) increase in the number of institutions searching for tenure-track faculty in Computer Science and a 35% one-year(and 71% two-year) increase in the number of positions being searched for. The number of institutions searching and positions seeking to be filled has increased even more for non-PhD-granting institutions.
Recently, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) named computational mathematician Richard Tapia from Rice University, the recipient of the 2016 AAAS Public Engagement with Science Award. The award recognizes Tapia’s “remarkable career blending world-class scholarship, admirable mentoring and profound contributions to science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and public engagement.”
On Monday, November 14, CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) distributed its annual Data Buddies surveys to more than 110 participating “buddy” computing departments.
Buddy departments send the survey to students affiliated with computing (e.g., majors; minors; students enrolled in CS courses; graduate students), and in return they receive a customized report on their students’ responses. The survey measures students’ experiences in computing (e.g., sense of belonging), aspirations for the future (e.g., intentions to pursue a Ph.D.), and participation in computing activities (e.g., formal research experiences).
CERP uses data buddies data to conduct evaluation as well as social science research on diversity issues in computing.
Is your department a buddy? If not, help the computing community by volunteering your department to become a Data Buddy today! Visit CERP’s website to learn more, view our list of buddies, and sign up: http:/cra.org/cra/cerp/data-buddies/.
Morgan Carroll, a senior studying computer science at University of Texas at Tyler, fondly remembers her grandfather buying her a HP Pavilion with Windows 98 when she was eight years old. “From then on I just loved computers. In high school, I figured out that I was good at math. So when I went off to college, I took my love of computers and math and decided to try computer science.”
Carroll focuses on general programming and enjoys figuring out how to accomplish project objectives. Last year, one of her professor’s suggested she participate in a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), so she searched for one on the National Science Foundation REU opportunities webpage. She was particularly excited about a research project at the University of Alabama. The project was supported by CRA-Women’s Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU) program, which matches students with a faculty mentor for a summer research experience at the faculty mentor’s home institution.
Today, former CRA board member Martha Pollack was named the 14th president of Cornell University. Pollack is currently provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Michigan. Cornell University Board of Trustees unanimously elected her, and the position will begin on April 17, 2017.
The CRA Taulbee Survey is in progress. The deadline for the salary section is November 18 and the deadline for the rest of the survey is January 18, 2017. If you are the academic unit head of a U.S. or Canadian department granting doctoral degrees in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and/or Information, you should have received emails about […]
Facebook has announced the Facebook Emerging Scholar Program, which is designed to identify promising doctoral students and support them in their research efforts. The Facebook Emerging Scholar award is also specifically designed to support talented students from underrepresented minority groups pursuing their Ph.D.’s while delivering innovative research. The award is open to first or second year Ph.D. students who are members of an underrepresented minority group in the technology sector. Emerging Scholar recipients studying computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, system architecture, or a related area will be awarded tuition and fees for two years in addition to a two year $37,000 annual stipend and
The Karlstrom Award is presented annually to an outstanding educator who is appointed to a recognized educational baccalaureate institution; recognized for advancing new teaching methodologies; effecting new curriculum development or expansion in computer science and engineering; or making a significant contribution to ACM’s educational mission. Those teachers with ten years or less experience are given special consideration.
The University at Buffalo (UB) Department of Computer Science and Engineering is celebrating its 50th anniversary this academic year. It has chosen this occasion to honor successful women in computing with a year-long speaker series. The Distinguished Speaker Series highlights several CRA board members.
Calling all teachers, counselors, administrators, mentors, or other influencers who support high school women’s passion for computing and technology! Applications for the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Aspirations in Computing Educator Award are open through November 28, 2016. Each winner receives $250 in cash and up to $750 for participation in computing-related professional development activities, recognition at a local Affiliate Award event and increased visibility in his or her school district and community, NCWIT resources and promotional items, as well as an engraved award for both the Educator and his or her school. Educators can apply online at http://bit.ly/AiCEdAward no later than 11:59 p.m. EST on November 28, 2016.
The 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) brought together more than 30 accomplished speakers and 550 female graduate students in computing. Rita H. Wouhaybi who is a research scientist with Intel Labs’ Systems and Software Research at Intel Corporation, was one of the speakers who shared her unique perspective with the attendees.
Today, more than ever, industry leaders are looking to partner with academic computer science programs. With available computer science expertise at a premium, they’re looking for ideas, for new hires, for help on crucial projects. Universities are the mother lode for the personnel and expertise they crave. On July 18, I presented at the CRA Conference at Snowbird session, “Local Corporate Labs, Centers and Development Offices: Optimizing Department/Industry,” which explored the growth of corporate lab culture, and I’d like to share some of insights from that talk.
The CRA Education Committee (CRA-E) hosts a series of workshops on Engaging Undergraduates in Research at major computer science research conferences. The next workshop titled “Best Practices in Mentoring Undergraduate Research in Supercomputing,” will be held at Supercomputing 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The workshop will run as BoF session on Wednesday, November 16, 5:15-7 pm and is run by Nancy Amato (Texas A&M) and CRA-E Fellow Max Grossman (Rice University).
Back in January the Computer Science Teacher Association (CSTA), the Association of Computer Machinery (ACM), and Code.org announced an initiative to develop a K-12 Computer Science Framework for use throughout the country’s education system. The plan was to develop a high level framework, not education standards, that states and school districts could use to create individual CS curriculums for their needs and wants. On Monday, the group, which now includes Cyber Innovation Center and the National Math and Science Initiative, announced that they had completed their work and made the framework public.
Last July, a distinguished panel of computer scientists – David Culler (UC Berkeley), Rayid Ghani (U of Chicago), Rahel Jhirad (Hearst) and Rob Rutenbar (UIUC) — discussed this question with a group of approximately 100 CRA Conference at Snowbird attendees. There was agreement that data science is an interdisciplinary field, combining techniques from machine learning, natural language processing, data mining, algorithms, information retrieval, etc.
CRA’s newest award program honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award recognizes faculty members 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.
Correction to Computing Research and the Emerging Field of Data Science: H.V. Jagadish is a member of CRA’s Committee on Data Science, and was not listed on yesterday’s author list. The full committee includes: Lise Getoor (Chair), David Culler, Eric de Sturler, David Ebert, Mike Franklin, and H.V. Jagadish.
Our ability to collect, manipulate, analyze, and act on vast amounts of data is having a profound impact on all aspects of society. This transformation has led to the emergence of data science as a new discipline. The explosive growth of interest in this area has been driven by research in social, natural, and physical sciences with access to data at an unprecedented scale and variety, by industry assembling huge amounts of operational and behavioral information to create new services and sources of revenue, and by government, social services and non-profits leveraging data for social good. This emerging discipline relies on a novel mix of mathematical and statistical modeling, computational thinking and methods, data representation and management, and domain expertise. While computing fields already provide many principles, tools and techniques to support data science applications and use cases, the computer science community also has the opportunity to contribute to the new research needed to further drive the development of the field. In addition, the community has the obligation to engage in developing guidelines for the responsible use of data science.
We are pleased to announce a new award in support of the computer science research community. The objective of this award is to call attention to a valuable and promising body of emerging computer science systems research and provide support for continued advances by an emerging research leader. This will be an annual award in the amount of USD 100,000, granted to the recipient’s university in support of her/his research.
Eligible nominees are faculty worldwide within 5 years of their first tenure-track appointment. Nominations must be submitted by a university department chair and each submission should include a one-page letter of nomination, a proposed citation and three references with contact information. Each department chair is limited to a single nomination which must be submitted via email at sysaward@vmware.com. The deadline for the nominations submission is November 15, 2016.
The upcoming CRA-Women Graduate Student Cohort (Grad Cohort) will be held April 7-8, 2017 in Washington, D.C. Grad Cohort is a two-day workshop for female students in their first, second, or third year of graduate school in computing fields. The application closes November 30.
Grad Cohort is generously funded by sponsors from industry, academia, the National Science Foundation, and the computing community. The workshop aims to increase the ranks of senior women in computing-related studies and research by building and mentoring nationwide communities of women through their graduate studies.
On September 14, 21 computing researchers from across the country visited Washington, D.C. to make the case before Congress for federally funded computing research. The volunteers, traveling from as near as Maryland and Pennsylvania, and as far away as Utah and California, participated in nearly 50 House and Senate meetings. Their message to Congress was very simple: Federally supported computing research is vital to the nation’s future. Using their own research and individual stories as support, and reinforced with additional information from CRA, they made the “Federal case” for computing to members of Congress and their staff. Just as important as the message they presented, they also made valuable connections with the officials who represent them in D.C. Those members now know more about the expertise and interesting (and important) computing work that occurs in their districts and states, and our participants have a better sense of just who represents them in Congress. And they’ve hopefully started a lasting dialogue on both sides.
The Computing Research Association seeks your help in suggesting nominations for its board of directors. We want individuals who have the 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.
The board provides the membership for various standing committees, including the Government Affairs, Snowbird Conference, Taulbee Survey, Finance, and Elections committees. In addition, issues affecting computing research arise unexpectedly, and board members must take the initiative and lead CRA’s responses. Many CRA committees and initiatives involve year-round attention, regular conference calls, communications with lab directors and department chairs, proposal writing, and sometimes travel at the expense of the individual board member.
In an advertisement that ran in the New York Times on September 26, and in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, 39 CEOs and top executives of American companies argued that federally supported scientific research is, “an investment in our prosperity, security, and well-being.”
The ad points out that without federally supported research, we would not have such things as smart phones, the internet, or microprocessors, to name but a few of the examples cited. Some of the companies whose leaders signed the advertisement are members of the Task Force on American Innovation, a coalition which CRA is a member. The Task Force is a coalition of science organizations, American colleges and universities, and high-tech companies, which supports federally-funded scientific research and promote its benefits to America’s economy, security, and quality of life. The advertisement has the full list of signatories, some of which are well known to our community, such as Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, and Meg Whitman, President and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprises.
The ad was sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.
First, the good news: the government won’t have to shut down on Saturday, as Congressional leaders have agreed to a continuing resolution (CR) through December 9. As our regular readers will remember, the Fiscal Year 2016 budget year runs from October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2016 and if Congress has not passed a budget or a CR by this Saturday October 1, federal agencies must stop operations. The last government shutdown happened back in 2013, but we’ve been dealing with the potential of one every year since. The agreed to CR puts funding for federal agencies generally, and science research accounts specifically, on autopilot at Fiscal Year 2016 levels.
The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2017 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
Distinguished Service Award
CRA presents an award, usually annually, to a person who has made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. This award recognizes service in the areas of government affairs, professional societies, publications or conferences, and leadership that has a major impact on computing research.
A. Nico Habermann Award
CRA presents an award, usually annually, to a person who has made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented groups in the computing research community. This award recognizes work in areas of government affairs, educational programs, professional societies, public awareness, and leadership that has a major impact on advancing these groups in the computing research community. Recognized contributions can be focused directly at the research level or at its immediate precursors, namely students at the undergraduate or graduate levels.
From an early age, current Ph.D. student and 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) attendee Caroline Trippel had a positive image of women in computing. Her mother earned an undergraduate degree in math, a Master’s degree in computer science, and currently works as an embedded systems software engineer.
Please share this opportunity with your students. During CRA-W’s Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall Event, students from around the world will learn about cutting edge research in the field of computing, and have the opportunity to ask questions to distinguished computer scientists. The next event will be held October 13 at 7PM EST. Speaker: Deb Agarwal, Senior […]
IBM Research is a Lab and Center member of CRA. This article is the first in a series of our industry member profiles.
It’s not surprising that the public’s imagination has been ignited by artificial intelligence since the term was first coined in 1955. In the ensuing 60 years, we have been alternately captivated by its promise, wary of its potential for abuse, and frustrated by its sometimes slow development.
But like so many advanced technologies that were conceived before their time, artificial intelligence has come to be widely misunderstood—co-opted by Hollywood, mischaracterized by the media, and portrayed as everything from savior to scourge of humanity. Those of us engaged in serious information science and in its application in the real world of business and society understand the enormous potential of intelligent systems.
The future of this technology—which we believe will be cognitive, not “artificial”—has very different characteristics from those generally attributed to AI, spawning different types of technological, scientific, and societal challenges and opportunities, with different requirements for governance, policy, and management.
Computer science and education researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Florida, both CRA member institutions, are launching an initiative that will use a custom-designed video game to boost both computational thinking in middle school science classrooms and foster both gender and racial diversity in computing.
Back in July, we got a good sense of how Hillary Clinton would approach science and technology policy in her presidency when her campaign released her Technology and Innovation agenda, which we covered here. At the time, there wasn’t much information about how a President Trump would approach similar issues. Today, the folks behind ScienceDebate.org have released the answers provided by Clinton and Trump, along with Green Party candidate Jill Stein, to 20 questions about science policy issues facing the country. While Clinton’s answers are consistent with those she outlined in her Tech and Innovation agenda, the answers Trump provided give us a first real glimpse at the candidate’s views on things like innovation policy and the importance of the federal investment in fundamental research. I thought I’d highlight two question responses in particular, but invite you to read the whole 20 questions.
Today, CRA Executive Director, Andrew Bernat was a speaker at the White House Summit on Computer Science for All. The audience heard from students and leaders of CS education efforts as part of the CS for All initiative. The initiative aims to ensure CS education is available to all K-12 students across the U.S.
Bernat expressed his excitement about the incredible success of the initiative and explained CRA’s commitment to strengthening the computing research community by supporting the development of strong, diverse talent. He announced that so far more than 75 university and college computing departments from across the country have agreed on behalf of their departments to take action to support the goals of the CS for All Initiative through a variety of concrete actions. And he is confident many more will sign up. CRA member institutions’ support will include faculty expertise and effort, the development of innovative computing education products, and teacher development.
The BRAID (Building, Recruiting And Inclusion for Diversity) initiative is a joint project led by the Anita Borg Institute (ABI) and Harvey Mudd College. The BRAID project addresses the lack of diversity in computer science departments and specifically looks at the underrepresentation of women and racial/ethnic minorities.
Would your school like to participate? BRAID is now accepting applications for new BRAID affiliate schools, and proposals are due by 5 pm on December 30, 2016.
The 2016 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As we did last year, 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.
The schedule will be as follows:
By September 9: All doctoral departments will be contacted to update Taulbee user information. The academic unit head will receive an email and so will the Taulbee primary contact, if separate.
September 13: PDF will be available for data gathering.
September 27: Both sections of the Taulbee will open for input.
November 18: Due date for salary section.
December 19: Preliminary salary report available.
January 18, 2017: Due date for the main Taulbee section.
April 2017: Full Taulbee report to CRA members and participating departments.
May 2017: Published in CRN.
If you have any questions, contact Betsy Bizot at bizot@cra.org/cra.
The CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award recognizes undergraduates who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing. Here’s an update on last year’s awardees. Information on the 2017 competition is available here.
For Volcano Kyungyoon Kim, current Ph.D. student and 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) attendee, choosing to study computer science was an easy decision. She knew since elementary school that she would have a career in computing. Volcano comes from a computer science family – her father is a computer science professor, her mother also has a degree in computer science, and now her younger brother is currently pursuing a master’s degree in computer science. “Every single one of them is in computer science. So I never really thought of anything else. My parents think that it’s the most exciting and valuable field of study and it will lead to a great career in the future.”
While this influenced her enough to begin studying computer science in college, during her first two years she wasn’t totally convinced that it was a perfect fit for her. It wasn’t until Volcano discovered the flexibility of the field and its interdisciplinary nature that she was completely hooked. “There was a moment later on when I thought this is really perfect for me. It is not only about computer science, it is about applying it to all the other areas. If you have an interest in art, having a computer science background can boost your art skills or it can even open up a new art genre such as 3D painting in a virtual reality. Computer science is like a magic powder that you can add to other fields. ”
The ACM Athena Lecturer Award celebrates female researchers who have made fundamental contributions to computer science. Each year ACM honors a preeminent female computer scientist as the Athena Lecturer. The recipient gives an invited talk at a major ACM conference of her choice. A video of the talk is made available on the ACM website. The award carries a cash prize of $25,000. Financial support for the Athena Lecturer Award is provided by Google.
The National Science Foundation is currently accepting nominations for two prestigious awards. Consider nominating an individual from your department today! The Alan Waterman Award recognizes an outstanding young researcher in any field of science or engineering supported by NSF. The Vannevar Bush Award honors truly exceptional lifelong leaders in science and technology who have made substantial contributions to the welfare of the Nation through public service activities in science, technology, and public policy.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) and its education committee (CRA-E) are excited to announce the creation of five short videos entitled “Choosing a PhD in Computer Science.” These videos were designed in conjunction with award-winning producer Patrick Sammon (co-producer of “Codebreaker”) to explain the benefits of pursuing a PhD in CS. The videos showcase young researchers with PhDs who are now working in industry as they talk about what compelled them to pursue a doctorate and how they are using their advanced training in their work. While many undergraduates understand that a PhD is needed for a position in academia, these videos demonstrate how a PhD can be useful in industry as well.
How can a CS Department benefit from hiring tenure-track faculty in the field of Computing Education Research (CER)? What are some of the major research questions in CER? How can CER enhance existing research in a CS department? A panel at the CRA Conference at Snowbird Meeting in July 2016 addressed these and other questions. The panelists included Diana Franklin (University of Chicago), Mark Guzdial (Georgia Tech), Scott Klemmer (UC San Diego), Amy Ko (University of Washington) and Ben Shapiro (University of Colorado-Boulder) in a session moderated by Ran Libeskind-Hadas (Harvey Mudd College).
The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a terrific way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
The 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) brought together more than 30 accomplished speakers and 550 female graduate students in computing. Kim Hazelwood, who leads a performance and datacenter capacity engineering and analysis team within Facebook’s infrastructure division, was one of the speakers who shared her unique perspective with the attendees. Kim has always had an interest in technology and a love for math. Like many undergraduate students, Kim didn’t take any computer science classes in high school. However, she took a leap and declared computer engineering as her major heading into her undergraduate degree at Clemson University. “First time was a charm on actually picking the right area for me,” she explained.
The NSF-wide Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.
CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) will host early and mid career mentoring workshops on November 19-20 in Washington, D.C. The goal of these workshops is to provide an environment for mentoring, practical information, advice, and support among researchers and educators in computing. The application is free, there is a $250 registration fee for the workshop (for those accepted), and CRA-W will reimburse participants for expenses (hotel and airfare) after the workshop. In order to receive reimbursement applicants must be affiliated with a U.S. institution or be employed in the U.S. These workshops are open to individuals in their early career in research and labs, and mid career in education, research, and labs.
The Latinas in Computing (LiC) community was established with the help of The Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology (ABI) at the 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC). Recognizing the status of Latinas as a double minority in North America, this community defines and implements strategies to improve the participation of the current and next generations of Latinas in technology. These dual strategies complement the work done by the Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC) that focused on the recruitment and retention of minority students in computing-based fields in North America, and the work done by the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) to grow the research pipeline of women in computing. National Science Foundation (NSF) data shows Hispanic or Latino enrollment increased from 7.2% in 2002 to 9.9% in 2012, but the hiring of underrepresented minorities seems to be “stuck in neutral.”
CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) recently announced a new program for undergraduates, the CRA-W Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) Research Scholars Program. The GHC Research Scholars program brings undergraduate women to the annual Grace Hopper Celebration. The purpose of this program is to provide attendees with an unique experience, providing them a mentor, networking opportunities, and advising.
An early love of science fiction is what initially lured Drew to a career in STEM. Her fascination with outer space and the future, recurrent themes in science fiction, inspired her to study astronomy and become a physics major. Although she didn’t take any high school computer science courses, she always enjoyed tinkering with computer programs on her own. She decided in college to take a coding class and “really loved it.” Drew soon changed her major to computer science because she wanted to be part of the movement that brings to life the technologies we dream about in science fiction.
Those who attended this year’s CRA Snowbird conference may have heard Moshe Vardi’s provocative panel session on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work, discussing the potential impact of computing technologies on employment and the nature of work over the coming years. Vardi makes a compelling case that the computing research community ought to be concerned with the impact its innovations will have on society, both positive and negative. To that end, Vardi has led an effort to pull together some of the leading thinkers from the computing, economics, and social science communities to consider the issue in Houston in December. The De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work will be held December 5-6, 2016, at Rice University. Here’s an announcement from the organizers (CRA is a co-sponsor).
Bushra Anjum is a self-described “adventure seeker” in addition to her day job in computing.
“I’m into extreme sports–I like jumping out of planes or off of cliffs. I am an adventure seeker, at the bottom of my heart. So anything that sounds like an adventure to me –I will jump at that.”
When Anjum is not jumping out of a plane or off a cliff, she works as a software and research engineer at Amazon, Inc. in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Specifically, Anjum has expertise in agile software development for large-scale distributed systems, with a special emphasis on system design and development for highly scalable, fault-tolerant systems. At CRA-W’s 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort), I had the wonderful opportunity to talk with Anjum, who described why she has a passion for CRA-W and increasing diversity in computing.
On Monday, August 15, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will hold a public Workshop on the Growth of Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments.
This workshop is being convened as an information-gathering session of the Academies’ Study on the Growth of Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments sponsored by the National Science Foundation and co-chaired by Susanne Hambrusch, professor of computer science at Purdue University, and Jared Cohon, president emeritus of Carnegie Mellon University.
From July 17-19, the Computing Research Association (CRA) held its biennial conference at Snowbird, with more than 300 people in attendance. Every two years, the chairs of computing and information departments from across the country, as well as the leaders of government and industrial laboratories, gather in Snowbird, Utah, to network and discuss common issues concerning the future of the field.
The second annual Congressional App Challenge is a nationwide event that allows U.S. students in high school and below to create and exhibit their software application, or “app,” on mobile, tablet, or computer devices. The Challenge opened for submissions on 7/18, and submissions are due by 11/2. The Challenge is open to all high school students, and the winners get to meet their Member of Congress and have their app displayed in the US Capitol Building! Please spread the word!
Former CRA Board Chair David Patterson was recently named the recipient of the 2016 Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing.
Robots mimicking the form of insects have been making headlines recently. This May, researchers from UC Berkeley who are developing cockroach inspired robots presented their research at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Stockholm, Sweden. The paper describes how the researchers developed a springing mechanism that allows the robot to “jump” more than a meter in the air.
Registration is now open for a free Workflows Workshop to be held August 9-10 at multiple institutions across the country. Sponsored by the Blue Waters sustained-petascale computing project, this workshop will provide an overview of workflows and how they can enhance research productivity.
We are excited to introduce a new discussion session at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird that will facilitate dialogues about a number of thought-provoking topics in computing research. The group discussions will be based on the articles and books in this post. The session is scheduled for the morning of Tuesday, July 19, so begin the final day of the conference with some stimulating conversation.
We are less than two weeks away from the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird. CRA is excited to welcome department chairs and computing research leadership from across the country to this invitation-only conference in Snowbird, Utah on July 17-19. The event kicks off with an opening reception, awards presentations, and dinner followed by the first […]
During this Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall event, students will learn about cutting edge research in the field of computing and have the opportunity to ask distinguished computer scientists questions. The state of the art in cloth simulation can produce highly realistic cloth, but requires extremely high computation time, on the order of hours or even days.
On Tuesday July 5th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2016 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows (http://www.tfas.org/tisdale) to the CRA Washington, D.C. office. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, are spending the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. Additionally, they are taking two class credits at George Mason University, and attending briefings at institutions such as the U.S. Capitol, Department of State, World Bank, and Federal Reserve. The fellows were in the office to attend a presentation, by Brian Mosley, policy analyst in CRA’s Office of Government Affairs, covering the policy concerns and issues that the association works on and attempts to influence at the federal level.
CRA Board Member Farnam Jahanian, who is provost of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), was recently recognized the the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s “Great Immigrants – The Pride of America Campaign.” The CMU news site reported:
Since 2006, the corporation, which was established by CMU founder and Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie, has recognized the contributions of naturalized citizens with the “Great Immigrants” campaign. This year’s honorees will be saluted in public service announcements appearing in print and on a companion website.
“I thank the Carnegie Corporation for this wonderful honor,” Jahanian said. “Immigration has been a cornerstone of the American experiment. The ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity unify us as a nation while the realization of these values celebrates our diversity. Through his dedication to advancing education, Andrew Carnegie provided opportunities to pursue this American Dream.”
July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. Today, we welcome six new members to our board of directors: Elizabeth Mynatt, Mario Nascimento, Penny Rheingans, Shashi Shekhar, Josep Torrellas, and Min Wang. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2016 are Tracy Camp, Ann Condon, Laura Haas, Fred Schneider, and Cary Williamson. CRA would like to thank each of them for contributions during their service on the board.
Yesterday, CRA released a letter to Senators Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Gary Peters (D-MI), and Senate Commerce, Science Screenshot 2016-06-28 14.45.54and Transportation Committee Chair John Thune (R-SD) and Ranking Member Bill Nelson (D-FL), expressing support for their efforts to pass S. 3084, the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act, which will be marked up in committee on June 29, 2016.
Again and again we hear that earning computing degrees leads to one of the highest starting salaries for college graduates and almost a guaranteed job after graduation. This information is supported by data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers who report computer science graduates have the second highest starting salary ($61,321 this year) and the highest full-time employment rate (76% within six months of graduation). A blog post from the Computing Community Consortium in March highlights 2016 Bureau of Labor Statistics job projection results, which found that computing occupations are projected to account for 73% of all newly-created STEM jobs during the decade (488,500 jobs), and 55% of all available STEM jobs, whether newly-created or available due to retirements (1,083,800 jobs over the decade). All of this isn’t new information. Many people are aware that the booming tech industry can be a ticket to job security and comfortable living. Data from the National Science Foundation in 2014, shows that there are approximately 17.8% of women studying computer science at the undergraduate level. So why is it every CS classroom I am in is filled with bright-eyed, eager young men, but a dismal number
At a briefing of the congressional Diversity in Tech Caucus, hosted by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in the Capitol yesterday, CRA-W board member Rebecca Wright explained why efforts to increase the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM fields — particularly computing — were worthy of continued Federal support. Wright, a professor of computer science at Rutgers University, was a member of a panel of experts assembled by the Diversity in Tech Caucus to explore the issue of diversity within the research and STEM Education communities.
On June 9th, the Congressional Robotics Caucus, with support from the National Science Foundation, held an all day event on Capitol Hill marking five years of the National Robotics Initiative (NRI). The event was broken up into a lunch briefing, where members of Congress and their staff would be able to hear from a panel of experts on the past accomplishment of the NRI and future challenges and benefits of continued funding of robotics research; and an afternoon exhibition of roboticists and their work, where guests were able to interact one-on-one with the researchers. CRA is a member of the steering committee for the Congressional Robotics Caucus.
The following is a contribution to the CRA Bulletin from Barbara Jewett, Managing Editor, NCSA Public Affairs.
Host sites are being sought for a hands-on Workflows Workshop scheduled for August 9-10, 2016. This multi-site workshop provides a convenient way for researchers to learn about the latest techniques and technologies related to workflows on high performance computing systems without having to travel long distances to attend.
The two-day hands-on workshop, sponsored by the Blue Waters Project, will be broadcast to simultaneous sites across the country. You can view the program at: https://sites.google.com/a/illinois.edu/workflows-workshop/home
Participants in the Workflows Workshop will learn about workflows from leading experts and test their new-found knowledge using Blue Waters and XSEDE computing systems.
The workshop will kickoff by exploring why one should use a workflow and then proceed to various well-known workflow tools, including Copernicus, Galaxy, Makeflow/WorkQueue, Pegasus, RADICAL Cybertools, and Swift.
Participating sites must be able to provide a facility capable of two-way high definition video (described in more detail at the above mentioned website). There should also be a technology assistant available during workshop hours to assist with local technical issues. An A/V system test will be scheduled prior to the workshop.
If your site would like to be a participating site for the Workflows Workshop, please indicate your interest at: http://go.illinois.edu/workflows. Questions can be directed to Scott Lathrop, lathrop@illinois.edu.
By Satoe Sakuma, 2016 Eben Tisdale Fellow
I am currently a rising senior at Boston University, double majoring in computer science and international relations with a focus in East Asian economics. I am very interested in high tech public policy, especially areas of cybersecurity, because it allows me to utilize both my areas of studies. My two very different majors are finally coming together during my last year as an undergraduate student through my acceptance into the senior honors program, which requires a year-long research project culminating with a thesis and defense. My thesis will examine data privacy laws in East Asia.
CRA-W and CDC are jointly soliciting proposals for discipline-specific mentoring workshops. The goal of these workshops is to provide career mentoring and networking opportunities in the context of a specific research area. Workshop proposals should include coverage of technical topics such as important recent results and future related research directions. These workshops are commonly co-located with major conferences in the sub-field. Our vision is that we will offer seed funding for workshops that will later be sustained by the community.
As of July 1, Mario A. Nascimento will serve as CACS/AIC’s representative on the CRA’s Board of Directors. He will replace Carey Williamson, who we would like to thank for his term of service on the CRA Board.
Mario A. Nascimento is a full professor at the University of Alberta’s Department of Computing Science and since July 2014 serves as chair of the Department. Before joining the University of Alberta in 1999, he was a researcher with the Brazilian Agency for Agricultural Research and also an adjunct faculty member with the Institute of Computing of the University of Campinas. Mario has also been a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore’s School of Computing (Fall 2005), Aalborg University’s Department of Computer Science (Winter 2006), LMU Munich (Fall 2013-Winter 2014) and at the Federal University of Ceara in Brazil (2013 and 2014). In 2007 he was recognized as a Senior Member of the ACM.
ACM has recently announced its newly elected officers. Vicki L. Hanson, Rochester Institute of Technology and University of Dundee, was elected president. Cherri M. Pancake, Oregon State University, was elected vice president, and Elizabeth Churchill, Google, was elected secretary/treasurer.
CCC Vice Chair Elizabeth Mynatt, Georgia Tech, and former CRA Board Member Eugene H. Spafford, Purdue University, were among five individuals elected to be members at large, serving from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2020.
Today the House Science, Space, & Technology Committee unanimously passed the “Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Modernization Act of 2016.” The bill is written to update the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 and modernize the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program in line with recent recommendations from the President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCast).
In recent decades, there have been many Women In Science and Engineering (WISE) initiatives aimed at increasing the participation of women in these fields. In computer science and engineering, the percentage of women pursuing degrees and careers has remained relatively low. According to CRA’s annual Taulbee Survey of Ph.D. granting institutions, less than 15 percent of undergraduate computer science degrees were awarded to women in the 2013-14 academic year [1]. Given the significant increases of women in other traditionally male dominated fields such as law and medicine in the past 50 years [2], computing’s persistent low representation of women is rather disappointing, to say the least. Women’s low participation is also alarming when we consider the increasing number of jobs in computing, as well as the positive impact of improving gender diversity on innovation in research settings [3] and on collective intelligence [4]. So the question becomes, how do we change things?
Today, CRA-Women (CRA-W) announced that Martha Kim and Hanna Wallach are the recipients of this year’s 2016 Borg Early Career Award (BECA). The award honors the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W and an inspiration for her commitment in increasing the participation of women in computing research. The annual award is given to a woman in computer […]
On January 8-10, 2106, NSF sponsored the Inaugural summit of Black Women in Computing community leaders. This workshop is part of an effort to build a robust community to support Black women in computing and by extension, all those who are persisting in the field, either through their education or careers.
This video narrative showcases the positive experiences of women in this community who were workshop participants. Please share the video with your students – https://youtu.be/2terTfzuLxA.
Click here to view the final workshop report, Black Women in Computing: A Research Agenda.
The following message is from the workshop organizers. The second New Computing Faculty Workshop will be held August 7-8, 2016 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 can […]
The Sloan Research Fellowships are two-year, $60,000 fellowships awarded annually to 126 early-career faculty in recognition of their distinguished performance and exceptional potential as researchers. Fellowships are awarded in eight scientific and technical fields: chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, ocean sciences, and physics.
Originally posted by Brian Mosley on the CRA Policy Blog On April 26th, the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), an alliance of over 140 professional organizations, universities, and businesses, held their 22nd Annual Capitol Hill Exhibition. CNSF supports the goal of increasing the federal investment in the National Science Foundation’s research and education programs, […]
On May 9-10, 2016, in Washington, D.C., the CCC will hold a symposium to highlight current and future trends in computing and the potential for computing to address national challenges. Make sure to check out the live stream here starting at 8:30AM EDT on Monday, May 9th.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) had a very productive year in FY 2014-15, making great strides in our mission areas of policy, leadership and talent development. We are pleased to announce CRA’s annual report is now available for downloading as a PDF file. This report is a vignette of the diverse activities of CRA and its members. Please take a few moments view some of the highlights from the past year. CRA would also like to thank our generous volunteers who donate their valuable time and energy to ensure our programs are successful.
We are excited to introduce a new discussion session at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird that will facilitate dialogues about a number of thought-provoking topics in computing research. The group discussions will be based on the articles and books in this post. The session is scheduled for the morning of Tuesday, July 19, so begin the final day of the conference with some stimulating conversation.
America’s top CEOs, state governors, and education leaders joined forces this morning to ask Congress to support computer science in K-12 schools. In an open letter, the leaders called on Congress to increase support for local school districts and jurisdictions for K-12 computer science education.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE), in collaboration with Applied Computer Security Associates (ACSA) and the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W), today announced 16 new recipients and 8 continuing recipients of the 2016 Scholarship for Women Studying Information Security (SWSIS).
Imagine going to class or work everyday, and you rarely see anyone who looks like you or shares your cultural experiences or background. This is a situation many women in computing face; sometimes, they can feel isolated, because they often experience being the only woman in a room full of men. Now imagine walking into a conference filled with people who share many of these same experiences. The CRA-W’s Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) brings together female graduate students in their first three years of graduate school and senior computing researchers to share information on succeeding in graduate school and fostering mentoring relationships.
By Shar Steed, CRA Communications Specialist Similar to how we are currently facing a boom in undergraduate computer science enrollments, several years ago, the field encountered an exponential increase in postdoctoral appointments. In a Communications of the ACM Viewpoint article from February 2013, The Explosive Growth of Postdocs in Computer Science, Anita Jones wrote, “The […]
Today, Google launched a new website that outlines all of its computer science (CS) education tools, content, and programs for K-12 through career opportunities. Computer science education is a pathway to innovation, to creativity and to exciting career opportunities. Google is committed to developing programs, resources, tools and community partnerships which make CS engaging and accessible for all students.
CRA would like to thank the sponsors of the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird: Association for Computing Machinery, Facebook, Google, IBM Research, IEEE Computer Society, Microsoft Research, Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, and the National Science Foundation.
“The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information-handling machines we know today.”
J. C. R. Licklider, “Man-Computer Symbiosis,” 1960
Fifty-six years ago, J. C. R. Licklider outlined a prescient vision for computing machines coupled with human brains and, together, thinking thoughts previously unattainable by human beings thinking on their own. This vision influenced a generation of scientists and engineers and is largely the basis for our experience of computing today. Yet, I don’t feel a partnership with my current machines, and I often find myself bending my brain, and subjugating my will, to adapt to them. Shouldn’t it be vice versa? Did I miss the symbiosis?
CRA-W’s next Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall will be held on April 7 at 7 PM EST. During this online mentoring event, students will learn about cutting edge research in computing and have the opportunity to ask questions to distinguished computer scientists.
As CRA-W celebrates Women’s History Month, we decided to highlight a CRA-W board member who is a leader in the field of compilers and computer architecture – Kathryn McKinley. As both an academic (University of Texas at Austin) and industry employee (Microsoft), Kathryn has had the opportunity to broaden participation in computing across our community by spearheading programs that increase the number and success of women and underrepresented groups.
The Blue Waters project at the University of Illinois is pleased to announce the offering of a graduate course Introduction to High Performance Computing that will be offered as a collaborative, online course for multiple participating institutions fall semester 2016. The project is seeking university partners that are interested in offering the course for credit to their students. The course includes online video lectures, quizzes, and homework assignments with access to free accounts on the Blue Waters system.
The CRA Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected two Ph.D. students, Keith Feldman and Max Grossman, to serve as CRA-E Graduate Fellows. The Graduate Fellows Program was established last year 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.
The purpose of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community and enable the pursuit of innovative, high-impact research. One of the ways that the CCC accomplishes this is by publishing white papers for the computing research community.
CRA has several RSS feeds available, and now you can view them all on a single webpage. Visit https://cra.org/cra/resources/rss-subscriptions/ to view and subscribe to resources that interest you most. When you subscribe to a resource, you will receive an email when new content is posted. Check out our current offerings.
The 2016 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop was held February 22-23 in Arlington, Virginia. More than 80 attendees had an opportunity to learn from about 20 speakers who are distinguished researchers, including several CRA board members, and representatives from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The workshop provided career advice and mentoring activities for assistant professors computer science.
The CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) made several contributions to the 2016 SIGCSE conference. Using data collected through the Data Buddies Project, the CERP team presented three talks during the event.
Former CRA Board Member David Johnson passed away yesterday at the age of 70. He was a leader and advocate for algorithms and all of theoretical computer science.
A new coalition, the Computer Science Education Coalition, whose mission is to focuses on securing federal funds to provide computer science education to all K-12 students, launches today.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor Fred Schneider, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor and Chair of Computer Science at Cornell University, with a Service to CRA Award for his work with the organization. Fred was a member of the CRA Board from 2007 to 2016, during which time he thought deeply about how to have positive impact on the computing research community and spearheaded several key initiatives.
CRA members have elected four new members to its board of directors: Penny Rheingans, Shashi Shekhar, Josep Torrellas, and Min Wang. Current board members Chris Johnson and Ron Brachman were re-elected to the CRA board. Their terms run from July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2019. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2016 are Tracy Camp, Ann Condon, Laura Haas, and Fred Schneider. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
Yesterday, Rolling Stone released part one of a special report on the artificial intelligence revolution. The article opens with a quote from Pieter Abbeel, a researcher at UC Berkeley and one of CRA’s 2016 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Awardees. Pieter is one of three winners of the inaugural award which recognizes individuals for providing exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
On Monday, February 22, in Washington, D.C., the Computing Research Association hosted its annual Computing Leadership Summit for senior leadership of CRA affiliate societies and the National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board.
The CRA Board of Directors is pleased to announce its selections for the 2016 CRA Awards. Maria Klawe was selected as the 2016 recipient of the CRA Distinguished Service Award for her tireless commitment to and profound impact on the computing research community. Ayanna Howard was selected as the recipient of the 2016 A. Nico Habermann Award Winner for her sustained commitment to increasing diversity, combined with her distinction in research.
DREU is a highly selective program that matches promising undergraduate women and underrepresented groups with a faculty mentor for a summer research experience at the faculty mentor’s home institution.
CERP is thrilled to launch its new data visualization website displaying Data Buddies data. Dr. Ron Metoyer, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame designed the website, alongside a team of student developers and CERP Research Scientist, Dr. Burçin Tamer.
CRA-Women invites students to its 3rd Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall on Wednesday, February 24 at 8pm ET for an online webinar style discussion with Mondira Pant, lead technologist on-chip delivery at Intel Corps. This is an opportunity for students to learn more about the opportunities in research and graduate school and ask Mondira questions during the live Q&A session.
The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce three winners of the inaugural CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award. Congratulations to the 2016 award recipients: Pieter Abbeel, from the University of California, Berkeley, Marie desJardins, from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Judy Goldsmith from the University of Kentucky. These outstanding individuals are recognized for providing exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing. The 2016 selection committee included: Nancy Amato (Texas A&M University, committee chair); Eric Aaron (Vassar College); Pat Morreale (Kean University); and Barbara Ryder (Virginia Tech). This year’s awards will be presented at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird.
Microsoft Research is delighted to announce its first Open Source Challenge that uses the many and various open source computer science tools from our researchers. From artificial intelligence to programming models, cryptography to education, there is something for every enquiring mind.
The Computing Research Association is sad to hear of the loss of Joanne Cohoon, a leader in the evaluation efforts of our programs. Joanne has been involved with the CRA for more than a decade. In 2006, she was the PI on an NSF-funded study that was initiated to test the validity of an earlier report, “Recruitment and Retention of Women Graduate Students in Computer Science and Engineering” (Cuny and Aspray, 2001). Joanne co-authored the report based on the study, “Recruiting and Retaining Women Graduate Students in Computer Science and Engineering,” which summarizes and expands on the results of a workshop and outlines research-based practices likely to promote gender balance in graduate computing programs.
The Computing Research Association had an action packed weekend engaging the public with science at AAAS Family Science Days. There was a high turnout of families from the Washington, D.C. area who were eager to learn more about science and have some fun with hands on activities.
President Obama on Tuesday released his final Budget Request to Congress, a $4.1 trillion request for FY 2017 that some in the science community have called “aspirational,” which might be a nice way of saying disappointingly unrealistic.
Let’s just note at the outset that the President has been a tremendous champion for Federal investments in science throughout his two terms. His Administration has launched a large number of new initiatives on brain science, big data, robotics, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, strategic computing, cyber security, smart cities and more that have brought new funding and new energy to Federally supported science.
CRA wishes to thank the computing departments who distributed the Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP)’s Data Buddies survey during the fall of 2015! The collective effort of these departments provides data for CERP’s research on students’ experiences and successes in computing degree programs.
Congratulations to former CRA Board member David Johnson (Columbia University) for being elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Johnson served on the CRA Board from 1997 to 2000. He is being recognized for his contributions to the theory and practice of optimization and approximation algorithms.
The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 4, 2016. This workshop will be held at the Westin Arlington. 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.
Are you looking for information for your students, academic and industrial researchers, or CRA’s diversity efforts? Look no further. CRA has dedicated webpages with targeted information on each of these topic areas.
Check out the Denice Denton Emerging Leaders Workshop 2016, an exciting opportunity for mid-career faculty members.
Inspired by the work and legacies of Denice D. Denton, a group of faculty recipients of the Denice Denton Emerging Leader ABIE Award are organizing a one-day faculty leadership development workshop on Friday June 3, 2016 in Madison, Wisconsin.
Ayla Mangold is the newest member of the CRA team. She joins CRA as a Program Assistant responsible for assisting the Director of Programs and Program Associate in planning and organizing various activities and events for the Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W).
President Obama used his weekly radio address today to announce a new Computer Science Education initiative that would allow states to take the lead in increasing access to CS in K-12 classrooms. The initiative, which will be included in the President’s FY 2017 Budget Request to Congress on February 9th, will designate $4 billion for states available over 3 years, and $100 million directly for districts, to increase access to K-12 computer science education “by training teachers, expanding access to high-quality instructional materials, and building effective regional partnerships.” He will also direct NSF to spend more than $120 million over the next five years to support and train CS teachers.
This year the AAAS annual meeting will be held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., close to CRA headquarters. To help engage the public with fun hands on science activities, CRA was invited to participate in AAAS’s Family Science Days on Saturday and Sunday, February 13–14, 2016 from 11:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) will also have a panel at the conference on the Friday, February 12, at 3 p.m. titled, “The Confluence of Computing and Society: Emerging Themes in Socio-Technical Systems.” CCC Chair Greg Hager, CCC Vice Chair Elizabeth Mynatt, and an additional speaker will offer perspectives on future ideas and challenges for technology innovations at global societal scales.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) produces resources that standardize and establish best practices in the field. Most recently, last spring the CRA Board of Directors released its latest Best Practices Memo, “Incentivizing Quality and Impact: Evaluating Scholarship in Hiring, Tenure, and Promotion.” Distinguishing between quality and quantity is key to promoting the future growth of the computing and information field. The memo advocates adjustments to hiring, promotion, and tenure practices as well as to the publication culture. Below is a summary of the reports main points.
In case you missed it, last week we announced the preliminary program for the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird in the January issue of Computing Research News.
CRA is honored to have a prestigious group of computing researchers serve on its Board of Directors. These individuals volunteer their time to run CRA’s programs and committees and to develop and lead new initiatives. In this new series, CRA Board Member Profiles, we will highlight our board members and their contributions to the organization.
Greg Morrisett, Secretary of the CRA Board of Directors, is the Dean of Computing and Information Sciences (CIS) at Cornell University.
Taulbee Survey. The main part of the Taulbee Survey is still in progress. This includes data on student degrees and enrollment, faculty, research expenditures, and the every-three-years Profiles questions about department space, teaching load, and graduate student recruitment.
Tom Conte is the new IEEE-CS representative on the CRA Board of Directors. Tom joins David Ebert and replaces Jean-Luc Gaudiot who has been elected IEEE-CS 2017 president. Tom was the president of IEEE-CS in 2015.
January is National Mentoring Month, a great time to learn how mentoring can help support students and professionals in computing research, and in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) more generally. Mentoring is especially important for individuals in STEM from underrepresented groups in promoting persistence and success in education and professional settings. Effective mentoring programs help mentors and mentees consider various attributes of their identities and experience, like race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and educational background, which may influence their persistence and success. Although effective programs aim to support the whole person, gender identity and expression and sexuality orientation are often overlooked.
BECA Award Take the time to nominate an individual for the CRA-W Borg Early Career Award (BECA). Nominations are open to women who are early in their careers in computer science and engineering and deserve to be recognized for significant research contributions and positive/significant impact on advancing women in the computing research community. Deadline: February 15 Announcement of […]
The following is a post from the CRA Policy Blog by Brian Mosley.
A new initiative for crafting a framework for K-12 computer science education was announced today. Lead by the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Code.org, the plan is to answer a complicated question: “What is the appropriate scope and sequence for CS instruction to guide high-quality computer science?”
10 women in networking/communications that you should know Congratulations to two CCC Council Members Jennifer Rexford and Klara Nahrstedt for being named “10 women in networking/communications that you should know.” Click here to read more: http://n2women.comsoc.org/10-women-in-networkingcommunications-that-you-should-know/ 2016 IEEE – Fellows IEEE recently announced their list of 2016 elevated Fellows. CRA and CRA-W Board member […]
This year’s nominees were a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several were authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others had made presentations at major conferences, and some had produced software artifacts that were in widespread use. Many of nominees had been […]
The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) is pleased to provide a new “undergraduate research listing service” for faculty and other researchers to advertise (at no cost) undergraduate research opportunities and for undergraduates to find such opportunities. The site can be found here:http://conquer.cra.org/cra/research-opportunities.
Check out this great article on booming enrollments in computer science by Jim Kurose, current Assistant Director for NSF CISE and former CRA Board Member: In many colleges and universities across the country, computer science classes are bursting at the seams! According to the Computing Research Association (CRA)’s Taulbee Survey, the number of newly declared computer science […]
The CCC’s Nominating Subcommittee invites nominations (including self-nominations) for members to serve on the CCC Council for the next three years, beginning July 1, 2016.
This year, the award was presented to Farnam Jahanian, who serves as Provost at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). From 2010 to 2014, he was Assistant Director (AD) for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is considered the highest profile government position for computer science research.
When we last talked about the FY16 budget, it was early October and it was looking like the next Speaker of the House would be Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). As we now know, in early December, the Speakership is very different but we still don’t have a passed-into-law budget. Congress has until this Friday, December 11th, to either pass a budget into law or to pass a stopgap continuing resolution (CR). Or let the government shutdown.
Could it be? ESEA Nears Final Passage!
As our readers will have noticed of late, Congress has a well-earned reputation for doing little-to-nothing, legislatively speaking. So when the newly installed Republican House and Senate majorities promised in January to move on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), a bill that had not been reauthorized since No Child Left Behind was passed into law in 2001, and had expired eight years ago, most people (myself included) thought it would go nowhere. Over the last year Congress has proved the naysayers wrong.
Today, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) announced the 2015 ACM Fellows. The Fellows are recognized for their significant contributions to the development and application of computing. Several CRA participants were named Fellows:
In accordance with its mission, CCC is issuing a new call for proposals for workshops that will catalyze and enable innovative research at the frontiers of computing. If you have ideas or topics for visioning, please consider submitting a proposal.
CRA is honored to have a prestigious group of computing researchers serve on its Board of Directors. These individuals volunteer their time to run CRA’s programs and committees and to develop and lead new initiatives. In this new series, CRA Board Member Profiles, we will highlight our board members and their contributions to the organization. Following is a profile on CRA Vice Chair Susanne Hambrusch.
CRA has launched a survey about the significant increases many institutions are seeing in undergraduate computer science course enrollments (often referred to as the enrollment boom). This is a question of deep concern to many in our community. The survey is a unique opportunity to measure, assess, and better understand enrollment trends and their impact […]
In the early stages of her career, Ann Quiroz Gates felt how many other students of underrepresented groups often feel – not sure she would be able to receive an advanced degree in computing. Over time, her confidence increased; she earned her Ph.D. and has committed to making sure others also succeed in the computing field.
The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) seeks up to two Ph.D. students to serve as Fellows. This is an opportunity for graduate students in computing-related fields to gain experience serving on a national committee that serves the field.
CRA has several ways for leaders in the computing community to be recognized. CRA is currently accepting nominations for three award programs and its Board of Directors. Distinguished Service Award CRA makes an award to a person who has made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. This award recognizes service in the areas of government […]
Nominations for the CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award are due Monday, November 30, 2015 by midnight (ET). This new award program that honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. It recognizes faculty members who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and […]
By Craig E. Wills, Professor and Department Head, Computer Science Department,Worcester Polytechnic Institute
The wealth of faculty searches in Computer Science during this hiring season for positions starting in the Fall of 2016 again affords the opportunity to study areas of Computer Science where departments are choosing to invest in new faculty hires. While the number 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.
CRA-W’s Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall webinar is an online mentoring event where students learn about cutting edge research in computing and how to get involved with undergraduate research. Participants will have the opportunity to engage with distinguished computer scientists on topics such as professional development, reasons for pursuing a research career, and how to get into graduate school.
CRA Board Member Jean-Luc Gaudiot was recently elected to be the 2017 president of IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS). Jean-Luc (University of California – Irvine) has served on the CRA Board for several years as the IEEE-CS representative and is currently a member of the CRA Education Committee. Jean-Luc Gaudiot has been an active member of the IEEE […]
The National Academies’ Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR) is hosting a webinar on women in STEM on Wednesday, November 18, 1-2 P.M. EDT.
CRA is gearing up for its biennial Career Mentoring Workshop (CMW) on February 22-23, 2016. The CRA CMW is a great opportunity for assistant professors, and individuals just starting as industrial researchers in the computing and information fields to get career advice and participate in mentoring activities. To get a first hand perspective on what to expect, I spoke with Julia Stoyanovich, from Drexel University. Julia has been fortunate enough to attend two workshops. She attended her first workshop in 2012 as part of the Computing Innovation Fellows program, followed by the 2014 workshop as an assistant professor at Drexel University.
If you remember your very first line of code, you know it shaped the rest of your life.
That’s what the Hour of Code is all about. In the last two years, the movement has shattered stereotypes of what it’s like to code and helped more than 100 million students in 180 countries try computer science for the first time.
The following is a special contribution the CRA Bulletin by ACM CEO Bobby Schnabel. Dear Colleague, I’m writing to seek your help in generating awareness of and interest in the Fourth Heidelberg Laureate Forum. The Heidelberg Laureate Forum was created by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies, ACM, the International Mathematical Union, and […]
The Computer Research Association (CRA) has recently released a cumulative report from two workshops held by CRA and supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on big data in education. Chris Dede, the Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, was the intellectual lead for this effort.
On October 28, experts from academia and government told a congressional panel that the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program remains a crucial part of the extraordinarily productive computing research ecosystem that has made the U.S. the world leader in IT and deserves further support. The experts were witnesses at a hearing called by the House […]
The importance of increasing computer science literacy and the diversity of students in computing has been consistently making headlines in the past few weeks. Journalists frequently cite the CRA’s Taulbee Survey as a trusted source of information for data on student enrollment trends. We’ve selected a few interesting articles to highlight.
CRA-W is now accepting applications for Grad Cohort 2016, a 2-day workshop during which participants will learn graduate school survival skills, receive mentoring, and develop networks with senior female computing researchers. This is a great opportunity for female graduate students to build mentoring relationships and develop peer networks to form the foundation of their graduate career and beyond.
Earlier this week, the House STEM Education Caucus sponsored a briefing for Congressional staff titled, “Building a STEM Education Pipeline Aligned with Industry Needs: Perspectives from the Field.” The briefing was moderated by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) and partnered with CRA, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). The briefing focused on ways […]
Check out this great opportunity for computing researchers at all levels.
TechCongress, in partnership with The Open Technology Institute at New America, is looking for three great tech-oriented thinkers for its first class of Congressional Innovation Fellows.
The CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award recognizes undergraduates who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing. Here’s an update on last year’s awardees. Information on the 2016 competition is available on CRA’s website.
BRAID is now accepting applications for up to five new BRAID affiliate schools. Affiliates are schools that are working toward implementing BRAID commitments to increase diversity in their computing departments but are not receiving funding through the initiative. Affiliates will be eligible to receive consultation from Harvey Mudd College and NCWIT. In addition, affiliates will have the opportunity to be a part of a network of other BRAID schools and to share and learn best practices from one another in increasing diversity in computing departments. It is required that this work be led by the Department Chair who will be the main liaison on the BRAID project. Department Chairs from affiliates will be expected to attend the annual BRAID Summit, which will occur July 15-17, 2016 in Snowbird, Utah.
CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) will be working with Linda Sax, Professor of Education at UCLA, and a team of graduate students, on the research component of the Building Recruiting and Inclusion for Diversity (BRAID) initiative. The BRAID initiative was established in 2014 by Harvey Mudd College and the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and currently involves 15 computing departments across the U.S. that are committed to recruiting and retaining women as well as underrepresented men in computing majors. To that end, BRAID departments implement changes to their introductory computer science courses, and pathways into the major, as well as improve departmental climate, and promote outreach efforts for students.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is now accepting nominations for the 2016 Alan T. Waterman award, the NSF’s highest honor. This annual award recognizes an outstanding young researcher in any field of science or engineering supported by the National Science Foundation. In addition to a medal, the awardee receives a grant of $1,000,000 over a five-year period for scientific research or advanced study in the mathematical, physical, biological, engineering, social, or other sciences at the institution of the recipient’s choice.
CRA is pleased to announce a new award program that honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award recognizes faculty members who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students […]
The biennial Career Mentoring Workshop will be offered by the Computing Research Association on February 22 and 23, 2016 at The Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Va.
CRA-Women invites undergraduate students for to the Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall Event on Thursday, October 8, at 5pm ET. This event will be a webinar style discussion with A.J. Bernheim Brush, Senior Researcher at Microsoft. A.J. will begin the event with a presentation about her current research on Inventing Technology for Homes and Families. This is […]
The 2015 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. There are a couple of new features this year:
The survey will be split into two parts: salary and 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.
The every-three-years Department Profiles section of the survey will be included this year. These questions cover teaching loads, floor space, graduate student recruitment, staff, and details on sources of research funding.
This year, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Award for Scientific Reviewing will recognize a person in the field of computer science who has contributed to surveying the literature. The winner will receive a $20,000 award.
“The NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing has been presented annually since 1979 to recognize authors, whose reviews have synthesized extensive and difficult material, rendering a significant service to science and influencing the course of scientific thought.”
The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a terrific way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
Call for participation: Explore Graduate Studies in CSE Workshop October 17, 2015 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor http://cse.umich.edu/Explore_Grad_Studies_2015/ The goal of this workshop is to help undergraduates better prepare for the graduate school application process and broaden participation in computing research. Students can apply online by clicking here. *Travel Awards* are available. Women and underrepresented […]
As I step up as Chair of the CRA Board of Directors, I’d like to share my thoughts about the organization, what it is doing, and what our next steps will be.
The Computing Research Association will be participating in the Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT) 2015 Conference, the first international meeting of the IEEE Special Technical Community on Broadening Participation with technical co-sponsorship by the IEEE Computer Society.
In these times of increasingly tight federal budgets this is an important opportunity to help serve the computing community and ensure that Congress understands the value of computing research going on in their states and districts. We hope you’ll join us as the computing community descends en masse on Capitol Hill and makes the case for computing!
CRA will hold its fifth annual Congressional Fall Fly-in on September 16-17, 2015. This is an important opportunity for representatives from CRA member institutions to come to Washington as a group, meet with their representatives in Congress, and help make the case for federal support of computing research. We hope you, or someone you designate, will join us!
If you have visited the CRA website lately, you may have noticed that it’s been refreshed with a new look and feel. We are excited to announce the launch of a new website for CRA and its committees. The new website presents a more consistent visual identity for CRA and provides a seamless experience for a visitor viewing each of the committee sites in addition to CRA.
CRA has elected new Board Officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2015. Susan Davidson has been elected Chair. She will be the first female to hold this position in CRA history. In addition, Susanne Hambrusch will become Vice Chair, and Greg Morrisett will become Secretary. The Board re-elected Ron Brachman as Treasurer. The current Board Chair J Moore and Vice Chair Laura Haas will end their terms on June 30, 2015. CRA thanks both of them for contributions during their outstanding service on the Board.
The CRA Board of Directors has recently released its latest Best Practices Memo, “Incentivizing Quality and Impact: Evaluating Scholarship in Hiring, Tenure, and Promotion.” Distinguishing between quality and quantity is key to promoting the future growth of the computing and information field. The memo advocates adjustments to hiring, promotion, and tenure practices as well as […]
Farnam Jahanian Distinguished Service Award Vice President for Research, Carnegie Mellon University Farnam served as NSF Assistant Director for CISE from 2011 to 2014, the highest profile government position for computer science research. During his tenure he fought hard for computer science and launched three presidential initiatives: National Robotics Initiative, Big Data Research and Development Initiative […]
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.
2019 Computer Science Tenure-Track Faculty Hiring Outcomes
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, For Researchers /This work directly follows previous work that analyzed current and future Computer Science needs via advertised tenure-track faculty searches for 2019. This follow-on work looked to understand the relative success of institutions in hiring the tenured/tenure-track faculty in the areas of Computer Science that were being sought.
CRA Board Member Andrea Danyluk Named Distinguished Member of ACM
In: CRA, People /Recently, ACM named 62 Distinguished Members for outstanding contributions to the field. Several from the CRA community were recognized for outstanding educational contributions to computing, including CRA Board Member and CRA-WP Co-Chair Andrea Danyluk. Congratulations to all!
Computing Researchers Fly-in to D.C. to Make the Case for Computing
In: People /On September 11, 21 computing researchers from across the country visited Washington, D.C. to make the case for federally funded computing research. The volunteers, traveling from as near as Virginia and Maryland, and as far away as Wyoming and Montana, participated in over 50 House and Senate meetings. Their message to Congress was very simple: Federally supported computing research is vital to the nation’s future. Using their own research and individual stories as support, and reinforced with additional information from CRA, they made the “Federal case” for computing to Members of Congress and their staff. Those Members of Congress now know more about the expertise and interesting (and important) computing work that occurs in their districts and states, and our participants have a sense of just who represents them in Congress. And they’ve hopefully started a lasting dialogue on both sides.
CUE.NEXT: Envisioning the Future of Computing in Undergraduate Education
In: Research, Education /The goal of the upcoming CUE.NEXT workshops — organized by Larry Birnbaum (Northwestern), Susanne Hambrusch (Purdue), and Clayton Lewis (UC Boulder) — is to initiate a national dialog on the role of computing in undergraduate education. Computing educators and CS departments, as well as colleagues and academic units representing other stakeholder disciplines, will work together to define and address the challenges. Three NSF funded workshops are scheduled to take place in Chicago (November 18 and 19), DC (December 5 and 6) and Denver (January 2020).
Nominate Outstanding Mid-Career Colleagues for the ACM Prize in Computing
In: CRA, Awards /The ACM Prize in Computing recognizes an early to mid-career fundamental, innovative contribution in computing that exemplifies the greatest achievements in the discipline. The award is given for achievements during the early years of an individual’s career – candidates are typically within 8-16 years of the terminal degree. The award is presented each June at the ACM Awards Banquet and is accompanied by a prize of $250,000.
CRA’s Career Mentoring Workshop Application is Now Open
In: Featured Announcements /The eleventh biennial Career Mentoring Workshop will be offered by the Computing Research Association on February 27 and 28, 2020 in Washington, DC. This exciting workshop provides advice and mentoring activities for those starting an academic computing research career. Most attendees are in their first or second year as assistant professors. The workshop, consisting of a series of panels, is interspersed with opportunities to network with senior researchers and representatives from government agencies.
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.
CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program Accepting Nominations
In: For Students, 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.
Nominations Open for 2020 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
In: Mentoring, Awards, Education /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.
Expanding the Pipeline: Supporting Computer Science Growth Through Community
In: CRA /Teaching is hard — and teaching computer science can be even harder. With the growing need for computer science teachers in the classroom and an increased focus on access to computer science education, the role of the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) is more important than ever. With the mission of supporting K–12 teachers in the field, CSTA provides educators with the professional development events and community they need to improve their craft.
Check out the Latest Videos on the Grad Cohort Experience: Applications Open October 1
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, CRA-WP /At the 2019 Grad Cohort for Women Workshop, more than 400 graduate students spent two days building both professional and support networks, while also attending sessions on how to succeed in graduate school. In three new videos, students, speakers, and sponsor representatives share their thoughts on the program’s impact. Check out these three 2019 Grad […]
Workshop on Departmental Plans for Broadening Participation in Computing: Applications Open
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /Since 2017, the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) has been asking CISE Principal Investigators to include meaningful BPC plans in proposals submitted to a subset of CISE’s research programs. To support departments in preparing for this new effort, teams of 2-3 administrators and faculty members from computing institutions are invited to apply to participate in a workshop focused on Department Plans for Broadening Participation in Computing.
2020 NSF Alan T. Waterman Award Nominations Open
In: Awards, NSF /Each year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) recognizes an outstanding young researcher in a field of science or engineering with the Alan T. Waterman Award. Nominations for the 2020 Waterman Award are now being accepted and are due, via https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/honawards/index.jsp, by October 21, 2019.
Former CRA Board Member Margaret Martonosi Selected to Run NSF CISE
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, NSF, CRA-WP /National Science Foundation Director France Córdova today named former CRA board member, current CRA-WP co-Chair, and current Princeton Computer Science professor Margaret Martonosi as the next head of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate at NSF. Martonosi will assume the role of Assistant Director, CISE on February 1, 2020.
Former CRA Board Member Margaret Martonosi Receives SRC Aristotle Award
In: CRA, People /Recently, CRA Board Member and CRA-WP Co-Chair Margaret Martonosi was selected to receive the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) Aristotle Award.
CRA Taulbee Survey Announcement
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee Announcements /The 2019 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.
Save the Date: 2020 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop
In: Featured Announcements, Career Mentoring Workshop /CRA’s biennial Career Mentoring Workshop will be offered on February 27-28, 2020 at the Conrad Hotel in Washington, DC.
A Broader Case for Diversity and Inclusion: CRA-Women Transitioning to CRA-Widening Participation
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, CRA-WP /It is with great excitement that we share with our friends, colleagues, and broader computing community that CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is now officially CRA Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP).
Former CRA Board Member Jim Kurose Ends Term as NSF CISE AD
In: CRA, People, Policy /Last Friday, September 6 was the last day for former CRA Board Member Jim Kurose in his role as Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). CRA was thrilled was when Kurose was appointed to the position, and we appreciate his dedication and service to the community over the years.
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program
In: Research, Funding, NSF, For Researchers /As we noted an year ago at this time, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is an important but, from our experience, often overlooked funding opportunity for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) community. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported areas who are pursing full-time, research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. As the deadline of October 22, 2019, approaches for applicants who fall within CISE fields of study, we want to be sure you all – as members of our community – are aware of this opportunity for your undergraduate seniors and first-year graduate students.
CRA’s CV Database Initiative Turns One
In: Featured Announcements, Resources /As a first step to address recent recruiting challenges in the computing research community, the Computing Research Association (CRA) launched the CV Database initiative in Fall 2018. This initiative provides a database of candidates for academic and industrial/government laboratory research positions. 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 2019-20. The CRA has reviewed usage data from the first year application cycle and made adjustments to improve the user experience and process. The CV Database will re-open for the 2019-20 recruiting season in mid-September 2019. In mid-October 2019, recruiter access to the CV Database will be made available to all CRA academic members. Additionally, industrial and government laboratory CRA member institutions that sponsor Grad Cohort 2020 at the silver level and above will receive access.
Nominations Open for CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards
In: Featured Announcements, Awards /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2020 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
Nominations Open for 2020 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.
Expanding the Pipeline: Gender and Ethnic Differences in PhD Specialty Areas
In: Featured Announcements /This article examines gender and residency/ethnicity differences in PhD specialty areas as reported to the CRA Taulbee Survey from 2012-2018. The Taulbee Survey is conducted each fall and, among other questions, asks doctoral departments of Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Information for data about each PhD they awarded in the previous academic year. The data on each new PhD includes gender, residency/race/ethnicity, and PhD specialty area. A total of 12,968 PhDs were awarded by Taulbee respondents during the 7 year period from 2012-2018. Of those, the specialty area was listed as Other or Unknown for 3,328. Those individuals are omitted from the analyses described here; individuals where gender was not provided or where residency/ethnicity was listed as Unknown are not included in the analysis by that category.
CRA and CERP Welcome Evelyn Yarzebinski
In: People /CRA has recently hired Evelyn Yarzebinski as a research associate for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). In this role, Evelyn supports CERP activities through administrative and research efforts, such as contributing to the CERP website and blog, data management, and analysis.
Volunteer for the Annual Data Buddies Survey!
In: CRA /The annual CRA Data Buddies Survey will open October 2019. If your department is not yet a member, sign up here to learn more about your students and how your department compares to other similar departments.
Generation CS, Three Years Later
In: Featured Announcements, Resources /In 2017, CRA published the Generation CS report on the surge in undergraduate computer science enrollments, based on data gathered through an Enrollments Survey of doctoral and non-doctoral academic units of computer science in fall 2015.Since then, enrollments have continued to grow. In fall 2018, as part of the Taulbee Survey of doctoral departments, CRA included some questions to assess the current impact. Are academic units still struggling, or has the increase become the new normal? What changes have occurred in department resources or policies? What is the observed impact on students and faculty, including student diversity?
Seven Tips for Advertising Your Graduate Program to Undergraduate Programs
In: Featured Announcements, Resources /Four years ago, I left a tenured faculty position at Grinnell, a selective liberal arts college, to found a brand new computer science program at Whitman, another selective liberal arts college. Since establishing this program, I’ve started to receive mailings not only from my own Ph.D. program, but from a range of graduate programs in computer science and related fields.
If you’re reading this, you probably care about attracting graduate student applicants from institutions like mine. If you don’t, you should: Baccalaureate colleges are second only to “very high research activity universities” in their institutional-yield ratios for graduates who go on to receive a doctorate in science or engineering.
Message from the Board Chair: CRA Launches Strategic Planning Process
In: Featured Announcements /I am writing to share the timeline and process for the strategic planning effort that CRA is undertaking, as well as to highlight some of the opportunities for you to be involved. The ultimate goal of strategic planning is to determine how CRA can best serve its members and the computing research community. Given the many challenges and opportunities, it is imperative that we clearly understand the needs of our members and focus our activities to address those needs.
CRA Hosts 2019 Tisdale Fellows
In: People /On Tuesday June 25th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2019 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows to the CRA office. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. At the CRA office, the fellows attended a presentation by Brian Mosley, policy analyst in CRA’s Office of Government Affairs, covering the policy concerns and issues that the association works on and attempts to influence at the federal level.
NSF Sources of Support for Undergraduate and Graduate Student Education
In: Research, Funding, NSF /As many of you know, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has a long history of investing in education and workforce development across all areas of science and engineering, including CISE areas.
Encourage Early-Career Computing Professionals to Apply to Join the ACM Future of Computing Academy
In: People /The ACM Future of Computing Academy is a new initiative enabling early-career researchers, practitioners, educators, and entrepreneurs to develop a strong and influential collective voice to help shape the future of computing. It consists of talented professionals who are committed to making a positive and lasting impact on ACM and the global computing profession. ACM is now accepting applications for membership. The application deadline is 23 August 2019.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Call for Proposals in A.I.
In: CRA /Proposals for Cycle 20 of the U.S.-Egypt S&T Joint Fund will be accepted until September 5. This year there is a new research focus on artificial intelligence/machine learning applications in the areas of health, energy, water, and agriculture. Collaborative Research Grants provide up to $400,000 USD for a joint U.S. and Egyptian research team. Junior Scientist Grants provide up to $30,000 for training visits to U.S. institutions.
2019 CRA Grad Cohort URMD Videos Released on Updated CRA YouTube Channel
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, For Researchers, CRA-WP /CRA recently published two videos on the 2019 Grad Cohort for URMD – one targeted at sponsors and the other targeted at potential attendees. In both videos, students, speakers, sponsor representatives, and CRA Director of Programs Erik Russell share their experiences, the impact it has and the benefits it delivers to sponsors.
Annual Reports Now Available
In: Featured Announcements, People /We are pleased to announce CRA’s annual reports for the fiscal years 2016-17 and 2017-18 are now available for download as a PDF file. The CRA fiscal year runs from July 1 – June 30 of each year. These reports highlight the activities of CRA and its committees.
NJIT to Establish New Institute for Data Science
In: People /Former CRA Board Member David Bader will direct the new institute for data science at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The institute will focus on cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and development in all areas pertinent to digital data. It will bring existing research centers in big data, medical informatics and cybersecurity together with new research centers in data analytics and artificial intelligence, cutting across all NJIT colleges and schools, and conduct both basic and applied research.
CRA Welcomes 2019 Tisdale Fellow
In: People /My name is Jesse Anderson, and I am thrilled to be CRA’s Tisdale Fellow this summer. I am a rising sophomore double-majoring in computer science and journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a minor in math. Within my university, I am heavily involved in the Maryland Lead Program, the Girl Up Club, and the Association for Women in Computing. I am the president of the Girls Who Code club.
New CRA Board Leadership, Board Members and CCC Council Members
In: Featured Announcements /July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. In February, the CRA board of directors elected new board officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2019. Ellen Zegura is chair; Nancy Amato is vice-chair; Ran Libeskind-Hadas is secretary; and James Allan is treasurer.
We welcome three new members to our board of directors: Lorrie Cranor, Divesh Srivastava and Marvin Theimer. Their terms run from July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2022. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2019 are Ron Brachman, Chris Johnson, Josep Torrellas, and Min Wang. CRA would like to thank all retiring board members for contributions during their service on the board.
The CCC welcomed new council members, and Khari Douglas was promoted to CCC senior program associate focusing on engagement.
NSF International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) Program Now Accepting Applications
In: NSF /The NSF International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program is now accepting applications – this is a program where CISE communities have not leveraged very well in the past, having only 7 of the 158 active IRES awards. The program supports international research and research-related activities for U.S. science and engineering students. If you have (or are considering reaching out to) international research partners who would be willing to host and train undergraduate and graduate students in research, this is a fantastic opportunity to advance science through such collaborations. See list of active IRES awards to explore the rich set of topics that has been supported thus far, and to help identify appropriate IRES collaborations – communicate this information to your students as well.
CRA Board Secretary Greg Morrisett Named Dean of Cornell Tech
In: Featured Announcements, People /Today, Cornell University announced that CRA Board Secretary Greg Morrisett has been named the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech, effective August 1. Morrisett is currently the dean of Computing and Information Sciences at Cornell University and an international expert in software security. He joined the CRA board of directors in 2012 and has served two year terms on the executive committee as board secretary. Morrisett has also been a member of the CCC Council since 2017.
CRA Board Member Mark D. Hill Receives Top Computer Architecture Award
In: Featured Announcements, People /The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society recently announced that CRA Board Member and CCC Chair Mark D. Hill of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the recipient of the 2019 Eckert-Mauchly Award. Hill was cited for contributions to the design and evaluation of memory systems and parallel computers. The Eckert-Mauchly Award is known as the computer architecture community’s most prestigious award.
CISE CRII Program Solicitation and Webinar Announcement
In: NSF /The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a 1 hour webinar on June 12th, 2019 to provide the CISE community with information and answer questions about the revised Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research Initiation Initiative (CRII) solicitation that seeks to help early-career PIs. The solicitation may be found on the NSF website here. A revised FAQ for program will also be posted on the solicitation website shortly. To Join the Webinar, please register before June 11th by visiting https://nsf.gov/events/event_summ.jsp?cntn_id=298656.
Apply for the 2019 National Science Foundation Computer Systems Research (NSF/CISE/CSR) Aspiring PIs Workshop
In: Research, NSF /The 2019 CISE/Computer Systems Research (CSR) Aspiring Investigators Workshop, will be held at the National Science Foundation on June 20-21, 2019. The goal of the workshop is to familiarize aspiring investigators with the scope of activities supported by CSR, various funding opportunities within the program, and crosscutting programs in which CSR plays a significant role. Aspiring investigators will hear from NSF personnel, as well as other senior investigators on best practices in putting proposals together, developing strong education and outreach programs, maximizing broader impact, and intellectual property and commercialization opportunities. The workshop is open to investigators from institutions eligible to receive NSF funding, who have not received prior regular research grants (excluding CRII and SGER grants) from CSR.
Application Open for Rising Stars Workshop Academic Career Workshop for Women
In: Diversity /This November, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will host Rising Stars, an academic career workshop for women in EECS. At this workshop, female graduate students and postdocs who are interested in faculty careers will learn how to navigate academic life while meeting new mentors and peers. This year’s event, to be held in Urbana, IL during Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 2019, will bring together more than 60 top young women in EECS for two days of research presentations, poster sessions, and candid discussions about navigating academic life.
Former CRA Board Chair Dan Reed Appointed to the National Science Board
In: People /Today, President Trump announced his intent to appoint former CRA Board Chair Daniel A. Reed to the National Science Board (NSB). Reed will serve as a member of the NSB for the remainder of a six-year term, expiring May 10, 2024. He is currently senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah. Reed served on the CRA board of directors from 1999-2009.
CRA-E Workshop at FCRC – Academic Careers: The Landscape is Broader than You Think
In: Featured Announcements, Education /The CRA Education Committee, with support from Google, is organizing an Academic Careers Workshop at FCRC 2019. The workshop will be held on Tuesday, June 25 from 12:30-6:30 PM. Please register for the workshop through the FCRC registration page. We are now accepting applications for financial support to attend the workshop! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.
Stage I Winners of the Responsible Computer Science Challenge Announced
In: Research, Funding /Omidyar Network, Mozilla, Schmidt Futures, and Craig Newmark Philanthropies recently announced the Stage I winners of the Responsible Computer Science Challenge. They are awarding $2.4 million to 17 initiatives that integrate ethics into undergraduate computer science courses.
Former Board Member Lance Fortnow Designated Dean of Illinois Tech College of Science
In: CRA, People /Former CRA Board Member Lance Fortnow will take over as dean of the College of Science at Illinois Institute of Technology on August 15. Fortnow is currently professor and chair of the School of Computer Science of the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also a former member of the CCC Council.
CRA Education Committee Selects New Graduate Fellow
In: Featured Announcements, Education /CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2019 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Joslenne (Joss) Peña. Joss is a Ph.D. candidate and Sloan MPHD Scholar in Informatics at Penn State University (PSU) under the direction of Mary Beth Rosson. She earned her M.S. in Information Sciences and Technology in 2015 (also at PSU). Joss completed a 14-month internship as a research intern in the Human-Centered Systems group at Honeywell Aerospace. Broadly, her research interests are in human-computer interaction, design, computer science education, and human factors psychology. Specifically, her dissertation work is investigating non-programmers’ behaviors and attitudes in higher education through small exposures to coding and how their trajectories relate to a reexamined view of computational thinking.
Forbes Article on Inclusivity in Higher Education Highlights CERP Project
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, NSF, CERP /A recent Forbes article written by Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and a former CRA board member, addresses “Why We Need Inclusive Teaching In Every Classroom.” In the article, Klawe interviews Colleen Lewis, a computer science professor at Harvey Mudd, about Lewis’ work to develop, incorporate, and disseminate inclusive teaching practices. Lewis researches […]
Former CRA Board Chair James Foley Inducted into Georgia Tech College of Computing Hall of Fame
In: People /Recently, former CRA Board Chair James Foley was inducted into the 2019 Georgia Tech College of Computing Hall of Fame. He was one of six luminaries from the Georgia Tech computing community inducted this year.
CCC’s Catalyzing Computing Podcast Included on NSF’s Science360 Radio Stream
In: Featured Announcements, NSF /The Computing Community Consortium (CCC)’s recently launched Catalyzing Computing podcast is now included on the NSF’s Science360 Radio stream. Science360 Radio showcases shows from radio and podcast series, and also includes webcasts, events, in-depth interviews, and documentaries from NSF and other contributors. Catalyzing Computing focuses on topics of interest within the computing research community and is hosted by CCC […]
Expanding the Pipeline: The Second Annual CRA Grad Cohort for URMD Supports a Diverse Computing Research Community
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students /On March 22-23, CRA hosted the second annual Graduate Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD Grad Cohort) in picturesque Waikoloa Village, Hawaii. The location provided beautiful scenery as students spent two days learning how to succeed in graduate school and networked with a diverse group of peers and senior researchers.
Thank you, Data Buddies!
In: CRA /The Data Buddies Survey came to a close at the end of February 2019. CERP wishes to thank all the departments who made data collection possible, with special appreciation extended to departments with at least a 20% response rate.
Creating Institutional Homes for Computing: Transforming a Department into a School or College
In: Featured Announcements, Resources /The Computing Research Association has released its latest white paper, “Creating Institutional Homes for Computing: Transforming a Department into a School or College.” This white paper addresses the growing interest and trend in transforming a department of computer science, usually housed within a college of engineering or science, into a school or college of computing. It follows up on a successful panel at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird on Schools and Colleges of Computing and a second panel on transitioning to Colleges of Computing at the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird.
CCC Council Member Shwetak Patel Receives ACM Prize in Computing
In: Awards, ACM /The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has announced it’s 2018 Prize in Computing award to Shwetak Patel, of the University of Washington and Google and a Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council Member. The ACM Prize in Computing is their second most prestigious award in all of computing (after the Turing Award – known as the Nobel Prize in Computing). Patel is the recipient of the 2018 ACM Prize in Computing for contributions to creative and practical sensing systems for sustainability and health. In just a decade, he has had incredible impact in the applications of AI and sensing in two broad areas – developing methods for disaggregating energy and water usage in the home and developing new methods of health sensing and advancing clinical science through the use of commodity sensors.
CRA Board Member Charles Isbell Named Dean of College of Computing at Georgia Tech
In: Featured Announcements, People /CRA Board Member Charles Isbell has been named the next dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, effective July 1. Isbell serves as the AAAI representative to the CRA Board.
Graduate Diversity Fellowships in Computational and Data Science
In: Funding /Submissions opened March 15 for the ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational & Data Science Fellowships. The 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.
Expanding the Pipeline: CERP Data Buddies Survey Finishes Strong with More Insights About Students’ Experiences
In: Featured Announcements /The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline concluded its fall 2018 Data Buddies Survey. The survey was modified to provide additional insight on student experiences in computing degree programs. These new data will be used in annual reporting and program evaluation.
Board Member Highlight: CRA Board Member Ran Libeskind-Hadas
In: Research, People, CRA Board of Directors, Education, Board Member Profiles /My research explores algorithmic methods for determining whether a pair of species are likely to have coevolved and, if so, finding the “best” scenarios that explain their evolutionary histories. This work explores the computational complexity of these reconciliation problems, seeks to develop efficient reconciliation algorithms where possible, and, ultimately, to implement these algorithms in practical tools for biologists and educators.
Expanding the Pipeline: The Participation and Challenges of Community College Students in Undergraduate Research
In: CRA /Convention tells us that research involves a selection of topic, literature review, framework development, refining/defining your research question, developing a design, collecting data, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions, but at a community college the formality cannot always be used as a rule, but as a guideline for developing a realistic, learning opportunity. Community college participation in undergraduate research is an important part of education, but can be easily fall by the wayside to address life challenges often faced by community college students. However, given the opportunity to participate, research can be a rewarding and valuable skill that should be afforded to more students.
Highlights of the 2019 CRA Computing Leadership Summit
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /On February 25, CRA hosted its annual Computing Research 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). Several engaging talks at the Leadership Summit provided useful information on current issues important to the organizations.
CRA Launches BPCnet.org: A Resource Portal for Broadening Participation in Computing Efforts
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /In partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT), CRA announces an initial launch of BPCnet.org, a resource portal designed to amplify the NSF CISE Directorate’s efforts in broadening participation in computing (BPC). CRA anticipates that BPCnet.org will provide a much-needed clearinghouse for the community to learn about and engage with ongoing projects to diversify computing.
Re-envisioning Computing in Undergraduate Education
In: NSF /Colleges and universities across the country are experiencing a significant influx of students in their undergraduate computer science (CS) courses. Many of these students are seeking the “traditional,” CS-centric undergraduate degrees that have evolved over decades, along with changes in our field. But many other students are quite different from the students whom we have found in our undergraduate majors. While they are interested in computing, they are more interested in creatively applying sophisticated computational skills and methods to a range of disciplines from biology to linguistics to art. They understand that CS knowledge is critical to helping them succeed in nearly any job, that “every field is becoming an information field.”
2019 CRA Board Election Results and FY20 Executive Committee
In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA members have elected three new members to its board of directors: Lorrie Cranor, Divesh Srivastava and Marvin Theimer. The CRA board of directors has elected new board officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2019. At the February board meeting, Ellen Zegura was elected chair; Nancy Amato was elected vice-chair; Ran Libeskind-Hadas was elected secretary; and James Allan was elected treasurer.
2019 CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awardees Announced
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, Mentoring, Awards, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /The CRA board of directors is pleased to announce its selections for the 2019 CRA Awards.
Edward Felten – Distinguished Service Award Winner
Maria Gini – A. Nico Habermann Award Winner
Applications Open for the 2019 CRA-W Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) Research Scholars Program
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, CRA-WP /This CRA-W program provides guidance to research-interested students on how to navigate the vast offerings at the GHC conference and opportunities to meet and interact with students and mentors with similar interests in small-group settings
2019 Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant Accepting Proposals
In: Funding, For Researchers /By Meredith Ringel Morris, Principal Researcher & MSR Dissertation Grant Chair Broadening participation in computing is a core part of Microsoft‘s values; accordingly, we are excited to continue the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant that aims to recognize, support, and mentor diverse doctoral students as they complete their dissertation research in computing-related fields. This grant is open to doctoral students in their fourth […]
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: NSF Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
In: Featured Announcements, People, NSF /The National Science Foundation is initiating a national search for the Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).
Former Board Member Margo Seltzer Elected to National Academy of Engineering
In: Featured Announcements, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /Recently, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) elected 86 new members and 18 foreign members. This brings the total U.S. membership to 2,297 and the number of foreign members to 272. Former CRA Board Member Margo Seltzer was among those elected.
2018 Grad Cohort for Women Attendees Share Reflections in Short Video
In: Featured Announcements, CRA-WP /Find out what participants thought about the 2018 CRA-W Grad Cohort for Women in this recently released video. In testimonials collected at the end of the workshop, a resounding theme was the participants’ renewed motivation to complete their Ph.D.
2019 NSF CISE CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop
In: Funding, NSF /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.
Jennifer Rexford and Westley Weimer Receive the 2019 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 2019 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Jennifer Rexford from Princeton University and Westley Weimer from the University of Michigan. 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.
CCC Launches the “Catalyzing Computing” Podcast
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is launching the “Catalyzing Computing” podcast, which will focus on topics of interests within the computing research community. The podcast is hosted by CCC Program Associate Khari Douglas and will feature interviews with researchers and policy makers about their background and experiences in the computing community. You can stream or download the podcast on Soundcloud now.
CRA Board Member Highlight: James Allan
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /My current work focuses on support for critical literacy and efforts to foster new paths for equity in the sciences.
New York Times Article on High Demand for Computer Science Professors
In: Featured Announcements, People /Today’s New York Times features an article “The Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting Into Class.” The story explores how the increasing student demand for computer science courses is outstripping the supply of professors. The article cites CRA Taulbee data and quotes several current and former CRA board members.
2019 Nominees for CRA Board; Petition Nominees Sought
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /CRA is pleased to announce the 2019 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition.
CRA Board Member Highlight: Barbara G. Ryder
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /My computer science research career started during my college internship at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, during the early 1970s in the center that later produced UNIX and the portable C compiler. This experience taught me that computing was broader than the introduction to scientific programming in my undergraduate studies in applied math. (There was no computer science undergraduate major at the time.) For most of my career, I was interested in deriving descriptions of program execution behaviors from code in order, for example, to optimize program time and/or memory performance, to validate desirable properties such as correctness or data security, or to refactor code for ease of maintenance.
CRA Board Member Highlight: Rachel Pottinger
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /Increasingly, jobs rely on the ability to use computers to interpret, understand, and trust data. For example, my students and I have worked with ornithologists who cannot understand the representations of their bird sightings, civil engineers who cannot easily use their own building data, finance experts who cannot trace money between companies and their subsidiaries, and an XML document company whose clients cannot understand data that appears outside of their reports. In each case, the data users have been hampered because their data is exceedingly difficult to understand and trust, even though the users are experts in their fields. One reason for this difficulty is that the organization of the data is often designed for computers, not for people (i.e., for storage, not accessibility). Another reason is that data often come from different sources, leaving users with the challenge of integrating data that they neither understand nor trust.
2019 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Winners
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /Congratulations to the recipients of the 2019 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.
CACM Blog Post on Broadening Participation in Computing Based on 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird Session
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /The organizers of the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird session, “Increasing Diversity in Computing is Easier Than You Think: Some Small Steps that Make a Big Difference,” recently published a list of 10 small steps departments can take to increase diversity at their institutions.
Professional Development Workshop for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2019
In: Featured Announcements, Education /The CRA Education Committee, with support from Google, is organizing a Professional Development Workshop for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2019. The workshop will be held on Wednesday, February 27, 2019 from 8:30 AM- 4:00 PM. We are now accepting applications to the workshop! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.
Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2019
In: Resources /This work uses the same methodology as work over the past five years to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions by examining 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.
We analyzed ads from 409 institutions seeking to fill hundreds of tenure-track faculty positions in Computer Science. There was a small one-year increase in the number of institutions searching but there has been a 83% increase over the five years of our studies. The number of tenure-track positions sought shows a one-year increase of 5% and a 118% increase over the five years.
Congratulations to the 2018 ACM Fellows
In: CRA /The ACM recently named 56 of its members as ACM Fellows for transformative contributions and advancing technology in the digital age. The Fellows were honored for significant contributions in areas including computer architecture, mobile networks, robotics, and systems security. From the ACM Press Release: The accomplishments of the 2018 ACM Fellows underpin the technologies that define the digital age […]
Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in Tech List
In: Featured Announcements /Three CRA contributors were recently recognized on Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in Tech List. From Forbes: “The Top 50 Women In Tech is an unranked assessment of technologists in five categories: Moguls, Founders, Innovators, Engineers and Warriors. The list showcases the breadth and depth of entrepreneurial women who are changing the world.” CRA and […]
Applications Open for the Heidelberg Laureate Forum
In: For Students /The young researcher application process has opened for the 2019 Heidelberg Laureate Forum, http://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/.
AAAS Honors 2018 Elected Fellows
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2018 Elected Fellows. The Fellows are recognized with this lifetime honor for their extraordinary achievements in advancing science. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows to the Section on Information, Computing & Communication.
NSF Research Traineeships: Supporting Effective Training of CISE Graduate Students
In: NSF /New solicitation opportunity in National Research Traineeships.
Announcements
In: Featured Announcements, Awards /Upcoming Nomination Deadlines and Taulbee deadlines.
Expanding the Pipeline: 2018 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference
In: CRA /The 2018 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference, presented by CMD-IT, was held September 19-22 in Orlando, Florida. The Tapia conferences bring together undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, researchers, and professionals in computing from all backgrounds and ethnicities.
CRA Board Member Highlight: Jaime Teevan
In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /Research shows that it takes 25 minutes to reach full productivity after an interruption, yet we are interrupted every 3 minutes. And even without external interruptions, our focus is fragmented. We look at any given desktop window for an average of only 40 seconds, constantly self-interrupting to check email or Facebook. We also try to complete multiple tasks at once, even though we all know that multitasking typically fails. Our tendency to be easily distracted kept our hunter-and-gatherer ancestors alive when they needed to attend to potential predators, but now, in the safety of our offices, it is amazing we manage to get anything done. Chances are you won’t even read this entire article in one go.
Serve as a Rotator at the National Science Foundation to Influence Computer and Information Science Research and Funding
In: CRA /It is an exciting, impactful, and important time to be in computer science, not only as a researcher or educator, but also as an expert serving the community – and we want to invite you to consider opportunities for service at the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Former Board Member Sarita Adve Named Recipient of the ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award
In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards, ACM /Former CRA Board Member Sarita Adve (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) was recently named the 2018 recipient of the ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. She is being recognized “for research contributions and leadership in the development of memory consistency models for C++ and Java, for service to numerous computer science organizations, and for exceptional mentoring.” […]
New from CRA: Database of Candidates for Academic and Industrial/Government Laboratory Positions
In: Featured Announcements, Resources /The number of faculty openings in computing has increased significantly in recent years, which has placed stress on the faculty recruiting process. Both academic departments and faculty candidates go through an arduous process. CRA has started a new service intended to improve the recruiting process for academic and industrial/government laboratory research positions. Candidates for these positions […]
New NSF Faculty Fellowship Opportunities in Quantum Computing & Information Science
In: NSF /The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) has just announced a new program, NSF 19-507, NSF Quantum Computing & Information Science Faculty Fellows (QCIS-FF). This program aims to grow academic research capacity in the computing and information science fields to support advances in quantum computing and/or communication over the long term.
Omidyar Network launches #ResponsibleCS Challenge
In: Awards, Opportunities /A new initiative, backed by the foundations of Pierre Omidyar, Eric Schmidt, Craig Newmark and Mozilla aims to convince the nation’s computer science departments to spend more time teaching the ethics of the profession alongside the basics of coding.
Applications Open for 2019 Graduate Cohort Workshops
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, CRA-WP, Opportunities /We will again host two Graduate Cohort Workshops in 2019. The CRA URMD Grad Cohort Workshop is designed specifically for underrepresented minorities in computing and persons with disabilities in graduate school in computing fields. The CRA-W Grad Cohort Workshop is designed for women students in their first, second, or third year of graduate school in computing fields. The workshops will include a mix of formal presentations, informal discussions and social events. By attending Grad Cohort, participants will be able to build mentoring relationships and develop peer networks that are intended to form the basis for ongoing activities during their graduate career and beyond. Both applications are open now and will close on November 15.
CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program Accepting Nominations
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Mentoring, Education /The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting applications 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.
Nominations Open for 2019 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, For Researchers, Education /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.
VMware Systems Research Award
In: Research, Funding, For Researchers /The VMware academic team is pleased to announce the third annual award in support of the computer science research community. The objective of this award is to call attention to a valuable and promising body of emerging computer science systems research and provide support for continued advances by an emerging research leader.
CRA Taulbee Survey Announcement
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee, Taulbee Announcements /The 2018 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.
Candidates Sought for CRA Board of Directors
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, 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.
CRA is hiring a Deputy Director for the Computing Community Consortium
In: Featured Announcements /The Computing Research Association seeks a highly motivated individual to serve as a Deputy Director for the Computing Community Consortium. The Deputy Director works with the CCC Director, Council Members, and the CRA staff to ensure that the CCC succeeds in its mission: to serve as a catalyst and enabler for the computing research community, to provide mechanisms for the community to identify compelling research visions for the future of the field and to articulate those visions to key stakeholders.
NSF Announces New Measures to Protect Research Community from Harassment
In: Research, NSF /New policy requires awardee institutions to report sexual harassment findings.
iAAMCS Releases Guidelines for Successfully Mentoring Black/African-American Computing Sciences Doctoral Students
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Diversity, Mentoring /These guidelines were established to articulate successful strategies for mentoring African-American doctoral students in Computing Sciences (CS). iAAMCS defines “student mentoring” as the process of supporting, encouraging and guiding students’ academic and social progress with the goal of facilitating career and personal development. Grounded in project-based results and similar empirical research, the following guidelines emerged: (1) recruit strategically, (2) establish community, (3) foster a research culture, (4) provide holistic advising, (5) provide funding and (6) promote professional development. iAAMCS hopes that institutions, departments and faculty use these guidelines to bolster the participation of African-American students pursuing doctoral degrees in CS.
Although the iAAMCS Guidelines serve as best practices for mentoring African-American students in computing, these strategies are useful for optimal mentoring all students.
Participants Reflect on the 2018 CRA URMD Grad Cohort in Short Video
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, CRA-WP /Listen to what participants have to say about the inaugural CRA Graduate Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD Grad Cohort) in this recently released video.
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 2018 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
The CRA Distinguished Service Award is presented to a person or multiple people who have made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. The CRA A. Nico Habermann Award is presented to a person or multiple people who have made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented groups in the computing research community.
Nominations Open for 2019 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
CRA Taulbee Survey Correction to Tables by Specialty Area
In: Taulbee /In the report of the CRA Taulbee Survey published in the May 2018 CRN, there is an error in specialty area labeling in Tables D4 (Employment of New PhD Recipients by Specialty) and D4a (Detail of Industry Employment). In both D4 and D4a, the column labels for High Performance Computing and Human Computer Interaction were swapped. In addition, in D4a the column labels in alphabetical sequence between Informatics: Biomedical/Other Science and Social Computing/Social Informatics were incorrect.
Eben Tisdale Fellows Attend Policy Presentation at CRA Government Affairs Office
In: Policy /On Friday, June 29th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2018 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows to the CRA office in Washington, D.C. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. Additionally, they took two class credits at George Mason University, and attended briefings at institutions such as the U.S. Capitol, Department of State, World Bank, and Federal Reserve. The fellows were in the office to attend a presentation by Brian Mosley, policy analyst in CRA’s Office of Government Affairs, covering the policy concerns and issues that the association works on and attempts to influence legislation and other concerns at the federal level.
My Parallel Careers in Industry and Academia
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /As a researcher, I am fascinated by the challenge of advancing the high-level foundations of computer software (programming models, compilers, and runtimes) to productively exploit the latest advances in computing systems. While there has been a long tradition of research in this area since the dawn of computing, the rapid evolution of hardware has continuously fueled a need for new software technologies as old approaches quickly become obsolete. Current explorations of new hardware directions that go beyond Moore’s law have further amplified the motivation for this research direction.
Highlights from the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird
In: Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /From July 16-18, the Computing Research Association (CRA) held its biennial Conference at Snowbird with more than 300 people in attendance. Every two years, the chairs of computing and information departments, as well as the leaders of government and industrial laboratories from across the country and the world, gather in Snowbird, Utah, to network and discuss common issues concerning the future of the field.
National Academies Webinar: Preventing Sexual Harassment in Academia and Beyond – August 30
In: Misc. /The National Academies’ Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine recently released a study on the sexual harassment of women in academic sciences, engineering, and medicine, specifically looking at how it affects the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in these fields. The report examines the factors that predict high rates of sexual harassment and includes recommendations for addressing and preventing sexual harassment. Evidence reviewed in the study shows that organizational climate is the strongest predictor of sexual harassment in an environment and that it can either encourage or discourage sexually harassing behavior. Please join GUIRR for a webinar with two members of the authoring committee—Gilda Barabino, dean of the Grove School of Engineering at the City College of New York, and Vicki Magley, professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut—to discuss why addressing organizational climate is important to preventing sexual harassment and how certain policies and strategies recommended in the report can be applied in academia and industry to prevent sexual harassment.
Why Women (and Everyone Else) Should Code
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, Mentoring, CRA-WP /Stuart Reges’ recent article entitled “Why Women Don’t Code” elicited strong reactions. I am a colleague of Reges’ in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington (UW). Like a number of my colleagues, I found myself surprised and troubled by his article.
CRA and CRA-W Welcome Alejandra Guzman
In: Featured Announcements, CRA-WP /CRA has recently hired Alejandra Guzman as a program associate. In this role, Alejandra supports CRA and CRA-W program activities with meeting planning, workshops, outreach activities, and committee support.
Congratulations to Ayanna Howard – 2018 Richard Tapia Award Winner
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, CRA Board of Directors /CRA and CRA-W Board Member Ayanna Howard was recently named the recipient of the 2018 Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing from the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Information Technology (CMD-IT). “The Richard A. Tapia Award is awarded annually to an individual who demonstrates significant research leadership and strong commitment and contributions to diversifying computing.
Applications Open for Upcoming CRA-W Career Mentoring Workshop: Deadline September 1
In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, CRA-WP /CRA-W will hold early and mid career mentoring workshops for women on November 3-4 in Phoenix, AZ. The goal of these workshops is to provide an environment for mentoring, practical information, advice, and support among computing researchers.
Laying a Foundation: Best Practices for Engaging Teaching Faculty in Research Computing Departments
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Resources, Best Practices, CRA Board of Directors /To achieve their educational mission, computing departments at research universities increasingly depend on full-time teaching faculty who choose teaching as a long-term career. This memo discusses the need for teaching faculty, explores the impact of teaching faculty, and recommends best practices.
CRA Board Member Highlight: Carla Brodley
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /For the past 30 years I have had two passions – machine learning (ML) that makes a difference in the real world and increasing diversity in computer science (CS). For the first 26 years, I focused on my first passion and developed new approaches to ML though applications to remote sensing, neuroscience, digital libraries, astrophysics, content-based image retrieval of medical images, computational biology, chemistry, evidence-based medicine, detecting lesions in the MRIs of epilepsy patients, and predicting disease progression for MS patients. For the last four years, my focus has been on my second passion: increasing diversity in CS.
Removal of Deadlines for the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace Program
In: Featured Announcements, Research, Funding, NSF /In April, NSF requested input from the research community on a policy change to eliminate/reduce deadlines for core programs in the CISE Directorate, and we passed along your feedback. This month, NSF announced a change to remove deadlines for all proposals to the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program.
CRA Board Member Nancy Amato to Head University of Illinois Department of Computer Science
In: People, Diversity, CRA Board of Directors /Recently, Nancy Amato, a robotics expert and CRA board member, was selected to lead the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science. She will be the first woman to hold this position at the University.
Dear Colleague Letter: NSF CISE, Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) – Employment Opportunity for Multiple Program Director Positions
In: NSF /NSF CISE/IIS has several open program director positions. We encourage you consider serving in this role and sharing the opportunity with your colleagues.
2018 Computer Science Tenure-Track Faculty Hiring Outcomes
In: Featured Announcements, Resources /This work directly follows previous work that analyzed current and future Computer Science needs via advertised tenure-track faculty searches for 2018. This follow-on work looks to understand the relative success of institutions in hiring the tenured/tenure-track faculty in the areas of Computer Science that were being sought.
2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird is Almost Here!
In: Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /We are less than two weeks away from the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird. CRA is excited to welcome the computing research leadership to this invitation-only biennial conference in Snowbird, Utah July 16-18.
CRA Welcomes New FY 2018 Board Members
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /July 1 marked a new fiscal year for CRA. We welcome seven new members to our board of directors: James Allan, Mark Hill, Ayanna Howard, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Margaret Martonosi, Rachel Pottinger, and Chris Ramming. Retiring from the board as of June 30 are Sarita Adve, Joel Emer, Greg Hager, Julia Hirschberg, H.V. Jagadish, Farnam Jahanian, and Elizabeth Mynatt. CRA would like to thank each of them for contributions during their service on the board.
Expanding the Pipeline: The Computer Science Outreach Program Evaluation Network – Increasing Quality and Capacity
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Mentoring /The National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) brings together organizations throughout the United States that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, computer science, and mathematics. NGCP serves more than 35,000 programs in 41 states and uses a collective impact model that builds the capacity of educational programs.
CRA Welcomes Amita Shukla as its 2018 Eben Tisdale Fellow
In: CRA /I’m Amita, a rising junior at Columbia University in New York City where I’m majoring in computer engineering and minoring in political science. I’m also really interested in data science and just joined the WuLab at Columbia’s Data Science Institute.
Meet the 2018 BECA Winners – Yejin Choi and Reetuparna Das
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, CRA-WP /CRA-W recently announced two recipients of the 2018 Borg Early Career Award (BECA) – Reetuparna Das and Yejin Choi.
New Computing Faculty Workshops in Summer 2018
In: Featured Announcements, NSF, For Researchers, Education /The fourth (and last NSF-funded) New Computing Faculty Workshops will be held August 5-10, 2018 in San Diego. The goal of the workshops is to help new computing faculty 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 and (b) make their teaching more enjoyable. We want students to learn more and teachers to have fun teaching them.
Expanding the Pipeline: 2018 CRA-W Grad Cohort for Women Inspires Attendees to Persist in Computing
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, CRA-WP /On April 13-14, more than 400 women graduate students in computing from more than 150 institutions converged on San Francisco, CA, for the 2018 CRA-W Graduate Cohort for Women (CRA-W Grad Cohort). Throughout the two-day workshop, professional connections were made, new friendships were formed, and mentoring relationships with senior researchers were established.
CRA-E Selects 2018 Graduate Fellow
In: Featured Announcements, Education /CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2018 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Robert (“Rob”) Bowden. Rob is a Ph.D. student in computer science at Harvard University. After earning his undergraduate degree at Harvard in 2013, he spent a year working as the course preceptor for Harvard’s CS50 course, and then returned to graduate school with Margo Seltzer as his adviser. Rob’s Ph.D. research includes work on file systems and code synthesis. His current work focuses on how to use the vast amount of CS50 solutions generated by students to not only detect errors in student programs but also propose ways to fix them. Rob’s goal is to advance automated program repair of buggy solutions to introductory programming assignments.
2017 CRA Taulbee Survey: Another Year of Record Undergrad Enrollment; Doctoral Degree Production Steady While Master’s Production Rises Again
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Taulbee /This article and the accompanying figures and tables present the results from the 47th annual CRA Taulbee Survey. The survey, conducted annually by the Computing Research Association, 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 (CS), computer engineering (CE), or information (I). Most of these academic units are departments, but some are colleges or schools of information or computing.
Mary Fernández Receives 2018 Service to CRA Award
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, Awards, CRA Board of Directors, CRA-WP, Conference at Snowbird /The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor Mary Fernández with the 2018 Service to CRA Award for her work in transforming the visual identity and communications of the organization. Mary was a member of the CRA Board from 2009 to 2015, during which time she spearheaded several key initiatives to re-brand and revitalize communications.
Jan Cuny Receives 2017 ACM Distinguished Service Award
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors /Recently ACM announced that former CRA and CRA-W board member Jan Cuny has been named the recipient of the 2017 ACM Distinguished Service Award. She received the award for the establishment and tireless promotion of projects that have nationally transformed computer science education by increasing and diversifying access to high-quality CS education. From the announcement: When she joined […]
SAVE THE DATE: An NSF/CISE Workshop for Department Chairs at Snowbird
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity /As you prepare to attend the biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird, we invite you to join an important event that is being organized by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) on Monday, July 16, 2018, from 10:00am to 1:00pm, in Salt Lake City, UT (this event will take place just prior to the main conference, and just a short distance away from Snowbird). This three-hour workshop will be an opportunity for the CISE community – and as department chairs, you all are a key part of this community! – to gather regarding a new effort on Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC). This effort involves the NSF/CISE core research programs, as well as the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace and Cyber-Physical Systems programs. The effort therefore impacts nearly all faculty who submit proposals to NSF/CISE.
Articles Addressing Shortage of CS Professors Across Many Institutions
In: Featured Announcements, CRA News Coverage /Two recent articles have addressed the shortage of Computer Science professors at many institutions.
Inside Higher Ed featured an article titled “System Crash” on CS student complaints that their departments can’t meet demand. The article highlights the CRA Generation CS Report, the National Academies study, and Craig Wills’ November 2017 CRN article on faculty search results. The article places the concerns of students at specific institutions within the national context.
Envisioning the Future of CERP
In: Featured Announcements, CERP /CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) recently underwent staffing changes when former Director Jane Stout left the CRA. Burçin Tamer, Ph.D., is now the Director of CERP and Heather Wright is the Associate Director. Under their leadership, CERP will extend its reach as a resource for the computing community through its Data Buddies Project, evaluation services, and other activities. Heather and Burçin are both excited to make contributions to the computing community and drive the broader mission of CRA to facilitate the development of strong, diverse talent in the field.
CRA-W Accepting Proposals for Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates: May 18 Deadline
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, For Researchers, CRA-WP /CRA-W is now accepting applications for the Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates (CREU) program. Application Deadline: May 18.
Dan Reed Named Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Utah
In: Featured Announcements, People /Former CRA Board Chair Dan Reed has been named senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah.
Should NSF CISE Implement a No-Deadlines Approach?
In: Featured Announcements, Research, Funding, NSF, For Researchers /Our friends at the National Science Foundation (NSF) have asked for research community input on a proposed policy change to eliminate/reduce deadlines for core programs in the CISE Directorate. Given the increased pressures on securing federal funding and, in some cases, reduced capacity for grant management at computing research institutions, do you think the Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Directorate should follow the lead of the BIO and GEO directorates and consider eliminating or reducing deadlines for proposal submissions? What positive or negative impact could such a shift have on our community?
Expanding the Pipeline: ACM-W Programs Expand to Support Students and Professional Women in Computing
In: Diversity, Mentoring, CRA-WP /Supporting, celebrating, and advocating for women in computing is the mission that lies at the heart of the activities of ACM-W. Our longstanding projects of scholarships, celebrations, and student chapters provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to increase their technical knowledge while networking and building community. Recently we have begun to expand our activity to include projects that support populations of women in computing beyond students. This article provides an overview of all of our projects, old and new.
Expanding the Pipeline: CRA URMD Grad Cohort Fosters a Diverse and Inclusive Generation of Computing Researchers
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring /Approximately 100 graduate students in computing and more than 20 speakers assembled on March 16-17 in San Diego, CA, to convene the inaugural CRA Graduate Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD Grad Cohort). It was the first gathering of its kind hosted by CRA. This new iteration of the Grad Cohort Workshop focused on the following underrepresented groups in computing: Alaska Native, Black/African American, Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, and persons with disabilities. The workshop aimed to increase representation from these groups in computing research by building and mentoring nationwide communities through their graduate studies, and is modeled on the highly successful CRA-W Grad Cohort Workshop for Women.
CRA and CERP Bid Farewell to Jane Stout
In: Featured Announcements, CERP /After serving for more than five years as CERP director, Jane Stout has left CRA to pursue a senior project director position for YOUGOV. During Jane’s tenure at CRA, she oversaw the Data Buddies Project; led CERP in evaluation work for the CRA-W, CCC, and CRA-E; and obtained an NSF grant to conduct computing education research focusing on diversity. Jane also gave numerous talks and interviews on the importance of diversity in computing and shared CERP’s research findings with the computing community.
While she will be missed by her colleagues at CRA, CERP, and the CRA-W community, we wish all the best for her as she embarks on this next stage of her career.
Teaching Computer Science: Capacity Building and Scaling
In: Education /Last fall, the CRA Education Committee added a new resource to its website for “Teaching Computer Science: Capacity Building and Scaling.” Across the United States and Canada, universities and colleges are facing significant increases in undergraduate computer science (CS) enrollments. This surge has exceeded all previous CS program booms and there is a general sense that the current enrollment growth is substantially different than that of the mid-1980s and late 1990s. CRA’s Generation CS Study provides excellent insight into enrollment trends and their impact on computer science units, diversity, enrollment management strategies, and more.
Expanding the Pipeline: CAHSI Broadens Hispanics’ Participation in Computing
In: Featured Announcements, Research, Diversity, CRA-WP /The Computing Alliance for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) is a consortium of Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) committed to consolidating the strengths, resources, and efforts of public, private, federal, state, and local organizations that share the core value of increasing the number of Hispanics who pursue and complete baccalaureate and advanced degrees in computing areas. CAHSI plays a critical role in evaluating, documenting, and disseminating effective practices that support students in computing disciplines at the critical junctures in the academic pipeline.
2018 NSF Workshop for Aspiring Principal Investigators in Computer Systems Research
In: NSF /The 2018 NSF Workshop for Aspiring Principal Investigators (PIs) in Computer Systems Research (CSR) will help aspiring PIs gain a better understanding of the CSR program and prepare them for developing competitive CSR proposals in the future.
CRA-E Showcases Stories of Undergraduate Researchers on its Conquer Website
In: Featured Announcements, People, For Students, Education /CRA-E’s new “Undergraduate Research Highlights” series showcases outstanding research done by undergraduate students at universities and colleges across North America. Each article features the story of a successful undergraduate researcher and offers personal insights into their experiences with finding an advisor, undertaking new research projects, and discovering how research can impact their personal and professional futures.
John Hennessy and David Patterson Receive 2017 Turing Award
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /ACM has named John L. Hennessy, former president of Stanford University, and David A. Patterson, professor emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley, recipients of the 2017 ACM A.M. Turing Award for pioneering a systematic, quantitative approach to the design and evaluation of computer architectures with enduring impact on the microprocessor industry. Patterson is a former CRA Board Chair and will be a plenary speaker at the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird, and Hennessy was the keynote speaker at the 2012 CRA Conference at Snowbird.
Graduate Diversity Fellowships in Computational and Data Science
In: Funding /Submissions opened March 15 for the ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational & Data Science Fellowships. The 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.
2018 Board Election Results and New Appointed Board Members
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /CRA members have elected five new members to its board of directors: James Allan, Maria Ebling, Ayanna Howard, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, and Rachel Pottinger. Current board members Michael Franklin, Stephanie Forrest, Kathryn McKinley, Greg Morrisett, and Vivek Sarkar were re-elected to the CRA board. Their terms run from July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2021. CRA […]
Call for Nominations: 2018 National Medal of Science
In: CRA, Awards, NSF, For Researchers /Please nominate colleagues and peers who have extraordinarily advanced the scientific enterprise for this prestigious honor. Nominations and three letters of support must be submitted to NSF by April 16, 2018.
CRA Board Member Farnam Jahanian Named President of Carnegie Mellon University
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Research, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA Board Member Farnam Jahanian has been named President of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). From 2011 to 2014, Jahanian served as Assistant Director (AD) for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation (NSF). In 2015, he was elected to the CRA Board of Directors and also received the CRA Distinguished Service Award. Jahanian is currently […]
2018 CRA Computing Leadership Summit
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Career Mentoring Workshop /On Monday, February 26, in Arlington, VA, the CRA hosted its annual Computing Research 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.
Juan E. Gilbert and Manuel Pérez Quiñones Receive the 2018 A. Nico Habermann Award
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards, A. Nico Habermann /This year, the CRA Board of Directors selected two recipients of the 2018 A. Nico Habermann Award: Juan E. Gilbert from the University of Florida and Manuel A. Pérez Quiñones from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Both individuals are being recognized for their contributions aimed at increasing the number and success of members of underrepresented groups in the computing research community. Gilbert has had an incredible impact on diversifying the field of computer science, especially on increasing the number of African-American Ph.D. recipients and faculty members in all of the institutions in which he has worked. Pérez Quiñones has tirelessly and passionately worked throughout his career for diversity and inclusion in computing at all levels, spanning from high school to Ph.D., especially for Latino/as.
Paul Messina Receives 2018 CRA Distinguished Service Award
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Awards, Distinguished Service /Paul Messina was selected as the 2018 recipient of the CRA Distinguished Service Award for his significant contributions to the advancement of high performance computing and decades of service to the field. Messina has an incredible record of building and managing large-scale, diverse research activities. Over the course of his career, he has designed, directed, and otherwise executed numerous initiatives that have influenced U.S. policy and programs resulting in the U.S. leadership position in high-performance computing.
Nominations Open for the George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship
In: Research /The ACM/IEEE Computer Society George Michael Memorial HPC (GMM) Fellowship is endowed in memory of George Michael, one of the founding fathers of the SC Conference series. The fellowship honors exceptional PhD students throughout the world whose research focus is on high performance computing applications, networking, storage or large-scale data analytics using the most powerful computers that are currently available. The Fellowship includes a $5,000 honorarium and travel expenses to attend SC18 in Dallas on November 15, where the GMM Fellowships will be formally presented.
CRA Welcomes Daniela Cárdenas
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People, CRA-WP /CRA has recently hired Daniela Cárdenas as a program assistant. In her new role, Daniela supports CRA and CRA-W program activities with administrative and logistical matters such as planning meetings, workshops, outreach activities, and committee support.
2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird Program Update
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /The program for the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird has recently been updated. A third plenary session will consist of a panel on “Diversity in Computing Leadership” chaired by Carla Brodley. The confirmed participants include Shinder Dhillon, Head of Global Diversity & Inclusion – Engineering & Corporate Functions, Microsoft, Brian Reaves, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Dell, Inc., and Ayanna Howard, Chair, School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech.
Thank You, Data Buddies!
In: Featured Announcements, CERP /CRA wishes to thank the computing departments who distributed CERP’s Data Buddies survey during the fall of 2017. These departments’ collective effort provided vital data for CERP’s research and evaluation assessing students’ varied experiences in computing degree programs.
Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant Accepting Applications
In: Research, Funding, Diversity /The Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant aims to recognize, support, and mentor diverse doctoral students as they complete their dissertation research in computing-related fields.
NSF CISE CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop
In: Featured Announcements, Research /The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 9, 2018.
Analysis of the President’s Budget Request
In: Featured Announcements, Research, Funding /The President’s budget request for FY 2019 was released on February 12. CRA Director of Government Affairs Peter Harsha provided his analysis of the request in a post titled, “President’s Budget Request a Mixed Bag for Science, but it Could Have Been Much Worse.”
Which Departments Most Often Nominate Students for the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers Award?
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /In addition to honoring exceptionally successful students, these awards identify some of the departments that are particularly effective at cultivating and promoting undergraduate research. A total of 94 colleges and universities have nominated students during the last three years.
Michael Ernst and Catherine Putonti Receive the 2018 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
In: Featured Announcements, People, Mentoring, Awards, For Researchers, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2018 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Michael Ernst from the University of Washington in Seattle and Catherine Putonti from Loyola University in Chicago.
Meeting the Needs of Individuals with Disabilities- Accessible Computing
In: Featured Announcements, People, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /My research focuses on empowering individuals through computing technologies that more effectively match their knowledge, experience, abilities, and goals. The majority of my recent research has focused on accessibility-related issues. Working with my students, our research employs a broad definition of accessibility, seeking to empower individuals with disabilities as well as individuals who may experience challenges due to the environment in which they are using computing technologies.
2018 Conference at Snowbird Preliminary Agenda
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Conference at Snowbird /The biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird is the flagship invitation-only conference for the leadership of the North American computing research community. A preliminary program is now available and will be updated on the CRA website as additional information becomes available.
CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program Accepting Nominations
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Education /The CRA Education Committee is now accepting applications for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in computing fields to contribute to CRA-E projects, network with computer science education advocates on the committee, engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote undergraduate research and education at the national level.
2018 Nominees for CRA Board; Petition Nominees Sought
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /CRA is pleased to announce the 2018 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition.
Nominations Open for the 2018 Abie Awards
In: Diversity, Awards, For Researchers /AnitaB.org celebrates and recognizes the success of women technologists with a series of awards presented at the annual Grace Hopper Celebration to honor women making significant contributions to technology.
Nominations Open for 2018 Borg Early Career Award
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards, For Researchers, CRA-WP /CRA-Women invites nominations for the Borg Early Career Award (BECA). The award honors the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W and is inspired by her commitment to increasing the participation of women in computing research.
Videos Now Available from the CRA Summit on Technology and Jobs
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, For Researchers /On December 12, 2017, CRA hosted the Summit on Technology and Jobs in Washington, DC. The day was packed with sessions that explored issues surrounding the impact of artificial intelligence and the future of work. Leading technologists, economists, and policy experts offered their views on where technology is headed and what its impact may be, and on policy issues raised by these projections and possible policy responses. Videos and slides from the event are now available.
Greg Byrd Joins the CRA Board of Directors
In: CRA Board of Directors /Greg Byrd has been appointed the new IEEE-CS representative on the CRA board of directors. Byrd joins David Ebert and replaces Tom Conte on the board. CRA would like to thank Conte for his contributions during his term of service on the board. Byrd is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina […]
CRA-E Professional Development Workshop for Teaching-Track Faculty
In: Featured Announcements, Education /The sessions will focus on how teaching faculty can strategize their involvement in departmental as well as research activities, different forms of scholarship and leadership activities to pursue, and best practices for success, promotion, and advancement.
2018 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Winners
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers /Congratulations to the recipients of the 2018 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.
Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2018
In: For Researchers /This work uses the same methodology as work from previous years to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions by examining 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.
Congratulations to the 2017 ACM Fellows
In: Research, For Researchers /The ACM recently named 54 of its members as ACM Fellows for transformative contributions and advancing technology in the digital age. They were honored for seminal work in areas including artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, computer graphics, cloud computing, and software engineering.
Low Diversity in Tech: How Did It Happen and How Do We Fix It?
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /Join Dr. Jane Stout, Director of the CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) for a webinar titled “Low Diversity in Tech: How Did It Happen and How Do We Fix It?”
Expanding the Pipeline: Key Learnings on Retaining Underrepresented Minorities and Students with Disabilities in Computer Science
In: Diversity, For Students, CRA-WP /Retention and graduation of underrepresented minorities and students with disabilities is critical to creating a strong pipeline of employees for both industry and academia. In early 2017, the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT) announced the call for nominations for the first annual CMD-IT University Award for Retention of Minorities and Students with Disabilities in Computer Science. The University Award was created to recognize a U.S. academic institution that has demonstrated a commitment and shown results for the retention of students from underrepresented groups in undergraduate computer science programs over the last five years.
Expanding the Pipeline: Toward Gender Parity in CS @ ILLINOIS
In: Diversity, CRA-WP /The CS undergraduate program at the University of Illinois is among the largest in the nation. It has grown by 250 percent over the last decade to nearly 1,800 undergraduates—and it is still growing. In the last four years, the percentage of women in our CS programs rose from 10 percent to more than 25 percent. And our freshmen class in the College of Engineering rose from 11 percent women in 2012 to about 45 percent in 2016.
Application Open for 2018 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Career Mentoring Workshop /We are pleased to announce that CRA’s Career Mentoring Workshop will take place February 26-27, 2018, in Arlington, VA.
CRA Announcements
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, For Researchers, Career Mentoring Workshop, CRA-WP, Opportunities /Check out opportunities to get involved with CRA!
CRA Executive Director Andrew Bernat Elected 2017 AAAS Fellow
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA Executive Director Andrew Bernat, board member H.V. Jagadish and former board member M. Tamer Özsu have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
New Approaches to Producing High-Performance Code, Thanks to Compiler Technology
In: CRA, People, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /What does it take to produce application code that performs as close as possible to a parallel architecture’s compute or memory peak performance? This question is one that programmers of high-performance architectures contemplate regularly since using such systems efficiently can solve problems faster, or solve larger or more complex problems.
This question fundamentally changes the approach to programming.
CRA Summit on Technology and Jobs Livestream
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /The event will be livestreamed on Tuesday, December 12 at 8:45 AM EST.
Save the Date: 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Conference at Snowbird /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 16-18, 2018 in Snowbird, Utah.
Facebook Request for Proposals on Hardware and Software Systems
In: Awards /Facebook has launched an invitation to university faculty to submit short research proposals on hardware and software systems; a total of 5 awards are available. During this proposal cycle, Facebook is especially interested in soliciting proposals for research at the intersection of computer systems and machine learning, including, but not limited to:
CRA Statement on US News and World Report Rankings of Computer Science Universities
In: Featured Announcements, Research, For Researchers /The latest US News and World Report (USN&WR) ranking of Computer Science (CS) at global universities does a grave disservice to USN&WR readers and to CS departments all over the world. Last week, we respectfully asked for the ranking to be withdrawn. Unfortunately USN&WR declined.
The methodology used — rankings based on journal publications collected by Web of Science — ignores conference publications and as a consequence does not accurately reflect how research is disseminated in the CS community or how faculty receive recognition or have impact. Furthermore, the list of venues is not public. So while some may debate the soundness of any bibliometric-based rankings, there will be no debate about the flaws in the rankings USN&WR has published; the methodology makes inferences from the wrong data without transparency and, consequently, it arrives at an absurd ranking.
CRA Data in NYTimes Article: The Disappearing American Grad Student
In: CRA /“The Disappearing American Grad Student” in last week’s New York Times explores reasons why foreign students in STEM (and computer science in particular) often outnumber domestic students at the graduate level.
NAS Report Investigates the Growth of Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /The NAS report discusses strategies central for managing enrollment and resources, and makes recommendations for departments and institutions. Its findings and recommendations provide much-needed guidelines on how institutions can allocate resources to meet growing student demand and to adequately support their computer science department in the increasingly central role of computer science in education and research.
2018 Heidelberg Laureate Forum
In: For Students, Awards, For Researchers, Opportunities /The Sixth Heidelberg Laureate Forum will be held September 23-28, 2018. The application process begins November 6, 2017. The Heidelberg Laureate Forum was created by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies, ACM, the International Mathematical Union, and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters to provide an opportunity for young researchers to spend a week with winners of the ACM Turing Award, ACM Prize in Computing, Abel Prize, Nevanlinna Prize, and Fields Medal.
New York Times Highlights Job Opportunities in Computer Science and Data Science
In: Featured Announcements, For Students /The New York Times recently published an article on jobs in STEM. The main takeaway from the piece – job opportunities in STEM fields vary widely; but computer science job openings outpace graduates. Here’s a snippet: Much of the public enthusiasm for STEM education rests on the assumption that these fields are rich in job opportunity. Some […]
NAS Report Released: Assessing and Responding to the Growth of Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, For Researchers /The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has released a new report titled “Assessing and Responding to the Growth of Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments“. The report urges U.S colleges and universities to respond to the ongoing surge in undergraduate enrollments in computer science programs, which is straining resources. The report was prepared by the NAS Committee on […]
VMware Systems Research Award
In: Awards /The VMware academic team is pleased to announce the second annual award in support of the computer science research community. The objective of this award is to call attention to a valuable and promising body of emerging computer science systems research and provide support for continued advances by an emerging research leader.
Computing Research: Addressing National Priorities and Societal Needs Symposium Livestream
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /For more information about the symposium please see the agenda and symposium website. The event will be livestreamed here starting at 8:30AM EDT on Monday, October 23rd. You can also join the twitter conversation using #CCCsymposium!
Statement on Diversity at MICRO-50
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, CRA-WP /Former CRA Board Member Margaret Martonosi organized a statement on diversity at the MICRO-50 conference.
Outcomes of Advertised Computer Science Faculty Searches for 2017
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /Professor Craig E. Wills presents new work that directly follows his previous analysis of current and future computer science needs via advertised tenure-track faculty searches for 2017. This follow-on work looks to understand the relative success of institutions in hiring the tenured/tenure-track faculty in the areas of computer science that were being sought.
Nominees Sought for CRA Board of Directors
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors /The Computing Research Association seeks your help in suggesting nominations for its board of directors. We want individuals who have the time, energy and initiative to work on CRA issues on behalf of the entire CRA community. We have a working board, and all members are expected to be involved with community issues.
Nominations Open for 2018 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /This award program honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award recognizes faculty members 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.
Gender Diversity Article in Computer Architecture Today
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, CERP, For Researchers, CRA-WP /Recently, CRA board member Kim Hazelwood (Facebook) and Natalie Enright Jerger (University of Toronto) published an article in Computer Architecture Today that analyzed gender diversity in the sub-discipline. CRA’s Jane Stout provides her commentary.
Save the Date: 2018 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop
In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, Career Mentoring Workshop /CRA’s biennial Career Mentoring Workshop will be offered on February 26-27, 2018 at The Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Va.
The workshop provides career advice and mentoring activities for junior assistant professors in computer science and engineering. The workshop will include a series of panels, plus opportunities to network with senior researchers and representatives from government agencies. The 2018 workshop will also feature a session held at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Participants will have the opportunity to visit NSF and meet with NSF CISE program directors.
Applications Open for 2018 CRA-W Grad Cohort for Women
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, CRA-WP /Applications are open for the upcoming CRA-Women Graduate Student Cohort for Women which will be held April 13-14, 2018 in San Francisco, CA. CRA-W Grad Cohort for Women is a two-day workshop for female students in their first, second, or third year of graduate school in computing fields.
2018 IBM Two-Year Worldwide PhD Fellowship
In: For Researchers, Opportunities /IBM is pleased to announce the 2018 IBM Two-Year Worldwide PhD Fellowship for the academic years of 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. Strong collaboration with faculty, students and universities is vital to IBM. The PhD Fellowship Program advances this collaboration by recognizing and supporting exceptional PhD students who want to make their mark in promising and disruptive technologies. In 2018, the Fellowship Program is focusing on: AI, blockchain, security, and quantum computing. IBM is well positioned to advance these technologies and exploit their ability to transform industries and societies.
Expanding the Pipeline – Engaging Undergraduates in Research: UC San Diego Early Research Scholars Program
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, For Researchers, Education /Engaging undergraduates in research can be an effective way to increase their confidence, perception of science, and sense of belonging. But at many large research universities, it can be difficult for undergraduate students—especially early undergraduates—to find research opportunities. Furthermore, even when they find opportunities, they might not have the background, training, or support to be successful. These issues are particularly acute for women and other underrepresented groups in computer science as they tend to have less pre-college computer science experience.
CRA Board Member Highlight: IEEE Honors Susan Davidson With TCDE Impact Award
In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /This year, CRA Board Chair Susan Davidson received the IEEE TCDE Impact Award for “expanding the reach of data engineering within scientific disciplines.” In this interview, Davidson reveals how her interest in bioinformatics came about and how her career led to this award. Two of her favorite problems have been data integration and data provenance.
Survey on Publication and Presentation Experiences for CS Faculty
In: For Researchers /If you have ever held a position as an Assistant Professor in computing at a US college/university, we respectfully request that you take a few moments of your time to complete a survey about your experience. The survey solicits feedback on a variety of potential factors that can influence a common expectation in the Assistant Professor rank, publishing and presentation of scholarly research. Analysis of survey responses will hopefully yield results that inform how to better support graduate students and new professors in generating more productive publication and presentation records. Retention of junior faculty is of heightened concern at present due to booming enrollments in many Computer Science programs.
New CRA-E Resource – Teaching Computer Science: Capacity Building and Scaling
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, For Researchers /The CRA-Education Committee has added to its website a new resource for “Teaching Computer Science: Capacity Building and Scaling.” Across the United States and Canada, universities and colleges are facing significant increases in undergraduate computer science (CS) enrollments. This surge has exceeded all previous CS program booms and there is a general sense that the current enrollment growth is substantially different than that of the mid-1980s and late 1990s. CRA’s Generation CS Study provides excellent insight into enrollment trends and their impact on computer science units, diversity, enrollment management strategies, and more.
CRA Surveys, Fall 2017
In: Taulbee, Taulbee Announcements /In fall 2017, CRA will be conducting the usual Taulbee Survey and a one-time Teaching Faculty Survey. The Taulbee Survey schedule will be as follows.
If you have any questions, contact Betsy Bizot at bizot@cra.org/cra
CRA Summit on Technology and Jobs
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /On December 12, 2017, the Computing Research Association will host a Summit on Technology and Jobs in Washington, DC. The goal of the summit is to put the issue of technology and jobs on the national agenda in an informed and deliberate manner. It will bring together leading technologists, economists, and policy experts who will offer their views on where technology is headed and what its impact may be, and on policy issues raised by these projections and possible policy responses.
Expanding the Pipeline – WEPAN’S 2017 Change Leader Forum: Creating the Mindset for Action
In: Diversity, For Researchers, CRA-WP /The Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN) held the 2017 Change Leader Forum in Westminster, Colorado from June 12 – 14, 2017. The Forum provided attendees an unparalleled opportunity to engage with diversity and inclusion advocates, and learn research based best-practices related to gender equity and inclusion in engineering. Nearly 200 attendees representing a variety of institutions and roles participated in the Forum, including university leaders, corporate partners, engineering faculty, K-12 teachers, and academic diversity officers.
CRA Education Committee Presents Updated Conquer Website
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, For Students, For Researchers, Education /The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) is excited to announce a new and improved version of its Conquer website (conquer.cra.org/cra) for CS undergraduates interested in research and graduate school. The site also has resources for faculty who are interested in mentoring undergraduate research and helping their students apply to graduate school.
Nominations Open for CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, For Researchers, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2018 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award. The deadline for receipt of nominations is December 8, 2017.
Announcing the 2018 Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship
In: CRA /We are excited to announce the eleventh year of the Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship program which aims to recognize, support, and mentor students as they continue their doctoral education in computer science, electrical engineering and mathematics, as well as interdisciplinary studies intersecting with those domains.
Why Social Science? Because It Makes Computing Work for People
In: Featured Announcements, People, Funding, For Researchers, CRA News Coverage /Two years ago, the leadership of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee looked to our organization, the Computing Research Association, to endorse an approach to reauthorize funding at a number of key Federal science agencies. The proposed legislation would provide increases for computing research funding at the National Science Foundation while keeping the overall agency budget essentially flat by bolstering computing — along with mathematics, physics, biology, and engineering — at the expense of the social, behavioral, and economic sciences (and the geosciences). The committee Chair hoped that CRA, which represents nearly 200 academic computing departments and industrial research labs — including computing research labs at IBM, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft — would support the approach, given the direct and indirect benefits increased investment in computing research at NSF would have to our member institutions.
Collaborative Research as the Key to Advancing AI
In: For Researchers, Lab and Center Profiles /Just about every day we learn about a new application of cognitive computing. From predicting schizophrenia to analyzing Wimbledon fan experiences, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence have arrived and are making a measurable difference in our daily lives. But with all the excitement around real-world applications of this powerful technology, it is easy to forget that the Cognitive Era, as we call it at IBM, is still in its infancy. And there is a tremendous amount of work yet to be done. Collaborating with leading minds around the world is the key to fulfilling the true potential of cognitive computing. And that’s why IBM formed the Cognitive Horizons Network (CHN), a network of the world’s leading universities committed to working with IBM to accelerate the development of core technologies needed to advance the promise of cognitive computing.
Nominations Open for 2018 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers
In: Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers /The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
CRA Board Member Highlight: H. V. Jagadish
In: People, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /I study how data and people interact. For more than a decade, I have been studying how to help humans access and manage information. While there is a lot of good work on human-computer interaction and on data visualization, much less work exists on “human-data interaction.” Why can anyone use Google to get information of interest while it is so difficult to get useful information from a structured database? The difference lies in the specificity of the request. A web search engine receives your request and tries to guess your intention. You know that it has a limited understanding of your need, and are happy to have it get you into “the zone,” from where you can explore for yourself. On the other hand, a traditional database query engine can give you complete answers to complex questions but requires that you precisely specify your query. If you make a small mistake, you are out of luck. Wouldn’t it be helpful to devise database query mechanisms that you can actually use and get reasonable results from even if you don’t ask it totally correctly? Complementarily, can the system help you ask a better question in the first place? Similar concerns also apply to the creation of a database, and helping users manage their data.
The 2016 Taulbee Survey: Supplementary Report on Course-level Enrollment
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Taulbee, Taulbee Announcements /The 2016 Taulbee Survey report, published in the May 2017 issue of CRN, did not include the results of a component that was introduced in the most recent survey–namely, bachelor’s enrollment data from specific courses in the curriculum. This component was introduced as a result of what was learned in the CRA Enrollment Report (see https://cra.org/cra/data/generation-cs). Unfortunately, we were unable to compile the data in time to feature the results in the May issue.
A CS Education Summit in Pittsburgh: Addressing the Challenges of Increasing Interest in Computing at the Undergraduate Level through Institutional Transformation
In: For Researchers, Education /Given the convergence of burgeoning enrollments in CS across many universities and colleges in the United States and the need to re-imagine the way computer science is taught to address 21st century challenges, the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University is hosting a 2-day summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pending anticipated funding.
The CRA Taulbee Survey and Teaching Faculty Data
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee, For Researchers /Non-tenure-track teaching faculty are becoming more important to doctoral departments to help them meet their educational goals and responsibilities, particularly in response to the current enrollments surge. In the Generation CS report (available at https://cra.org/cra/data/Generation-CS/), 65% of doctoral departments reported in fall 2015 that they had increased the number of teaching faculty on continuing appointments in response to increased enrollments, and an additional 16% were considering it. Similarly, between fall 2006 and fall 2016, the proportion of Taulbee Survey respondents reporting at least one full-time non-tenure-track teaching faculty member increased from 81% to 87% and, more notably, the median number of such teaching faculty at the departments reporting nonzero counts rose from 3 to 6.
CERP Director Discusses Strategies to Promote Diversity in Tech in EdTech Magazine
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Diversity, Mentoring, For Researchers /CRA’s own Jane Stout, director of the CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP), was recently featured in the article “Q&A: Researcher Shares Strategies to Increase Diversity in Tech,” in EdTech Magazine: Focus on Higher Education. Amy Burroughs, managing editor of EdTech spoke to Jane about why the lack of diversity in tech persists, how institutions benefit from diverse groups and how IT leaders can build more diverse teams. Drawing from her social science background and her current research on factors that influence women and minorities pursuing computing careers, Jane emphasized building a sense of belonging and community and encouraged IT managers to actively recruit women who can serve as role models and mentors. She also encourages IT managers to recognize that there are different types of effective leadership styles.
CRA Launches New URMD Grad Cohort Workshop – Apply Today!
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, CRA-WP /The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce a new iteration of the Graduate Cohort Workshop designed specifically for underrepresented minorities in computing and persons with disabilities. Applications are now open for the inaugural CRA URM Graduate Cohort Workshop, which will be held March 16-17, 2018 in San Diego, CA.
CRA Bids Farewell to Melissa Borts
In: People, CRA-WP /After serving the CRA-W community as a Program Associate for two and a half years, Melissa Borts has left CRA to return to school. Melissa is returning to her alma mater, the University of Maryland, to pursue her MBA.
Eben Tisdale Fellows Attend Presentation at CRA Government Affairs Office
In: CRA /On Tuesday, July 11, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2017 class of Eben Tisdale Fellows to the CRA Washington, DC office. These fellows, all of whom are undergraduates at universities and colleges across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. Additionally, they took two class credits at George Mason University, and attended briefings at the U.S. Capitol, Department of State, World Bank, Federal Reserve, and other institutions. The fellows visited the office to attend a presentation by Brian Mosley, CRA’s Office of Government Affairs policy analyst, that covered the policy concerns and issues the association works on and influences at the federal level.
New CRA Education Committee Co-Chair
In: Featured Announcements, Education /At the CRA Education Committee (CRA-E) meeting in June, Lori Pollock (University of Delaware) stepped up to replace Ran Libeskind-Hadas (Harvey Mudd College) as CRA-E co-chair. She will join current co-chair Susanne Hambrusch (Purdue University), and Ran will remain a member of the CRA-E committee.
Expanding the Pipeline – Simply Smarter: 2017 Tapia Conference Celebrates Diversity
In: Diversity, For Students /The 2017 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing is being held September 20-23 in Atlanta Georgia. This year’s theme, Diversity: Simply Smarter, evokes the basic yet irrefutable concept that diversity is simply the smarter choice.
CRA Welcomes New FY 2017-18 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: Carla Brodley, Kim Hazelwood, Brian Noble, and Jaime Teevan. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2017 are David Culler, Mary Czerwinksi, Margaret Martonosi, and Margo Seltzer. CRA would like to thank each of them for contributions during their service on the board.
Former CRA Vice Chair Laura Haas Reflects on 35+ Years at IBM
In: People, CRA Board of Directors /On June 30, Laura Haas, former CRA vice chair, will retire from IBM research after 36 years in order to tackle a new challenge. In August, she will become dean of the new College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
She reflects on her time at IBM a blog post – “Laura Haas: 36 years of making IBM Research ‘Famous for our science, vital to the world.'”
Maximizing Opportunity and Building Capacity: Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /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.
Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Margaret Martonosi
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /Over the 30 years since I began graduate school, my computer architecture research has explored many topics, but the ongoing theme has been attention to how technology and application trends and constraints influence hardware and system design, particularly at the hardware-software interface.
Former CRA Board Member Moshe Vardi Receives 2017 ACM Presidential Award
In: Featured Announcements, People /Today, ACM announced that former CRA Board Member Moshe Vardi will receive the 2017 ACM Presidential Award.
Save the Date – 2018 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop
In: Featured Announcements, Career Mentoring Workshop /CRA’s biennial Career Mentoring Workshop will be offered on February 26 and 27, 2018 at The Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Va.
Jahanian Appointed Interim President of Carnegie Mellon University
In: People, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors /CRA Board Member Farnam Jahanian was recently appointed Interim President of Carnegie Mellon University.
CRA Welcomes Emily Tang as a Tisdale Fellow
In: People /By Emily Tang, CRA Tisdale Fellow I’ve just finished my second year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I’m majoring in electrical engineering and computer science with additional focuses in linguistics and applied international studies. I’m currently figuring out whether I’d like to pursue studying education technology (in particular technology to assist bilingual learning), […]
Workshop – Research on Learning about Machine Learning
In: For Researchers /The ACM International Computing Education Research (ICER) Conference will hold a workshop on Research on Learning about Machine Learning Organizers: Ben Shapiro (University of Colorado Boulder) Peter Norvig (Google) Rebecca Fiebrink (Goldsmiths University of London) When: Monday, August 21, 2017 09:00-17:00 Machine learning is transforming many areas of computer science. From natural language processing and search […]
New Computing Faculty Workshops in Summer 2017
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /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.
Expanding the Pipeline: Beyond Graduate Admissions – Strategies for Diversifying the Computer Science Workforce
In: Diversity, CRA-WP /With graduate enrollment increasing for women in computer and information sciences, the entry point for the field’s educational pipeline is more robust than ever. Yet, it appears that the challenge remains to increase retention and completion of degrees. In order to expand the pipeline, our efforts must focus on both recruitment of potential talents and support throughout graduate studies that leads to desired career outcomes.
Borg Early Career Award Winner: Lydia Tapia
In: Awards /Lydia Tapia, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico, was recently named the recipient of the 2017 CRA-W Borg Early Career Award (BECA). The award honors the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W, and is inspired by her commitment to increasing the participation of women in computing research. The annual award is given to a woman in computer science or engineering who has made significant research contributions and contributed to her profession, especially in the outreach to women.
Call for Nominations! — 2017 CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute
In: Featured Announcements, Policy, Opportunities /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
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, CRA-WP /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.
Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Margo Seltzer
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /“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!
2016 Taulbee Survey: Generation CS Continues to Produce Record Undergrad Enrollment; Graduate Degree Production Rises at both Master’s and Doctoral Levels
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee Announcements, For Researchers /This article and the accompanying figures and tables present the results from the 46th annual CRA Taulbee Survey.
AP Computer Science Principles Course Increases High School Student Participation in CS
In: For Researchers, Education /Today, more than 50,000 high school students will take the inaugural Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles (AP-CSP) exam. Ruthe Farmer, former senior policy advisor for Tech Inclusion in the White House explains why this is such a significant milestone for computer science education in an article in the Huffington Post.
Former CRA Board Member Receives 2016 ACM Software System Award
In: People, Awards /Former CRA Board Member Alfred Z. Spector was named one of the recipients of the 2016 ACM Software System Award. Mahadev Satyanarayanan, Michael L. Kazar, Robert N. Sidebotham, David A. Nichols, Michael J. West, John H. Howard, Spector and Sherri M. Nichols were honored with the award for developing the Andrew File System (AFS).
The Social Science Side of CERP
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Diversity, 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.
Jeannette Wing to Lead Columbia University’s Data Science Institute
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /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 […]
Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Sarita Adve
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /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. […]
CRA Enrollment Committee: Institution Subgroup Recognized
In: Featured Announcements, People, For Researchers /At the CRA board meeting in February, Executive Director Andrew Bernat presented members of the CRA Enrollment Committee: Institution Subgroup with glass awards to thank them for their service on the project, which spanned nearly two years. Former CRA Board Member Tracy Camp leads the CRA Enrollment Committee.
Inside MERL: Making Innovation Happen
In: Featured Announcements, People, For Researchers /Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) is the North American subsidiary of the corporate research and development organization of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and a Lab and Center member of CRA.
CRA Welcomes Claire Brady
In: CRA, People, CRA-WP /CRA has recently hired Claire Brady as a program manager. In her new role, she is responsible for planning CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) program events and providing support to initiatives that enrich the community’s awareness of CRA, its committees, mission, and services.
New CRA Board Member: Jaime Teevan
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, CRA-WP /Jaime Teevan will replace Margaret Martonosi on the CRA Board on July 1.
CRA Activities and Initiatives
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, For Researchers /Over the past few months, CRA and its committees have been actively promoting our mission areas of policy, leadership, and talent development.
Valerie Taylor Named Argonne National Laboratory Division Director
In: CRA Board of Directors /Former CRA Board Member Valerie Taylor has been appointed as the next director of the Mathematics and Computer Science (MCS) division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, effective July 3, 2017. She most recently served as the senior associate dean of academic affairs in the College of Engineering and a Regents Professor and the Royce E. Wisenbaker Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University.
Profiles in Computing: Yerika Jimenez
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, CRA-WP, Education, Profiles in Computing /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.
Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Susanne Hambrusch
In: Diversity, CRA Board of Directors, CRA-WP, Board Member Profiles /The main focus of my recent research has been computer science education and the role computer science can play in defining and advancing its own education research. Learning computational principles and learning to code is hard, and teaching these subjects is even harder. For most computer science topics, we know very little about how different learners’ best learn; how to effectively teach the material to audiences with different abilities, backgrounds, and goals; and how to reliably assess learning.
CRA Board and Committee Members Honored
In: Awards /CRA Board Member Greg Hager Inducted to American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering College of Fellows. CCC’s Cynthia Dwork Co-winner of 2017 Godel Prize.
Additional Tapia Conference Scholarship Opportunities
In: Diversity, For Students /Microsoft, Inc. and Google are now offering scholarships to support students to attend the ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference. Encourage your students to apply to these scholarship opportunities.
CERP Offers New Resource
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Diversity, CERP /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.
CRA-E Selects New Graduate Student Fellow
In: Featured Announcements, Education /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.
NCWIT AA Now Accepting Award Nominations & Proposals & Winners Announced
In: For Students, Awards, For Researchers /Thanks to the continued support from sponsors, the NCWIT Academic Alliance (AA) is pleased to announce the call for nominations and proposals for the latest round of awards.
2017 CRA Computing Leadership Summit
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /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.
2017 Board Election Results
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, CRA-WP /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.
2017 CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awardees Announced
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /Carol Frieze – A. Nico Habermann Award
Tom Kalil – Distinguished Service Award
CRA Board Officers Re-Elected
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /At the CRA board meeting on February 28, the CRA board of directors voted to re-elect its current board officers to serve new two-year terms beginning July 1, 2017. The board officers include: Susan Davidson (chair), Susanne Hambrusch (vice chair), Ron Brachman (treasurer), and Greg Morrisett (secretary).
Nearly 10 Years Later, CRA-W Career Mentoring Workshop Participants are More Advanced in their Careers Than Non-Participants
In: Diversity, CERP, For Researchers /CERP recently extracted Web data to observe the career progression of women who had participated in the CRA-W’s 2008 or 2009 Career Mentoring Workshops (CMWs) compared to a sample of women who had never participated in CMWs. We obtained the comparison sample from a population of women who earned their Ph.D.s in computer science during the same time period as the participants. We collected current career information including job titles (e.g., associate professor) and job setting (e.g., academia vs. industry/labs) for both groups. We then categorized job titles as entry level (e.g., assistant professor, software engineer), mid level (e.g., associate professor, senior engineer), and senior level (e.g., professor, principal program manager), collapsed across job setting. To test for a systematic difference in job rankings between workshop participants and the comparison group, we ran a 2 (Group) x 3 (Job Title Rank) Chi-squared test and found a statistically significant difference in rankings across the two groups, χ2 (2, N = 181) = 8.46, p < 0.05. Specifically, CMW participants were less likely than non-participants to be in an entry level position, p < .05, and more likely to be in a senior level position than non-participants, p < .05.
Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Dan Grossman
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Education, Board Member Profiles /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.
CRA Releases Report on Surge in Computer Science Enrollments
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Education /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 […]
Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Mary Czerwinski
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /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.
CERP Receives Exemplary Paper Award for SIGCSE 2017
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CERP, Education /A paper from CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) was recently named an “Exemplary paper” in the 2017 SIGCSE Proceedings. New this year, the SIGCSE program chairs recognized a new category of the top 25% of accepted papers as “Exemplary papers”, highlighted for their accomplishment of high quality, novelty and broad appeal to […]
National Academy of Engineering Announces New Members
In: CRA, People /Today, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced it has elected 84 new members and 22 foreign members. Among those elected were Julia Hirschberg, CRA-W co-chair and former CRA board member, and Katherine Yelick, CCC council member. Several of the members elected have a background in computing research; congratulations to all. Julia Hirschberg: Percy K. and Vida […]
Research Highlight: CRA Board Member Brent Hailpern
In: CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /My research involves understanding and facilitating the life cycle of cognitive software, which is substantially different than the life cycle of conventional software. This difference has profound implications for the methodology and tools required to build such software. Cognitive software possesses at least one “cognitive” or “intelligent” component, such as a component implemented using machine learning, neural networks, or rules. Multiple cognitive components will often be involved in a cognitive application or service, but even just one component is enough to impart special and challenging complications.
2017 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award Winners Announced
In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /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 […]
CRA Expresses Concern at New Executive Order Suspending Visas
In: Featured Announcements, Policy /The Computing Research Association released the following statement in response to President Trump’s new Executive Order, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States”:
NCSES Publishes Latest Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering Report
In: Diversity, NSF, For Researchers /Yesterday, the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) announced the release of the 2017 Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering (WMPD) report, the federal government’s most comprehensive look at the participation of these three demographic groups in science and engineering education and employment.
Thank You Data Buddies!
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, CERP /CRA wishes to thank the computing departments who distributed CERP’s Data Buddies survey during the fall of 2016! The collective effort of these departments provides data for CERP’s research on students’ experiences and successes in computing degree programs.
A Conversation on Data Science
In: For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors /CRA brings together people from academia, government labs, and industrial labs. For me, coming from industry, Snowbird is an unbeatable opportunity to take the pulse of academia. One of the hot topics in 2016 was the Data Science juggernaut. I was glad to join Barbara Ryder (Chair) and Lise Getoor (Co-Chair) in organizing the panel session: Data Science in the 21st Century, which was well attended and full of energy and ideas. After CRA’s Committee on Data Science (Lise Getoor, Chair, David Culler, Eric de Sturler, David Ebert, Mike Franklin, and H.V. Jagadish) published the bulletin article Computing Research and the Emerging Field of Data Science, David Culler and I sat down for a follow-up chat: A Conversation on Data Science.
Undergraduate Research Opportunity Listing Service
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, For Students, For Researchers /The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) is pleased to announce the “Undergraduate Research Listing Service.” This free service is now available for faculty and other researchers to advertise undergraduate research opportunities and for undergraduates to find such opportunities. The site can be found here: http://conquer.cra.org/cra/research-opportunities.
Profiles in Computing: Chandra Krintz
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, CRA-WP, Profiles in Computing /Krintz believes it is important in computing research to push technology forward by including people with diverse perspectives and ideas. To do that, she supports increasing underrepresented minority participation in computing. “I think it benefits both society and technology in general. Personally, it’s just so inspiring to see young people have new ideas, get excited, and want to go out and change the world.”
Why Students Consider Leaving Computing and What Encourages Them to Stay
In: Featured Announcements, CERP, Education /In CERP’s 2015 Data Buddies survey, computing majors were asked whether they had thought about changing to a non-computing major during the past year. Thirteen percent of students who responded to this question said that they had. The word clouds here were created using students’ comments about the reasons they considered leaving computing and factors that helped them stay. Some of the most frequently encountered words in students’ reasons for considering leaving computing were “classes”, “hard”, “difficult”, “work”, and “time”. On the other hand, students’ responses regarding the factors that helped them stay in computing contained words such as “job”, “degree”, and “friends”.
NSF CISE 2017 CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop
In: Featured Announcements, NSF, For Researchers /The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on March 20, 2017. This workshop will be held at the Hilton Arlington, near the National Science Foundation. 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 (ACI, CCF, CNS, and IIS) and recent NSF CAREER awardees.
CRA Board Member Named in Women You Should Know List
In: Awards, CRA Board of Directors /CRA Board Member Ellen Zegura was named one of the “10 Women in Networking/Communications That You Should Know” by Networking Networking Women (N2 Women), a discipline-specific community of researchers in the communications and networking research fields. Zegura is a faculty member at Georgia Tech and also a member of the CRA executive committee.
Call for Applications: CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Education /The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting applications for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in computing fields to contribute to CRA-E projects, network with computer science education advocates on the committee, engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote undergraduate research and education at the national level.
CRA-E plans to appoint up to two graduate fellows per year, who will serve as members of the committee, providing a voice for graduate students. The fellows will attend the annual CRA-E meeting (travel expenses funded by CRA-E), serve on a CRA-E subcommittee related to their interests and expertise, and contribute to the CRA-E Conquer site that provides resources for undergraduate research and applying to graduate school.
Nominations Open for Borg Early Career Award
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards, For Researchers, CRA-WP /CRA-Women invites nominations for the Borg Early Career Award (BECA). he award honors the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W and is inspired by her commitment to increasing the participation of women in computing research.
How to Engage Your Alumni: The Story of UMD’s New Iribe Building
In: People /As computer science departments across the country grow rapidly, we all may feel overwhelmed by the staggering growth of our enrollments. While faculty growth still has not caught up with the influx of students, we cannot be anything but happy at the diversity of students who are choosing to become computer science majors. Many people may believe that alumni engagement begins after students earn their diplomas. That assumption is false. Alumni engagement begins the moment that students start their education in our departments. With planning, outreach, and genuine interest in their lives and careers, we make alumni engagement an important part of our mission in the Computer Science department at the University of Maryland (UMD).
Videos Available: De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work
In: CRA /You can now view videos from the De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQFpLGNQdPn62wuMuITAbFg. Recently, CRA was a sponsor and participated in the De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work, which focused on the impact of the amazing technologies being developed by the computing research community on the […]
Executive Q&A: Jeannette M. Wing, Head of Microsoft Research
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Lab and Center Profiles /Microsoft is a Lab and Center member of CRA. This article is the second in a series of our industry member profiles.
Jeannette M. Wing joined Microsoft Research in January 2013, after holding positions in academia and government, most recently at Carnegie Mellon University and the National Science Foundation (NSF). From 2007 to 2010, she served as assistant director of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate at the NSF. Wing is a former CRA board member and recipient of the 2011 CRA Distinguished Service Award. Her areas of expertise are in trustworthy computing, formal methods, concurrent and distributed systems, programming languages, and software engineering.
De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /CRA recently was a sponsor and participated in the De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work, which focused on the impact of the amazing technologies being developed by the computing research community on the nature of work and employment. The conference was held at Rice University with primary funding from the De Lange Conference Fund at Rice, which brings top experts and major figures to its campus in order to focus on a topic of great concern to society.
Profiles in Computing: Tanya Amert
In: Diversity, For Students, CRA-WP, Profiles in Computing /Tanya Amert, a computer science Ph.D. student at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found herself drawn to computer science because she enjoyed figuring out how things work. At 13 years old, she was a big fan of the Neopets website and online community. Amert noticed some users had customized homepages, and her interest grew even more. Despite not knowing any HTML at the time, she learned how to look at the source code and figured out how to change the color of the scroll bar within the CSS. “I discovered that specific lines of HTML made that happen. And I thought that was mind boggling and awesome.”
Congratulations to 2016 AAAS Fellows
In: Awards /The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has announced its 2016 Elected Fellows. Former CRA Board Treasurer Phillip Bernstein (Microsoft Research) and current CRA Board Member Josep Torrellas (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) were both elected Fellows.
2017 Election Committee’s Slate of Nominees for the CRA Board; Petition Nominees Sought
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors /2017 Election Committee’s Slate of Nominees for the CRA Board
CRA is pleased to announce the 2017 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board.
2017 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Winners
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /This year’s nominees were a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several were authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others had made presentations at major conferences, and some had produced software artifacts that were in widespread use.
Get Involved with CRA-Women Activities
In: Diversity, CRA-WP /The mission of the CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is to increase the success and participation of women in computing research and education at all levels. There are several ways you can get involved by mentoring students, submitting proposals and sharing these opportunities with your colleagues and students.
Congratulations to the 2016 Class of ACM Fellows
In: Awards /The ACM recently named 53 of its members as ACM Fellows for major contributions in areas including artificial intelligence, cryptography, computer architecture, high performance computing and programming languages.
Computer Science Education Week and new NSF CSforAll Solicitation
In: Featured Announcements, Education /A recent White House blog post by Ruthe Farmer, Senior Policy Advisor for Tech Inclusion, emphasizes that Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) is an opportunity to join the #CSforAll movement and give every student the opportunity to learn computer science. On that note, with the kick off of CSEdWeek yesterday, the White House released a fact sheet detailing the great scope of CS for All efforts, including a new CSforAll program solicitation from NSF called Computer Science for All: Researcher Practitioner Partnerships (CS for All: RPP).
Computer Science Education Week – December 5-11
In: Education /The eighth annual Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) will be held next week, December 5 – 11. CSEdWeek is “a call to action to raise awareness of computer science education and computing careers for students, educators, and the public.” This is a great opportunity to raise awareness about the impact of computing and the critical need for computer science education. Originally conceived by the Computing in the Core coalition, Code.org organizes CSEdWeek as a grassroots campaign supported by 350 partners and 100,000 educators worldwide.
Ayanna Howard: 2016 A. Nico Habermann Award Winner
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards, A. Nico Habermann, CRA-WP /In February, Ayanna Howard from Georgia Institute of Technology received the 2016 A. Nico Habermann Award for her sustained commitment to increasing diversity in computing. Howard is currently a CRA-W board member, and at Georgia Tech, she has provided research opportunities to dozens of undergraduates – more than 75% of whom are underrepresented minorities or women, and a majority of these students have gone on to graduate school. Nominations for the 2017 A. Nico Habermann Award are due on Friday, December 9.
Maria Klawe: 2016 CRA Distinguished Service Award Recipient
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, A. Nico Habermann /By Shar Steed, CRA Communications Specialist Earlier this year, Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College (HMC), received the CRA Distinguished Service award for her tireless commitment to and profound impact on the computing research community. Nominations for the 2017 Distinguished Service Award are due on Friday, December 9. Throughout her career thus far, Klawe has […]
OSTP Shares Resource on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Science and Technology
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) shared a summary of actions to take to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in science and technology. The post titled, “Raising the Floor: Sharing What Works in Workplace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” was written by Megan Smith, the U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and […]
Nominations Open for the Fifth Heidelberg Laureate Forum
In: For Students, Awards, Opportunities /The Heidelberg Laureate Forum was created by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies, ACM, the International Mathematical Union, and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters to provide an opportunity for young researchers to spend a week with winners of the ACM Turing Award, ACM Prize in Computing, Abel Prize, Nevanlinna Prize, and Fields Medal. To date four have been held and all have been viewed as a major success by the laureates and the 200 young researchers in computer science and mathematics who attended each forum. Details can be found at http://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/. The inclusion of the ACM Prize in Computing is new this year and will further enrich the computing content of the Forum.
Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2017
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /The wealth of faculty searches in Computer Science during this hiring season for positions starting in 2017 again affords the opportunity to study areas of Computer Science where departments are choosing to invest in new faculty hires. While the number 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.
We analyzed ads from 347 institutions seeking to fill hundreds of tenure-track faculty positions in Computer Science. There is a 30% one-year (and 56% two-year) increase in the number of institutions searching for tenure-track faculty in Computer Science and a 35% one-year(and 71% two-year) increase in the number of positions being searched for. The number of institutions searching and positions seeking to be filled has increased even more for non-PhD-granting institutions.
Richard Tapia Receives the AAAS Public Engagement with Science Award
In: People, Diversity, Awards /Recently, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) named computational mathematician Richard Tapia from Rice University, the recipient of the 2016 AAAS Public Engagement with Science Award. The award recognizes Tapia’s “remarkable career blending world-class scholarship, admirable mentoring and profound contributions to science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and public engagement.”
Data Buddies 2016 is underway!
In: Featured Announcements, CERP /On Monday, November 14, CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) distributed its annual Data Buddies surveys to more than 110 participating “buddy” computing departments.
Buddy departments send the survey to students affiliated with computing (e.g., majors; minors; students enrolled in CS courses; graduate students), and in return they receive a customized report on their students’ responses. The survey measures students’ experiences in computing (e.g., sense of belonging), aspirations for the future (e.g., intentions to pursue a Ph.D.), and participation in computing activities (e.g., formal research experiences).
CERP uses data buddies data to conduct evaluation as well as social science research on diversity issues in computing.
Is your department a buddy? If not, help the computing community by volunteering your department to become a Data Buddy today! Visit CERP’s website to learn more, view our list of buddies, and sign up: http:/cra.org/cra/cerp/data-buddies/.
Profiles in Computing: Morgan Carroll
In: For Students, CRA-WP, Profiles in Computing /Morgan Carroll, a senior studying computer science at University of Texas at Tyler, fondly remembers her grandfather buying her a HP Pavilion with Windows 98 when she was eight years old. “From then on I just loved computers. In high school, I figured out that I was good at math. So when I went off to college, I took my love of computers and math and decided to try computer science.”
Carroll focuses on general programming and enjoys figuring out how to accomplish project objectives. Last year, one of her professor’s suggested she participate in a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), so she searched for one on the National Science Foundation REU opportunities webpage. She was particularly excited about a research project at the University of Alabama. The project was supported by CRA-Women’s Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU) program, which matches students with a faculty mentor for a summer research experience at the faculty mentor’s home institution.
Martha Pollack Named the 14th President of Cornell University
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People /Today, former CRA board member Martha Pollack was named the 14th president of Cornell University. Pollack is currently provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Michigan. Cornell University Board of Trustees unanimously elected her, and the position will begin on April 17, 2017.
Are you working on the Taulbee Survey?
In: Taulbee Announcements /The CRA Taulbee Survey is in progress. The deadline for the salary section is November 18 and the deadline for the rest of the survey is January 18, 2017. If you are the academic unit head of a U.S. or Canadian department granting doctoral degrees in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and/or Information, you should have received emails about […]
Facebook Emerging Scholar Program
In: CRA /Facebook has announced the Facebook Emerging Scholar Program, which is designed to identify promising doctoral students and support them in their research efforts. The Facebook Emerging Scholar award is also specifically designed to support talented students from underrepresented minority groups pursuing their Ph.D.’s while delivering innovative research. The award is open to first or second year Ph.D. students who are members of an underrepresented minority group in the technology sector. Emerging Scholar recipients studying computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, system architecture, or a related area will be awarded tuition and fees for two years in addition to a two year $37,000 annual stipend and
Call for ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award Nominations
In: Awards /The Karlstrom Award is presented annually to an outstanding educator who is appointed to a recognized educational baccalaureate institution; recognized for advancing new teaching methodologies; effecting new curriculum development or expansion in computer science and engineering; or making a significant contribution to ACM’s educational mission. Those teachers with ten years or less experience are given special consideration.
University at Buffalo Speaker Series Highlights Women in Computing
In: Diversity, CRA Board of Directors, CRA-WP /The University at Buffalo (UB) Department of Computer Science and Engineering is celebrating its 50th anniversary this academic year. It has chosen this occasion to honor successful women in computing with a year-long speaker series. The Distinguished Speaker Series highlights several CRA board members.
Applications Open for NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Awards
In: Awards /Calling all teachers, counselors, administrators, mentors, or other influencers who support high school women’s passion for computing and technology! Applications for the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Aspirations in Computing Educator Award are open through November 28, 2016. Each winner receives $250 in cash and up to $750 for participation in computing-related professional development activities, recognition at a local Affiliate Award event and increased visibility in his or her school district and community, NCWIT resources and promotional items, as well as an engraved award for both the Educator and his or her school. Educators can apply online at http://bit.ly/AiCEdAward no later than 11:59 p.m. EST on November 28, 2016.
Profiles in Computing: Rita Wouhaybi
In: Featured Announcements, CRA-WP, Profiles in Computing /The 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) brought together more than 30 accomplished speakers and 550 female graduate students in computing. Rita H. Wouhaybi who is a research scientist with Intel Labs’ Systems and Software Research at Intel Corporation, was one of the speakers who shared her unique perspective with the attendees.
It’s Not About the Money: Optimizing Academic-Industrial Partnerships
In: Research, People, Resources, For Researchers, Conference at Snowbird /Today, more than ever, industry leaders are looking to partner with academic computer science programs. With available computer science expertise at a premium, they’re looking for ideas, for new hires, for help on crucial projects. Universities are the mother lode for the personnel and expertise they crave. On July 18, I presented at the CRA Conference at Snowbird session, “Local Corporate Labs, Centers and Development Offices: Optimizing Department/Industry,” which explored the growth of corporate lab culture, and I’d like to share some of insights from that talk.
CRA-Education to Host Workshop at Supercomputing 2016
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Education /The CRA Education Committee (CRA-E) hosts a series of workshops on Engaging Undergraduates in Research at major computer science research conferences. The next workshop titled “Best Practices in Mentoring Undergraduate Research in Supercomputing,” will be held at Supercomputing 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The workshop will run as BoF session on Wednesday, November 16, 5:15-7 pm and is run by Nancy Amato (Texas A&M) and CRA-E Fellow Max Grossman (Rice University).
CRA Endorses K-12 CS Framework
In: Policy, Education /Back in January the Computer Science Teacher Association (CSTA), the Association of Computer Machinery (ACM), and Code.org announced an initiative to develop a K-12 Computer Science Framework for use throughout the country’s education system. The plan was to develop a high level framework, not education standards, that states and school districts could use to create individual CS curriculums for their needs and wants. On Monday, the group, which now includes Cyber Innovation Center and the National Math and Science Initiative, announced that they had completed their work and made the framework public.
What is Data Science in the 21st Century?
In: Resources, Research Issues, For Researchers /Last July, a distinguished panel of computer scientists – David Culler (UC Berkeley), Rayid Ghani (U of Chicago), Rahel Jhirad (Hearst) and Rob Rutenbar (UIUC) — discussed this question with a group of approximately 100 CRA Conference at Snowbird attendees. There was agreement that data science is an interdisciplinary field, combining techniques from machine learning, natural language processing, data mining, algorithms, information retrieval, etc.
Nominations Open for 2017 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, For Researchers, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /CRA’s newest award program honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award recognizes faculty members 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.
Correction: Computing Research and the Emerging Field of Data Science
In: Research Issues /Correction to Computing Research and the Emerging Field of Data Science: H.V. Jagadish is a member of CRA’s Committee on Data Science, and was not listed on yesterday’s author list. The full committee includes: Lise Getoor (Chair), David Culler, Eric de Sturler, David Ebert, Mike Franklin, and H.V. Jagadish.
Computing Research and the Emerging Field of Data Science
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Research Issues, For Researchers /Our ability to collect, manipulate, analyze, and act on vast amounts of data is having a profound impact on all aspects of society. This transformation has led to the emergence of data science as a new discipline. The explosive growth of interest in this area has been driven by research in social, natural, and physical sciences with access to data at an unprecedented scale and variety, by industry assembling huge amounts of operational and behavioral information to create new services and sources of revenue, and by government, social services and non-profits leveraging data for social good. This emerging discipline relies on a novel mix of mathematical and statistical modeling, computational thinking and methods, data representation and management, and domain expertise. While computing fields already provide many principles, tools and techniques to support data science applications and use cases, the computer science community also has the opportunity to contribute to the new research needed to further drive the development of the field. In addition, the community has the obligation to engage in developing guidelines for the responsible use of data science.
Announcing the VMware Systems Research Award for Early Career Faculty
In: Funding, Awards, For Researchers /We are pleased to announce a new award in support of the computer science research community. The objective of this award is to call attention to a valuable and promising body of emerging computer science systems research and provide support for continued advances by an emerging research leader. This will be an annual award in the amount of USD 100,000, granted to the recipient’s university in support of her/his research.
Eligible nominees are faculty worldwide within 5 years of their first tenure-track appointment. Nominations must be submitted by a university department chair and each submission should include a one-page letter of nomination, a proposed citation and three references with contact information. Each department chair is limited to a single nomination which must be submitted via email at sysaward@vmware.com. The deadline for the nominations submission is November 15, 2016.
Graduate Student Opportunity: Applications Open for Grad Cohort 2017
In: For Students, CRA-WP /The upcoming CRA-Women Graduate Student Cohort (Grad Cohort) will be held April 7-8, 2017 in Washington, D.C. Grad Cohort is a two-day workshop for female students in their first, second, or third year of graduate school in computing fields. The application closes November 30.
Grad Cohort is generously funded by sponsors from industry, academia, the National Science Foundation, and the computing community. The workshop aims to increase the ranks of senior women in computing-related studies and research by building and mentoring nationwide communities of women through their graduate studies.
Computing Researchers Travel to D.C. to Make the Case for Computing
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Policy, For Researchers /On September 14, 21 computing researchers from across the country visited Washington, D.C. to make the case before Congress for federally funded computing research. The volunteers, traveling from as near as Maryland and Pennsylvania, and as far away as Utah and California, participated in nearly 50 House and Senate meetings. Their message to Congress was very simple: Federally supported computing research is vital to the nation’s future. Using their own research and individual stories as support, and reinforced with additional information from CRA, they made the “Federal case” for computing to members of Congress and their staff. Just as important as the message they presented, they also made valuable connections with the officials who represent them in D.C. Those members now know more about the expertise and interesting (and important) computing work that occurs in their districts and states, and our participants have a better sense of just who represents them in Congress. And they’ve hopefully started a lasting dialogue on both sides.
Nominees Sought for CRA Board of Directors
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /The Computing Research Association seeks your help in suggesting nominations for its board of directors. We want individuals who have the 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.
The board provides the membership for various standing committees, including the Government Affairs, Snowbird Conference, Taulbee Survey, Finance, and Elections committees. In addition, issues affecting computing research arise unexpectedly, and board members must take the initiative and lead CRA’s responses. Many CRA committees and initiatives involve year-round attention, regular conference calls, communications with lab directors and department chairs, proposal writing, and sometimes travel at the expense of the individual board member.
Nearly 40 CEOs of American Companies Call for Support of Federal Research
In: Policy, R&D in the Press /In an advertisement that ran in the New York Times on September 26, and in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, 39 CEOs and top executives of American companies argued that federally supported scientific research is, “an investment in our prosperity, security, and well-being.”
The ad points out that without federally supported research, we would not have such things as smart phones, the internet, or microprocessors, to name but a few of the examples cited. Some of the companies whose leaders signed the advertisement are members of the Task Force on American Innovation, a coalition which CRA is a member. The Task Force is a coalition of science organizations, American colleges and universities, and high-tech companies, which supports federally-funded scientific research and promote its benefits to America’s economy, security, and quality of life. The advertisement has the full list of signatories, some of which are well known to our community, such as Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, and Meg Whitman, President and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprises.
The ad was sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Government Shutdown Averted; Federal Budget on Autopilot Until Dec. 9
In: Featured Announcements, Policy, For Researchers /First, the good news: the government won’t have to shut down on Saturday, as Congressional leaders have agreed to a continuing resolution (CR) through December 9. As our regular readers will remember, the Fiscal Year 2016 budget year runs from October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2016 and if Congress has not passed a budget or a CR by this Saturday October 1, federal agencies must stop operations. The last government shutdown happened back in 2013, but we’ve been dealing with the potential of one every year since. The agreed to CR puts funding for federal agencies generally, and science research accounts specifically, on autopilot at Fiscal Year 2016 levels.
Nominations Open for CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, For Researchers, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2017 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
Distinguished Service Award
CRA presents an award, usually annually, to a person who has made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. This award recognizes service in the areas of government affairs, professional societies, publications or conferences, and leadership that has a major impact on computing research.
A. Nico Habermann Award
CRA presents an award, usually annually, to a person who has made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented groups in the computing research community. This award recognizes work in areas of government affairs, educational programs, professional societies, public awareness, and leadership that has a major impact on advancing these groups in the computing research community. Recognized contributions can be focused directly at the research level or at its immediate precursors, namely students at the undergraduate or graduate levels.
Profiles in Computing: Caroline Trippel
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, CRA-WP, Profiles in Computing /From an early age, current Ph.D. student and 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) attendee Caroline Trippel had a positive image of women in computing. Her mother earned an undergraduate degree in math, a Master’s degree in computer science, and currently works as an embedded systems software engineer.
CRA-Women Virtual Undergrad Town Hall: Enabling Science Breakthroughs Using Computer Science
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, CRA-WP /Please share this opportunity with your students. During CRA-W’s Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall Event, students from around the world will learn about cutting edge research in the field of computing, and have the opportunity to ask questions to distinguished computer scientists. The next event will be held October 13 at 7PM EST. Speaker: Deb Agarwal, Senior […]
Computing, Cognition, and the Future of Knowing: How Humans and Machines are Forging a New Age of Understanding
In: For Researchers, Lab and Center Profiles /IBM Research is a Lab and Center member of CRA. This article is the first in a series of our industry member profiles.
It’s not surprising that the public’s imagination has been ignited by artificial intelligence since the term was first coined in 1955. In the ensuing 60 years, we have been alternately captivated by its promise, wary of its potential for abuse, and frustrated by its sometimes slow development.
But like so many advanced technologies that were conceived before their time, artificial intelligence has come to be widely misunderstood—co-opted by Hollywood, mischaracterized by the media, and portrayed as everything from savior to scourge of humanity. Those of us engaged in serious information science and in its application in the real world of business and society understand the enormous potential of intelligent systems.
The future of this technology—which we believe will be cognitive, not “artificial”—has very different characteristics from those generally attributed to AI, spawning different types of technological, scientific, and societal challenges and opportunities, with different requirements for governance, policy, and management.
Researchers Eye Gaming As Tool for Boosting Computer Science Skills, Diversity in Middle Schools
In: Diversity, Education /Computer science and education researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Florida, both CRA member institutions, are launching an initiative that will use a custom-designed video game to boost both computational thinking in middle school science classrooms and foster both gender and racial diversity in computing.
Trump Provides Science Policy Views
In: Featured Announcements, Policy /Back in July, we got a good sense of how Hillary Clinton would approach science and technology policy in her presidency when her campaign released her Technology and Innovation agenda, which we covered here. At the time, there wasn’t much information about how a President Trump would approach similar issues. Today, the folks behind ScienceDebate.org have released the answers provided by Clinton and Trump, along with Green Party candidate Jill Stein, to 20 questions about science policy issues facing the country. While Clinton’s answers are consistent with those she outlined in her Tech and Innovation agenda, the answers Trump provided give us a first real glimpse at the candidate’s views on things like innovation policy and the importance of the federal investment in fundamental research. I thought I’d highlight two question responses in particular, but invite you to read the whole 20 questions.
CRA Executive Director Speaks at White House Summit on Computer Science for All
In: Featured Announcements, Education /Today, CRA Executive Director, Andrew Bernat was a speaker at the White House Summit on Computer Science for All. The audience heard from students and leaders of CS education efforts as part of the CS for All initiative. The initiative aims to ensure CS education is available to all K-12 students across the U.S.
Bernat expressed his excitement about the incredible success of the initiative and explained CRA’s commitment to strengthening the computing research community by supporting the development of strong, diverse talent. He announced that so far more than 75 university and college computing departments from across the country have agreed on behalf of their departments to take action to support the goals of the CS for All Initiative through a variety of concrete actions. And he is confident many more will sign up. CRA member institutions’ support will include faculty expertise and effort, the development of innovative computing education products, and teacher development.
Building, Recruiting And Inclusion for Diversity Initiative Seeking Affiliate Schools
In: Diversity, For Researchers /The BRAID (Building, Recruiting And Inclusion for Diversity) initiative is a joint project led by the Anita Borg Institute (ABI) and Harvey Mudd College. The BRAID project addresses the lack of diversity in computer science departments and specifically looks at the underrepresentation of women and racial/ethnic minorities.
Would your school like to participate? BRAID is now accepting applications for new BRAID affiliate schools, and proposals are due by 5 pm on December 30, 2016.
2016 CRA Taulbee Survey Schedule
In: CRA, Taulbee, Taulbee Announcements /The 2016 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As we did last year, 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.
The schedule will be as follows:
By September 9: All doctoral departments will be contacted to update Taulbee user information. The academic unit head will receive an email and so will the Taulbee primary contact, if separate.
September 13: PDF will be available for data gathering.
September 27: Both sections of the Taulbee will open for input.
November 18: Due date for salary section.
December 19: Preliminary salary report available.
January 18, 2017: Due date for the main Taulbee section.
April 2017: Full Taulbee report to CRA members and participating departments.
May 2017: Published in CRN.
If you have any questions, contact Betsy Bizot at bizot@cra.org/cra.
CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awardees: Where are they now?
In: Outstanding Undergrad Researchers /The CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award recognizes undergraduates who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing. Here’s an update on last year’s awardees. Information on the 2017 competition is available here.
Profiles in Computing: Volcano Kyungyoon Kim
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Profiles in Computing /For Volcano Kyungyoon Kim, current Ph.D. student and 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) attendee, choosing to study computer science was an easy decision. She knew since elementary school that she would have a career in computing. Volcano comes from a computer science family – her father is a computer science professor, her mother also has a degree in computer science, and now her younger brother is currently pursuing a master’s degree in computer science. “Every single one of them is in computer science. So I never really thought of anything else. My parents think that it’s the most exciting and valuable field of study and it will lead to a great career in the future.”
While this influenced her enough to begin studying computer science in college, during her first two years she wasn’t totally convinced that it was a perfect fit for her. It wasn’t until Volcano discovered the flexibility of the field and its interdisciplinary nature that she was completely hooked. “There was a moment later on when I thought this is really perfect for me. It is not only about computer science, it is about applying it to all the other areas. If you have an interest in art, having a computer science background can boost your art skills or it can even open up a new art genre such as 3D painting in a virtual reality. Computer science is like a magic powder that you can add to other fields. ”
ACM Athena Lecturer Award Accepting Nominations
In: Awards, For Researchers /The ACM Athena Lecturer Award celebrates female researchers who have made fundamental contributions to computer science. Each year ACM honors a preeminent female computer scientist as the Athena Lecturer. The recipient gives an invited talk at a major ACM conference of her choice. A video of the talk is made available on the ACM website. The award carries a cash prize of $25,000. Financial support for the Athena Lecturer Award is provided by Google.
Nominations Open for Two NSF Awards: Alan Waterman, Vannevar Bush
In: Awards, For Researchers /The National Science Foundation is currently accepting nominations for two prestigious awards. Consider nominating an individual from your department today! The Alan Waterman Award recognizes an outstanding young researcher in any field of science or engineering supported by NSF. The Vannevar Bush Award honors truly exceptional lifelong leaders in science and technology who have made substantial contributions to the welfare of the Nation through public service activities in science, technology, and public policy.
New Videos Encourage Undergraduates to Pursue Advanced Education in Computing
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Education /The Computing Research Association (CRA) and its education committee (CRA-E) are excited to announce the creation of five short videos entitled “Choosing a PhD in Computer Science.” These videos were designed in conjunction with award-winning producer Patrick Sammon (co-producer of “Codebreaker”) to explain the benefits of pursuing a PhD in CS. The videos showcase young researchers with PhDs who are now working in industry as they talk about what compelled them to pursue a doctorate and how they are using their advanced training in their work. While many undergraduates understand that a PhD is needed for a position in academia, these videos demonstrate how a PhD can be useful in industry as well.
Why CS Departments Should Embrace Computing Education Research
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Education, Conference at Snowbird /How can a CS Department benefit from hiring tenure-track faculty in the field of Computing Education Research (CER)? What are some of the major research questions in CER? How can CER enhance existing research in a CS department? A panel at the CRA Conference at Snowbird Meeting in July 2016 addressed these and other questions. The panelists included Diana Franklin (University of Chicago), Mark Guzdial (Georgia Tech), Scott Klemmer (UC San Diego), Amy Ko (University of Washington) and Ben Shapiro (University of Colorado-Boulder) in a session moderated by Ran Libeskind-Hadas (Harvey Mudd College).
Nominations Open for 2017 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a terrific way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
Profiles in Computing: Kim Hazelwood
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Researchers, CRA-WP, Profiles in Computing /The 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) brought together more than 30 accomplished speakers and 550 female graduate students in computing. Kim Hazelwood, who leads a performance and datacenter capacity engineering and analysis team within Facebook’s infrastructure division, was one of the speakers who shared her unique perspective with the attendees. Kim has always had an interest in technology and a love for math. Like many undergraduate students, Kim didn’t take any computer science classes in high school. However, she took a leap and declared computer engineering as her major heading into her undergraduate degree at Clemson University. “First time was a charm on actually picking the right area for me,” she explained.
Change in NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Solicitation
In: Funding, For Students, NSF, Education /The NSF-wide Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.
CRA Women Early and Mid Career Mentoring Workshops
In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, For Researchers, CRA-WP /CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) will host early and mid career mentoring workshops on November 19-20 in Washington, D.C. The goal of these workshops is to provide an environment for mentoring, practical information, advice, and support among researchers and educators in computing. The application is free, there is a $250 registration fee for the workshop (for those accepted), and CRA-W will reimburse participants for expenses (hotel and airfare) after the workshop. In order to receive reimbursement applicants must be affiliated with a U.S. institution or be employed in the U.S. These workshops are open to individuals in their early career in research and labs, and mid career in education, research, and labs.
LAtINiTY: Empowering Latin American Women in Technology
In: Diversity /The Latinas in Computing (LiC) community was established with the help of The Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology (ABI) at the 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC). Recognizing the status of Latinas as a double minority in North America, this community defines and implements strategies to improve the participation of the current and next generations of Latinas in technology. These dual strategies complement the work done by the Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC) that focused on the recruitment and retention of minority students in computing-based fields in North America, and the work done by the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) to grow the research pipeline of women in computing. National Science Foundation (NSF) data shows Hispanic or Latino enrollment increased from 7.2% in 2002 to 9.9% in 2012, but the hiring of underrepresented minorities seems to be “stuck in neutral.”
Student Opportunites: Grace Hopper Celebration Research Scholars
In: Diversity, For Students, CRA-WP /CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) recently announced a new program for undergraduates, the CRA-W Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) Research Scholars Program. The GHC Research Scholars program brings undergraduate women to the annual Grace Hopper Celebration. The purpose of this program is to provide attendees with an unique experience, providing them a mentor, networking opportunities, and advising.
Profiles in Computing: Drew Williams
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, CRA-WP, Profiles in Computing /An early love of science fiction is what initially lured Drew to a career in STEM. Her fascination with outer space and the future, recurrent themes in science fiction, inspired her to study astronomy and become a physics major. Although she didn’t take any high school computer science courses, she always enjoyed tinkering with computer programs on her own. She decided in college to take a coding class and “really loved it.” Drew soon changed her major to computer science because she wanted to be part of the movement that brings to life the technologies we dream about in science fiction.
Rice to Host Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work
In: Featured Announcements, People, Misc., For Researchers /Those who attended this year’s CRA Snowbird conference may have heard Moshe Vardi’s provocative panel session on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work, discussing the potential impact of computing technologies on employment and the nature of work over the coming years. Vardi makes a compelling case that the computing research community ought to be concerned with the impact its innovations will have on society, both positive and negative. To that end, Vardi has led an effort to pull together some of the leading thinkers from the computing, economics, and social science communities to consider the issue in Houston in December. The De Lange Conference on Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work will be held December 5-6, 2016, at Rice University. Here’s an announcement from the organizers (CRA is a co-sponsor).
Profiles in Computing: Bushra Anjum
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Researchers, Profiles in Computing /Bushra Anjum is a self-described “adventure seeker” in addition to her day job in computing.
“I’m into extreme sports–I like jumping out of planes or off of cliffs. I am an adventure seeker, at the bottom of my heart. So anything that sounds like an adventure to me –I will jump at that.”
When Anjum is not jumping out of a plane or off a cliff, she works as a software and research engineer at Amazon, Inc. in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Specifically, Anjum has expertise in agile software development for large-scale distributed systems, with a special emphasis on system design and development for highly scalable, fault-tolerant systems. At CRA-W’s 2016 Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort), I had the wonderful opportunity to talk with Anjum, who described why she has a passion for CRA-W and increasing diversity in computing.
Public Workshop on the Growth of Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /On Monday, August 15, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will hold a public Workshop on the Growth of Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments.
This workshop is being convened as an information-gathering session of the Academies’ Study on the Growth of Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments sponsored by the National Science Foundation and co-chaired by Susanne Hambrusch, professor of computer science at Purdue University, and Jared Cohon, president emeritus of Carnegie Mellon University.
2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird Recap
In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Conference at Snowbird /From July 17-19, the Computing Research Association (CRA) held its biennial conference at Snowbird, with more than 300 people in attendance. Every two years, the chairs of computing and information departments from across the country, as well as the leaders of government and industrial laboratories, gather in Snowbird, Utah, to network and discuss common issues concerning the future of the field.
The Congressional App Challenge is Now Open!
In: For Students, Education /The second annual Congressional App Challenge is a nationwide event that allows U.S. students in high school and below to create and exhibit their software application, or “app,” on mobile, tablet, or computer devices. The Challenge opened for submissions on 7/18, and submissions are due by 11/2. The Challenge is open to all high school students, and the winners get to meet their Member of Congress and have their app displayed in the US Capitol Building! Please spread the word!
Congratulations to David Patterson – 2016 Tapia Award Winner
In: Awards /Former CRA Board Chair David Patterson was recently named the recipient of the 2016 Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing.
Robotics Highlight: Kamigami Cockroach Inspired Robotics
In: Misc. /Robots mimicking the form of insects have been making headlines recently. This May, researchers from UC Berkeley who are developing cockroach inspired robots presented their research at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Stockholm, Sweden. The paper describes how the researchers developed a springing mechanism that allows the robot to “jump” more than a meter in the air.
Workflows Workshop Sponsored by Blue Waters
In: For Researchers /Registration is now open for a free Workflows Workshop to be held August 9-10 at multiple institutions across the country. Sponsored by the Blue Waters sustained-petascale computing project, this workshop will provide an overview of workflows and how they can enhance research productivity.
Reading Discussion Groups at the CRA Conference at Snowbird
In: CRA, Conference at Snowbird /We are excited to introduce a new discussion session at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird that will facilitate dialogues about a number of thought-provoking topics in computing research. The group discussions will be based on the articles and books in this post. The session is scheduled for the morning of Tuesday, July 19, so begin the final day of the conference with some stimulating conversation.
2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird is Almost Here
In: Conference at Snowbird /We are less than two weeks away from the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird. CRA is excited to welcome department chairs and computing research leadership from across the country to this invitation-only conference in Snowbird, Utah on July 17-19. The event kicks off with an opening reception, awards presentations, and dinner followed by the first […]
CRA-Women Virtual Town Hall on July 14
In: Diversity, For Students, CRA-WP, Education /During this Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall event, students will learn about cutting edge research in the field of computing and have the opportunity to ask distinguished computer scientists questions. The state of the art in cloth simulation can produce highly realistic cloth, but requires extremely high computation time, on the order of hours or even days.
CRA Hosts Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows
In: Policy, For Students /On Tuesday July 5th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2016 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows (http://www.tfas.org/tisdale) to the CRA Washington, D.C. office. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, are spending the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. Additionally, they are taking two class credits at George Mason University, and attending briefings at institutions such as the U.S. Capitol, Department of State, World Bank, and Federal Reserve. The fellows were in the office to attend a presentation, by Brian Mosley, policy analyst in CRA’s Office of Government Affairs, covering the policy concerns and issues that the association works on and attempts to influence at the federal level.
Carnegie Corporation of New York Honors Farnam Jahanian
In: People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA Board Member Farnam Jahanian, who is provost of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), was recently recognized the the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s “Great Immigrants – The Pride of America Campaign.” The CMU news site reported:
Since 2006, the corporation, which was established by CMU founder and Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie, has recognized the contributions of naturalized citizens with the “Great Immigrants” campaign. This year’s honorees will be saluted in public service announcements appearing in print and on a companion website.
“I thank the Carnegie Corporation for this wonderful honor,” Jahanian said. “Immigration has been a cornerstone of the American experiment. The ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity unify us as a nation while the realization of these values celebrates our diversity. Through his dedication to advancing education, Andrew Carnegie provided opportunities to pursue this American Dream.”
CRA Welcomes New FY 2016-17 Board Members
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. Today, we welcome six new members to our board of directors: Elizabeth Mynatt, Mario Nascimento, Penny Rheingans, Shashi Shekhar, Josep Torrellas, and Min Wang. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2016 are Tracy Camp, Ann Condon, Laura Haas, Fred Schneider, and Cary Williamson. CRA would like to thank each of them for contributions during their service on the board.
CRA Releases Letter Endorsing American Competitiveness and Innovation Act
In: Featured Announcements, Policy /Yesterday, CRA released a letter to Senators Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Gary Peters (D-MI), and Senate Commerce, Science Screenshot 2016-06-28 14.45.54and Transportation Committee Chair John Thune (R-SD) and Ranking Member Bill Nelson (D-FL), expressing support for their efforts to pass S. 3084, the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act, which will be marked up in committee on June 29, 2016.
Through the Screen of a Female Coder: A First Person Perspective on Diversity in STEM
In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, For Students, CRA-WP, Profiles in Computing /Again and again we hear that earning computing degrees leads to one of the highest starting salaries for college graduates and almost a guaranteed job after graduation. This information is supported by data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers who report computer science graduates have the second highest starting salary ($61,321 this year) and the highest full-time employment rate (76% within six months of graduation). A blog post from the Computing Community Consortium in March highlights 2016 Bureau of Labor Statistics job projection results, which found that computing occupations are projected to account for 73% of all newly-created STEM jobs during the decade (488,500 jobs), and 55% of all available STEM jobs, whether newly-created or available due to retirements (1,083,800 jobs over the decade). All of this isn’t new information. Many people are aware that the booming tech industry can be a ticket to job security and comfortable living. Data from the National Science Foundation in 2014, shows that there are approximately 17.8% of women studying computer science at the undergraduate level. So why is it every CS classroom I am in is filled with bright-eyed, eager young men, but a dismal number
CRA’s CRA-W Urges Continued Support for Diversity Efforts in Capitol Briefing
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, CRA-WP /At a briefing of the congressional Diversity in Tech Caucus, hosted by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in the Capitol yesterday, CRA-W board member Rebecca Wright explained why efforts to increase the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM fields — particularly computing — were worthy of continued Federal support. Wright, a professor of computer science at Rutgers University, was a member of a panel of experts assembled by the Diversity in Tech Caucus to explore the issue of diversity within the research and STEM Education communities.
Robotics Researchers Wow Congress with All Day Exhibition
In: Featured Announcements, Research, Policy /On June 9th, the Congressional Robotics Caucus, with support from the National Science Foundation, held an all day event on Capitol Hill marking five years of the National Robotics Initiative (NRI). The event was broken up into a lunch briefing, where members of Congress and their staff would be able to hear from a panel of experts on the past accomplishment of the NRI and future challenges and benefits of continued funding of robotics research; and an afternoon exhibition of roboticists and their work, where guests were able to interact one-on-one with the researchers. CRA is a member of the steering committee for the Congressional Robotics Caucus.
Host the HPC Workflow Workshop at your site in August
In: For Researchers /The following is a contribution to the CRA Bulletin from Barbara Jewett, Managing Editor, NCSA Public Affairs.
Host sites are being sought for a hands-on Workflows Workshop scheduled for August 9-10, 2016. This multi-site workshop provides a convenient way for researchers to learn about the latest techniques and technologies related to workflows on high performance computing systems without having to travel long distances to attend.
The two-day hands-on workshop, sponsored by the Blue Waters Project, will be broadcast to simultaneous sites across the country. You can view the program at: https://sites.google.com/a/illinois.edu/workflows-workshop/home
Participants in the Workflows Workshop will learn about workflows from leading experts and test their new-found knowledge using Blue Waters and XSEDE computing systems.
The workshop will kickoff by exploring why one should use a workflow and then proceed to various well-known workflow tools, including Copernicus, Galaxy, Makeflow/WorkQueue, Pegasus, RADICAL Cybertools, and Swift.
Participating sites must be able to provide a facility capable of two-way high definition video (described in more detail at the above mentioned website). There should also be a technology assistant available during workshop hours to assist with local technical issues. An A/V system test will be scheduled prior to the workshop.
If your site would like to be a participating site for the Workflows Workshop, please indicate your interest at: http://go.illinois.edu/workflows. Questions can be directed to Scott Lathrop, lathrop@illinois.edu.
CRA Welcomes Satoe Sakuma as its 2016 Eben Tisdale Fellow
In: People, Policy /By Satoe Sakuma, 2016 Eben Tisdale Fellow
I am currently a rising senior at Boston University, double majoring in computer science and international relations with a focus in East Asian economics. I am very interested in high tech public policy, especially areas of cybersecurity, because it allows me to utilize both my areas of studies. My two very different majors are finally coming together during my last year as an undergraduate student through my acceptance into the senior honors program, which requires a year-long research project culminating with a thesis and defense. My thesis will examine data privacy laws in East Asia.
Discipline Specific Workshops (DSW)
In: Diversity, For Researchers, CRA-WP /CRA-W and CDC are jointly soliciting proposals for discipline-specific mentoring workshops. The goal of these workshops is to provide career mentoring and networking opportunities in the context of a specific research area. Workshop proposals should include coverage of technical topics such as important recent results and future related research directions. These workshops are commonly co-located with major conferences in the sub-field. Our vision is that we will offer seed funding for workshops that will later be sustained by the community.
New CRA Board Member: Mario A. Nascimento
In: CRA Board of Directors /As of July 1, Mario A. Nascimento will serve as CACS/AIC’s representative on the CRA’s Board of Directors. He will replace Carey Williamson, who we would like to thank for his term of service on the CRA Board.
Mario A. Nascimento is a full professor at the University of Alberta’s Department of Computing Science and since July 2014 serves as chair of the Department. Before joining the University of Alberta in 1999, he was a researcher with the Brazilian Agency for Agricultural Research and also an adjunct faculty member with the Institute of Computing of the University of Campinas. Mario has also been a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore’s School of Computing (Fall 2005), Aalborg University’s Department of Computer Science (Winter 2006), LMU Munich (Fall 2013-Winter 2014) and at the Federal University of Ceara in Brazil (2013 and 2014). In 2007 he was recognized as a Senior Member of the ACM.
ACM General Election Results
In: People /ACM has recently announced its newly elected officers. Vicki L. Hanson, Rochester Institute of Technology and University of Dundee, was elected president. Cherri M. Pancake, Oregon State University, was elected vice president, and Elizabeth Churchill, Google, was elected secretary/treasurer.
CCC Vice Chair Elizabeth Mynatt, Georgia Tech, and former CRA Board Member Eugene H. Spafford, Purdue University, were among five individuals elected to be members at large, serving from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2020.
House Science Committee Passes NITRD Reauthorization!
In: Policy /Today the House Science, Space, & Technology Committee unanimously passed the “Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Modernization Act of 2016.” The bill is written to update the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 and modernize the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program in line with recent recommendations from the President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCast).
Want to Encourage Gender Diversity? Choose Your Words WISEly
In: Diversity, Education /In recent decades, there have been many Women In Science and Engineering (WISE) initiatives aimed at increasing the participation of women in these fields. In computer science and engineering, the percentage of women pursuing degrees and careers has remained relatively low. According to CRA’s annual Taulbee Survey of Ph.D. granting institutions, less than 15 percent of undergraduate computer science degrees were awarded to women in the 2013-14 academic year [1]. Given the significant increases of women in other traditionally male dominated fields such as law and medicine in the past 50 years [2], computing’s persistent low representation of women is rather disappointing, to say the least. Women’s low participation is also alarming when we consider the increasing number of jobs in computing, as well as the positive impact of improving gender diversity on innovation in research settings [3] and on collective intelligence [4]. So the question becomes, how do we change things?
2016 BECA Winners – Martha Kim and Hanna Wallach
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, For Researchers, CRA-WP /Today, CRA-Women (CRA-W) announced that Martha Kim and Hanna Wallach are the recipients of this year’s 2016 Borg Early Career Award (BECA). The award honors the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W and an inspiration for her commitment in increasing the participation of women in computing research. The annual award is given to a woman in computer […]
Narratives of Black Women in Computing
In: Diversity, Education /On January 8-10, 2106, NSF sponsored the Inaugural summit of Black Women in Computing community leaders. This workshop is part of an effort to build a robust community to support Black women in computing and by extension, all those who are persisting in the field, either through their education or careers.
This video narrative showcases the positive experiences of women in this community who were workshop participants. Please share the video with your students – https://youtu.be/2terTfzuLxA.
Click here to view the final workshop report, Black Women in Computing: A Research Agenda.
New Computing Faculty Workshop in Summer 2016
In: For Researchers /The following message is from the workshop organizers. The second New Computing Faculty Workshop will be held August 7-8, 2016 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 can […]
Upcoming Sloan Research Fellowships Deadline
In: Funding, For Researchers /The Sloan Research Fellowships are two-year, $60,000 fellowships awarded annually to 126 early-career faculty in recognition of their distinguished performance and exceptional potential as researchers. Fellowships are awarded in eight scientific and technical fields: chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, ocean sciences, and physics.
NSF Funded Vision Assistance Technology Amazes at the 2016 CNSF Exhibition
In: Featured Announcements, Research, Policy, Funding /Originally posted by Brian Mosley on the CRA Policy Blog On April 26th, the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), an alliance of over 140 professional organizations, universities, and businesses, held their 22nd Annual Capitol Hill Exhibition. CNSF supports the goal of increasing the federal investment in the National Science Foundation’s research and education programs, […]
CCC Computing Research Symposium Live Stream
In: Research, For Researchers /On May 9-10, 2016, in Washington, D.C., the CCC will hold a symposium to highlight current and future trends in computing and the potential for computing to address national challenges. Make sure to check out the live stream here starting at 8:30AM EDT on Monday, May 9th.
CRA FY 2015 Annual Report Now Available
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /The Computing Research Association (CRA) had a very productive year in FY 2014-15, making great strides in our mission areas of policy, leadership and talent development. We are pleased to announce CRA’s annual report is now available for downloading as a PDF file. This report is a vignette of the diverse activities of CRA and its members. Please take a few moments view some of the highlights from the past year. CRA would also like to thank our generous volunteers who donate their valuable time and energy to ensure our programs are successful.
Reading Group Breakouts at the Conference at Snowbird
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /We are excited to introduce a new discussion session at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird that will facilitate dialogues about a number of thought-provoking topics in computing research. The group discussions will be based on the articles and books in this post. The session is scheduled for the morning of Tuesday, July 19, so begin the final day of the conference with some stimulating conversation.
Unprecedented Letter to Congress from CEOs, Governors, K-12 Leaders Advocating for CS for All!
In: Policy, Education /America’s top CEOs, state governors, and education leaders joined forces this morning to ask Congress to support computer science in K-12 schools. In an open letter, the leaders called on Congress to increase support for local school districts and jurisdictions for K-12 computer science education.
2016 Scholarship for Women Studying Information Security Winners Announced
In: CRA-WP /Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE), in collaboration with Applied Computer Security Associates (ACSA) and the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W), today announced 16 new recipients and 8 continuing recipients of the 2016 Scholarship for Women Studying Information Security (SWSIS).
CRA-W Kicks off Grad Cohort 2016
In: Featured Announcements, CRA-WP /Imagine going to class or work everyday, and you rarely see anyone who looks like you or shares your cultural experiences or background. This is a situation many women in computing face; sometimes, they can feel isolated, because they often experience being the only woman in a room full of men. Now imagine walking into a conference filled with people who share many of these same experiences. The CRA-W’s Graduate Cohort Workshop (Grad Cohort) brings together female graduate students in their first three years of graduate school and senior computing researchers to share information on succeeding in graduate school and fostering mentoring relationships.
CRA Best Practice Memo: Response to Surge in Postdocs
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Resources, Best Practices, CERP /By Shar Steed, CRA Communications Specialist Similar to how we are currently facing a boom in undergraduate computer science enrollments, several years ago, the field encountered an exponential increase in postdoctoral appointments. In a Communications of the ACM Viewpoint article from February 2013, The Explosive Growth of Postdocs in Computer Science, Anita Jones wrote, “The […]
New Google Site for CS Education and Career Opportunities
In: Education /Today, Google launched a new website that outlines all of its computer science (CS) education tools, content, and programs for K-12 through career opportunities. Computer science education is a pathway to innovation, to creativity and to exciting career opportunities. Google is committed to developing programs, resources, tools and community partnerships which make CS engaging and accessible for all students.
2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird Sponsors
In: Conference at Snowbird /CRA would like to thank the sponsors of the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird: Association for Computing Machinery, Facebook, Google, IBM Research, IEEE Computer Society, Microsoft Research, Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, and the National Science Foundation.
Revisiting the Human-Machine Symbiosis
In: People /“The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information-handling machines we know today.”
J. C. R. Licklider, “Man-Computer Symbiosis,” 1960
Fifty-six years ago, J. C. R. Licklider outlined a prescient vision for computing machines coupled with human brains and, together, thinking thoughts previously unattainable by human beings thinking on their own. This vision influenced a generation of scientists and engineers and is largely the basis for our experience of computing today. Yet, I don’t feel a partnership with my current machines, and I often find myself bending my brain, and subjugating my will, to adapt to them. Shouldn’t it be vice versa? Did I miss the symbiosis?
CRA-W Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall
In: For Students, Mentoring, CRA-WP /CRA-W’s next Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall will be held on April 7 at 7 PM EST. During this online mentoring event, students will learn about cutting edge research in computing and have the opportunity to ask questions to distinguished computer scientists.
CRA Women Celebrates Women’s History Month
In: CRA, CRA-WP, Board Member Profiles /As CRA-W celebrates Women’s History Month, we decided to highlight a CRA-W board member who is a leader in the field of compilers and computer architecture – Kathryn McKinley. As both an academic (University of Texas at Austin) and industry employee (Microsoft), Kathryn has had the opportunity to broaden participation in computing across our community by spearheading programs that increase the number and success of women and underrepresented groups.
Local Instructors, Students Sought for Blue Waters Introduction to HPC Virtual Course
In: For Students, For Researchers /The Blue Waters project at the University of Illinois is pleased to announce the offering of a graduate course Introduction to High Performance Computing that will be offered as a collaborative, online course for multiple participating institutions fall semester 2016. The project is seeking university partners that are interested in offering the course for credit to their students. The course includes online video lectures, quizzes, and homework assignments with access to free accounts on the Blue Waters system.
CRA-E Selects Graduate Student Fellows
In: Featured Announcements, Education /The CRA Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected two Ph.D. students, Keith Feldman and Max Grossman, to serve as CRA-E Graduate Fellows. The Graduate Fellows Program was established last year 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.
CCC Led White Papers
In: Resources, For Researchers /The purpose of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community and enable the pursuit of innovative, high-impact research. One of the ways that the CCC accomplishes this is by publishing white papers for the computing research community.
New CRA RSS Subscription Center
In: Resources /CRA has several RSS feeds available, and now you can view them all on a single webpage. Visit https://cra.org/cra/resources/rss-subscriptions/ to view and subscribe to resources that interest you most. When you subscribe to a resource, you will receive an email when new content is posted. Check out our current offerings.
2016 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop
In: Featured Announcements, Career Mentoring Workshop /The 2016 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop was held February 22-23 in Arlington, Virginia. More than 80 attendees had an opportunity to learn from about 20 speakers who are distinguished researchers, including several CRA board members, and representatives from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The workshop provided career advice and mentoring activities for assistant professors computer science.
CERP Presents Data Buddies Data at SIGCSE 2016
In: Featured Announcements, CERP, Education /The CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) made several contributions to the 2016 SIGCSE conference. Using data collected through the Data Buddies Project, the CERP team presented three talks during the event.
In Memoriam: David Johnson
In: People /Former CRA Board Member David Johnson passed away yesterday at the age of 70. He was a leader and advocate for algorithms and all of theoretical computer science.
New Coalition, to Push for Computer Science in K-12, Launches Today!
In: Featured Announcements, Policy /A new coalition, the Computer Science Education Coalition, whose mission is to focuses on securing federal funds to provide computer science education to all K-12 students, launches today.
Fred Schneider Receives Service to CRA Award
In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards /The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor Fred Schneider, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor and Chair of Computer Science at Cornell University, with a Service to CRA Award for his work with the organization. Fred was a member of the CRA Board from 2007 to 2016, during which time he thought deeply about how to have positive impact on the computing research community and spearheaded several key initiatives.
2016 CRA Board Election Results
In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /CRA members have elected four new members to its board of directors: Penny Rheingans, Shashi Shekhar, Josep Torrellas, and Min Wang. Current board members Chris Johnson and Ron Brachman were re-elected to the CRA board. Their terms run from July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2019. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2016 are Tracy Camp, Ann Condon, Laura Haas, and Fred Schneider. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
Rolling Stone Special Report on Artificial Intelligence
In: Featured Announcements, People, R&D in the Press /Yesterday, Rolling Stone released part one of a special report on the artificial intelligence revolution. The article opens with a quote from Pieter Abbeel, a researcher at UC Berkeley and one of CRA’s 2016 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Awardees. Pieter is one of three winners of the inaugural award which recognizes individuals for providing exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
CRA Holds Annual Leadership Summit
In: CRA Board of Directors, Career Mentoring Workshop /On Monday, February 22, in Washington, D.C., the Computing Research Association hosted its annual Computing Leadership Summit for senior leadership of CRA affiliate societies and the National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board.
2016 CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awardees Announced
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service, CRA-WP /The CRA Board of Directors is pleased to announce its selections for the 2016 CRA Awards. Maria Klawe was selected as the 2016 recipient of the CRA Distinguished Service Award for her tireless commitment to and profound impact on the computing research community. Ayanna Howard was selected as the recipient of the 2016 A. Nico Habermann Award Winner for her sustained commitment to increasing diversity, combined with her distinction in research.
The Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates Application is Now Open!
In: Diversity, For Students, For Researchers, CRA-WP /DREU is a highly selective program that matches promising undergraduate women and underrepresented groups with a faculty mentor for a summer research experience at the faculty mentor’s home institution.
Want to explore the Data Buddies data?
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, CERP, For Researchers /CERP is thrilled to launch its new data visualization website displaying Data Buddies data. Dr. Ron Metoyer, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame designed the website, alongside a team of student developers and CERP Research Scientist, Dr. Burçin Tamer.
Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall: How to Prevent an Unruly Power Delivery System
In: For Students, Mentoring, CRA-WP /CRA-Women invites students to its 3rd Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall on Wednesday, February 24 at 8pm ET for an online webinar style discussion with Mondira Pant, lead technologist on-chip delivery at Intel Corps. This is an opportunity for students to learn more about the opportunities in research and graduate school and ask Mondira questions during the live Q&A session.
CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award Winners Announced
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce three winners of the inaugural CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award. Congratulations to the 2016 award recipients: Pieter Abbeel, from the University of California, Berkeley, Marie desJardins, from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Judy Goldsmith from the University of Kentucky. These outstanding individuals are recognized for providing exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing. The 2016 selection committee included: Nancy Amato (Texas A&M University, committee chair); Eric Aaron (Vassar College); Pat Morreale (Kean University); and Barbara Ryder (Virginia Tech). This year’s awards will be presented at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird.
Announcing the First Microsoft Open Source Challenge
In: For Students /Microsoft Research is delighted to announce its first Open Source Challenge that uses the many and various open source computer science tools from our researchers. From artificial intelligence to programming models, cryptography to education, there is something for every enquiring mind.
In Memoriam: Joanne Cohoon
In: People, Workforce & History Reports /The Computing Research Association is sad to hear of the loss of Joanne Cohoon, a leader in the evaluation efforts of our programs. Joanne has been involved with the CRA for more than a decade. In 2006, she was the PI on an NSF-funded study that was initiated to test the validity of an earlier report, “Recruitment and Retention of Women Graduate Students in Computer Science and Engineering” (Cuny and Aspray, 2001). Joanne co-authored the report based on the study, “Recruiting and Retaining Women Graduate Students in Computer Science and Engineering,” which summarizes and expands on the results of a workshop and outlines research-based practices likely to promote gender balance in graduate computing programs.
CRA at AAAS Family Science Days
In: Education /The Computing Research Association had an action packed weekend engaging the public with science at AAAS Family Science Days. There was a high turnout of families from the Washington, D.C. area who were eager to learn more about science and have some fun with hands on activities.
President Releases a Disappointing Budget Request for Science
In: Policy, Funding /President Obama on Tuesday released his final Budget Request to Congress, a $4.1 trillion request for FY 2017 that some in the science community have called “aspirational,” which might be a nice way of saying disappointingly unrealistic.
Let’s just note at the outset that the President has been a tremendous champion for Federal investments in science throughout his two terms. His Administration has launched a large number of new initiatives on brain science, big data, robotics, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, strategic computing, cyber security, smart cities and more that have brought new funding and new energy to Federally supported science.
Thank You Data Buddies!
In: CERP /CRA wishes to thank the computing departments who distributed the Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP)’s Data Buddies survey during the fall of 2015! The collective effort of these departments provides data for CERP’s research on students’ experiences and successes in computing degree programs.
David Johnson Elected to National Academy of Engineering
In: People, Awards /Congratulations to former CRA Board member David Johnson (Columbia University) for being elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Johnson served on the CRA Board from 1997 to 2000. He is being recognized for his contributions to the theory and practice of optimization and approximation algorithms.
NSF CISE 2016 CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop
In: NSF, For Researchers /The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 4, 2016. This workshop will be held at the Westin Arlington. 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.
CRA Resources Highlight
In: Featured Announcements, Resources /Are you looking for information for your students, academic and industrial researchers, or CRA’s diversity efforts? Look no further. CRA has dedicated webpages with targeted information on each of these topic areas.
Denice Denton Emerging Leaders Workshop 2016
In: For Researchers /Check out the Denice Denton Emerging Leaders Workshop 2016, an exciting opportunity for mid-career faculty members.
Inspired by the work and legacies of Denice D. Denton, a group of faculty recipients of the Denice Denton Emerging Leader ABIE Award are organizing a one-day faculty leadership development workshop on Friday June 3, 2016 in Madison, Wisconsin.
CRA and CRA-W Welcome Ayla Mangold
In: CRA-WP /Ayla Mangold is the newest member of the CRA team. She joins CRA as a Program Assistant responsible for assisting the Director of Programs and Program Associate in planning and organizing various activities and events for the Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W).
President Announces Huge New “Computer Science for All” Initiative!
In: Featured Announcements, NSF, Education /President Obama used his weekly radio address today to announce a new Computer Science Education initiative that would allow states to take the lead in increasing access to CS in K-12 classrooms. The initiative, which will be included in the President’s FY 2017 Budget Request to Congress on February 9th, will designate $4 billion for states available over 3 years, and $100 million directly for districts, to increase access to K-12 computer science education “by training teachers, expanding access to high-quality instructional materials, and building effective regional partnerships.” He will also direct NSF to spend more than $120 million over the next five years to support and train CS teachers.
CRA at the AAAS Annual Meeting
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Education /This year the AAAS annual meeting will be held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., close to CRA headquarters. To help engage the public with fun hands on science activities, CRA was invited to participate in AAAS’s Family Science Days on Saturday and Sunday, February 13–14, 2016 from 11:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) will also have a panel at the conference on the Friday, February 12, at 3 p.m. titled, “The Confluence of Computing and Society: Emerging Themes in Socio-Technical Systems.” CCC Chair Greg Hager, CCC Vice Chair Elizabeth Mynatt, and an additional speaker will offer perspectives on future ideas and challenges for technology innovations at global societal scales.
CRA Best Practice Memos
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Best Practices /The Computing Research Association (CRA) produces resources that standardize and establish best practices in the field. Most recently, last spring the CRA Board of Directors released its latest Best Practices Memo, “Incentivizing Quality and Impact: Evaluating Scholarship in Hiring, Tenure, and Promotion.” Distinguishing between quality and quantity is key to promoting the future growth of the computing and information field. The memo advocates adjustments to hiring, promotion, and tenure practices as well as to the publication culture. Below is a summary of the reports main points.
2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird Preliminary Program Available
In: CRA, Conference at Snowbird /In case you missed it, last week we announced the preliminary program for the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird in the January issue of Computing Research News.
CRA Board Member Profile: Greg Morrisett
In: CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /CRA is honored to have a prestigious group of computing researchers serve on its Board of Directors. These individuals volunteer their time to run CRA’s programs and committees and to develop and lead new initiatives. In this new series, CRA Board Member Profiles, we will highlight our board members and their contributions to the organization.
Greg Morrisett, Secretary of the CRA Board of Directors, is the Dean of Computing and Information Sciences (CIS) at Cornell University.
CRA Surveys in Progress, Deadline January 22
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee Announcements /Two CRA surveys are due January 22.
Taulbee Survey. The main part of the Taulbee Survey is still in progress. This includes data on student degrees and enrollment, faculty, research expenditures, and the every-three-years Profiles questions about department space, teaching load, and graduate student recruitment.
New CRA Board Member
In: CRA Board of Directors /Tom Conte is the new IEEE-CS representative on the CRA Board of Directors. Tom joins David Ebert and replaces Jean-Luc Gaudiot who has been elected IEEE-CS 2017 president. Tom was the president of IEEE-CS in 2015.
Mentoring the Whole STEM Person: Advancing LGBTQ+ students and professionals
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, CERP /January is National Mentoring Month, a great time to learn how mentoring can help support students and professionals in computing research, and in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) more generally. Mentoring is especially important for individuals in STEM from underrepresented groups in promoting persistence and success in education and professional settings. Effective mentoring programs help mentors and mentees consider various attributes of their identities and experience, like race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and educational background, which may influence their persistence and success. Although effective programs aim to support the whole person, gender identity and expression and sexuality orientation are often overlooked.
Call for Nominations for BECA, SWSIS, and NCWIT Awards
In: For Students, Awards, For Researchers, CRA-WP /BECA Award Take the time to nominate an individual for the CRA-W Borg Early Career Award (BECA). Nominations are open to women who are early in their careers in computer science and engineering and deserve to be recognized for significant research contributions and positive/significant impact on advancing women in the computing research community. Deadline: February 15 Announcement of […]
ACM, Code.org, & CSTA Announce K12CS, a Framework For K-12 Computer Science Education
In: Policy, Education /The following is a post from the CRA Policy Blog by Brian Mosley.
A new initiative for crafting a framework for K-12 computer science education was announced today. Lead by the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Code.org, the plan is to answer a complicated question: “What is the appropriate scope and sequence for CS instruction to guide high-quality computer science?”
CRA Committee Member Accomplishments
In: CRA /10 women in networking/communications that you should know Congratulations to two CCC Council Members Jennifer Rexford and Klara Nahrstedt for being named “10 women in networking/communications that you should know.” Click here to read more: http://n2women.comsoc.org/10-women-in-networkingcommunications-that-you-should-know/ 2016 IEEE – Fellows IEEE recently announced their list of 2016 elevated Fellows. CRA and CRA-W Board member […]
2016 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Winners
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers /This year’s nominees were a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several were authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others had made presentations at major conferences, and some had produced software artifacts that were in widespread use. Many of nominees had been […]
New Undergraduate Research Opportunities Listing Service
In: Featured Announcements, Resources, For Students, Mentoring, For Researchers /The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) is pleased to provide a new “undergraduate research listing service” for faculty and other researchers to advertise (at no cost) undergraduate research opportunities and for undergraduates to find such opportunities. The site can be found here:http://conquer.cra.org/cra/research-opportunities.
Kurose’s Take on Booming Enrollments
In: NSF, Education /Check out this great article on booming enrollments in computer science by Jim Kurose, current Assistant Director for NSF CISE and former CRA Board Member: In many colleges and universities across the country, computer science classes are bursting at the seams! According to the Computing Research Association (CRA)’s Taulbee Survey, the number of newly declared computer science […]
Nominations Sought for New CCC Council Members
In: Featured Announcements, Funding, For Researchers /The CCC’s Nominating Subcommittee invites nominations (including self-nominations) for members to serve on the CCC Council for the next three years, beginning July 1, 2016.
Farnam Jahanian: 2015 CRA Distinguished Service Award Winner Profile
In: Featured Announcements, Awards, Distinguished Service, CRA Board of Directors /This year, the award was presented to Farnam Jahanian, who serves as Provost at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). From 2010 to 2014, he was Assistant Director (AD) for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is considered the highest profile government position for computer science research.
FY16 Budget Update and ESEA Nears Final Passage
In: Policy, Funding, Education /FY16 Budget Update: Still Waiting on Congress
When we last talked about the FY16 budget, it was early October and it was looking like the next Speaker of the House would be Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). As we now know, in early December, the Speakership is very different but we still don’t have a passed-into-law budget. Congress has until this Friday, December 11th, to either pass a budget into law or to pass a stopgap continuing resolution (CR). Or let the government shutdown.
Could it be? ESEA Nears Final Passage!
As our readers will have noticed of late, Congress has a well-earned reputation for doing little-to-nothing, legislatively speaking. So when the newly installed Republican House and Senate majorities promised in January to move on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), a bill that had not been reauthorized since No Child Left Behind was passed into law in 2001, and had expired eight years ago, most people (myself included) thought it would go nowhere. Over the last year Congress has proved the naysayers wrong.
2015 ACM Fellows Announced
In: CRA Board of Directors /Today, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) announced the 2015 ACM Fellows. The Fellows are recognized for their significant contributions to the development and application of computing. Several CRA participants were named Fellows:
Call for Proposals: Creating Visions for Computing Research
In: Funding, For Researchers /In accordance with its mission, CCC is issuing a new call for proposals for workshops that will catalyze and enable innovative research at the frontiers of computing. If you have ideas or topics for visioning, please consider submitting a proposal.
CRA Board Member Profile: Susanne Hambrusch
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /CRA is honored to have a prestigious group of computing researchers serve on its Board of Directors. These individuals volunteer their time to run CRA’s programs and committees and to develop and lead new initiatives. In this new series, CRA Board Member Profiles, we will highlight our board members and their contributions to the organization. Following is a profile on CRA Vice Chair Susanne Hambrusch.
CRA Launches CS Enrollments Survey
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee /CRA has launched a survey about the significant increases many institutions are seeing in undergraduate computer science course enrollments (often referred to as the enrollment boom). This is a question of deep concern to many in our community. The survey is a unique opportunity to measure, assess, and better understand enrollment trends and their impact […]
Ann Gates: Passionate About Increasing Diversity in Computing
In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards, A. Nico Habermann /In the early stages of her career, Ann Quiroz Gates felt how many other students of underrepresented groups often feel – not sure she would be able to receive an advanced degree in computing. Over time, her confidence increased; she earned her Ph.D. and has committed to making sure others also succeed in the computing field.
CRA-E Announces Graduate Fellows Program
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Education /The Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E) seeks up to two Ph.D. students to serve as Fellows. This is an opportunity for graduate students in computing-related fields to gain experience serving on a national committee that serves the field.
CRA Opportunities: Upcoming Deadlines
In: Awards, For Researchers /CRA has several ways for leaders in the computing community to be recognized. CRA is currently accepting nominations for three award programs and its Board of Directors. Distinguished Service Award CRA makes an award to a person who has made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. This award recognizes service in the areas of government […]
Reminder: CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
In: CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /Nominations for the CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award are due Monday, November 30, 2015 by midnight (ET). This new award program that honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. It recognizes faculty members who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and […]
Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2016
In: Resources, Big Data /By Craig E. Wills, Professor and Department Head, Computer Science Department,Worcester Polytechnic Institute
The wealth of faculty searches in Computer Science during this hiring season for positions starting in the Fall of 2016 again affords the opportunity to study areas of Computer Science where departments are choosing to invest in new faculty hires. While the number 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.
Opportunites to Host a Workshop or Lecture from CRA Women
In: CRA, Diversity, For Students, For Researchers, CRA-WP /Apply to host a Discipline Specific Workshop or a Distinguished Lecture! These two great programs are currently accepting proposals until December 15.
CRA Women Undergraduate Town Hall
In: CRA, For Students, CRA-WP /CRA-W’s Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall webinar is an online mentoring event where students learn about cutting edge research in computing and how to get involved with undergraduate research. Participants will have the opportunity to engage with distinguished computer scientists on topics such as professional development, reasons for pursuing a research career, and how to get into graduate school.
Congrats to Incoming IEEE-CS President Jean-Luc Gaudiot!
In: CRA, CRA Board of Directors /CRA Board Member Jean-Luc Gaudiot was recently elected to be the 2017 president of IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS). Jean-Luc (University of California – Irvine) has served on the CRA Board for several years as the IEEE-CS representative and is currently a member of the CRA Education Committee. Jean-Luc Gaudiot has been an active member of the IEEE […]
November GUIRR Webinar: Women in STEM Education and Careers
In: Diversity /The National Academies’ Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR) is hosting a webinar on women in STEM on Wednesday, November 18, 1-2 P.M. EDT.
Career Mentoring Workshop: a participant’s perspective
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Career Mentoring Workshop /CRA is gearing up for its biennial Career Mentoring Workshop (CMW) on February 22-23, 2016. The CRA CMW is a great opportunity for assistant professors, and individuals just starting as industrial researchers in the computing and information fields to get career advice and participate in mentoring activities. To get a first hand perspective on what to expect, I spoke with Julia Stoyanovich, from Drexel University. Julia has been fortunate enough to attend two workshops. She attended her first workshop in 2012 as part of the Computing Innovation Fellows program, followed by the 2014 workshop as an assistant professor at Drexel University.
Connect with students during their first Hour of Code!
In: Education /If you remember your very first line of code, you know it shaped the rest of your life.
That’s what the Hour of Code is all about. In the last two years, the movement has shattered stereotypes of what it’s like to code and helped more than 100 million students in 180 countries try computer science for the first time.
The Heidelberg Laureate Forum Nomination Process Open
In: CRA, For Researchers /The following is a special contribution the CRA Bulletin by ACM CEO Bobby Schnabel. Dear Colleague, I’m writing to seek your help in generating awareness of and interest in the Fourth Heidelberg Laureate Forum. The Heidelberg Laureate Forum was created by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies, ACM, the International Mathematical Union, and […]
CRA Releases Report on Data-Intensive Research in Education
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Education, Big Data /The Computer Research Association (CRA) has recently released a cumulative report from two workshops held by CRA and supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on big data in education. Chris Dede, the Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, was the intellectual lead for this effort.
House Science Committee Reviews Federal IT Research: CRA Board Member Provides Congressional Testimony
In: Policy /On October 28, experts from academia and government told a congressional panel that the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program remains a crucial part of the extraordinarily productive computing research ecosystem that has made the U.S. the world leader in IT and deserves further support. The experts were witnesses at a hearing called by the House […]
Increasing computer science literacy and diversity in computing
In: CRA, CRA News Coverage /The importance of increasing computer science literacy and the diversity of students in computing has been consistently making headlines in the past few weeks. Journalists frequently cite the CRA’s Taulbee Survey as a trusted source of information for data on student enrollment trends. We’ve selected a few interesting articles to highlight.
Application Open for CRA-W Grad Cohort 2016
In: CRA, For Students, CRA-WP /CRA-W is now accepting applications for Grad Cohort 2016, a 2-day workshop during which participants will learn graduate school survival skills, receive mentoring, and develop networks with senior female computing researchers. This is a great opportunity for female graduate students to build mentoring relationships and develop peer networks to form the foundation of their graduate career and beyond.
House STEM Education Caucus Briefing on Building a STEM Education Pipeline for Industry Needs
In: CRA, Policy, Education /Earlier this week, the House STEM Education Caucus sponsored a briefing for Congressional staff titled, “Building a STEM Education Pipeline Aligned with Industry Needs: Perspectives from the Field.” The briefing was moderated by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) and partnered with CRA, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). The briefing focused on ways […]
Apply Now for the Congressional Innovation Fellowship
In: Policy, For Researchers /Check out this great opportunity for computing researchers at all levels.
TechCongress, in partnership with The Open Technology Institute at New America, is looking for three great tech-oriented thinkers for its first class of Congressional Innovation Fellows.
CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awardees: Where are they now?
In: Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers /The CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award recognizes undergraduates who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing. Here’s an update on last year’s awardees. Information on the 2016 competition is available on CRA’s website.
Student Opportunities: Heidelberg Laureate Forum, White House Internship Program, Tapia Conference
In: Diversity, For Students /Please share these excellent opportunities with your students.
Call for applications – Become a BRAID affiliate school
In: CRA, Diversity, CERP, For Researchers /BRAID is now accepting applications for up to five new BRAID affiliate schools. Affiliates are schools that are working toward implementing BRAID commitments to increase diversity in their computing departments but are not receiving funding through the initiative. Affiliates will be eligible to receive consultation from Harvey Mudd College and NCWIT. In addition, affiliates will have the opportunity to be a part of a network of other BRAID schools and to share and learn best practices from one another in increasing diversity in computing departments. It is required that this work be led by the Department Chair who will be the main liaison on the BRAID project. Department Chairs from affiliates will be expected to attend the annual BRAID Summit, which will occur July 15-17, 2016 in Snowbird, Utah.
BRAID/CRA Collaboration to Study and Evaluate Diversity Initiatives in Computing
In: CRA, Diversity, CERP /CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) will be working with Linda Sax, Professor of Education at UCLA, and a team of graduate students, on the research component of the Building Recruiting and Inclusion for Diversity (BRAID) initiative. The BRAID initiative was established in 2014 by Harvey Mudd College and the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and currently involves 15 computing departments across the U.S. that are committed to recruiting and retaining women as well as underrepresented men in computing majors. To that end, BRAID departments implement changes to their introductory computer science courses, and pathways into the major, as well as improve departmental climate, and promote outreach efforts for students.
Call For Nominations – 2016 Alan T. Waterman Award
In: CRA, Awards, NSF, For Researchers /The National Science Foundation (NSF) is now accepting nominations for the 2016 Alan T. Waterman award, the NSF’s highest honor. This annual award recognizes an outstanding young researcher in any field of science or engineering supported by the National Science Foundation. In addition to a medal, the awardee receives a grant of $1,000,000 over a five-year period for scientific research or advanced study in the mathematical, physical, biological, engineering, social, or other sciences at the institution of the recipient’s choice.
Nominations Open for CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Award
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Awards, For Researchers, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2016 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
New CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Mentoring, Awards, For Researchers, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /CRA is pleased to announce a new award program that honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award recognizes faculty members who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students […]
Save the Date: 2016 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, For Researchers, Career Mentoring Workshop /The biennial Career Mentoring Workshop will be offered by the Computing Research Association on February 22 and 23, 2016 at The Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Va.
CRA-W Undergraduate Town Hall October 8
In: CRA, For Students /CRA-Women invites undergraduate students for to the Virtual Undergraduate Town Hall Event on Thursday, October 8, at 5pm ET. This event will be a webinar style discussion with A.J. Bernheim Brush, Senior Researcher at Microsoft. A.J. will begin the event with a presentation about her current research on Inventing Technology for Homes and Families. This is […]
Schedule for the 2015 CRA Taulbee Survey
In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee Announcements /The 2015 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. There are a couple of new features this year:
The survey will be split into two parts: salary and 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.
The every-three-years Department Profiles section of the survey will be included this year. These questions cover teaching loads, floor space, graduate student recruitment, staff, and details on sources of research funding.
Call for Nominations: NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing in Computer Science
In: CRA, For Researchers /This year, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Award for Scientific Reviewing will recognize a person in the field of computer science who has contributed to surveying the literature. The winner will receive a $20,000 award.
“The NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing has been presented annually since 1979 to recognize authors, whose reviews have synthesized extensive and difficult material, rendering a significant service to science and influencing the course of scientific thought.”
Nominations Open for 2016 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers
In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers /The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a terrific way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
Opportunities for Students
In: CRA, For Students /Call for participation: Explore Graduate Studies in CSE Workshop October 17, 2015 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor http://cse.umich.edu/Explore_Grad_Studies_2015/ The goal of this workshop is to help undergraduates better prepare for the graduate school application process and broaden participation in computing research. Students can apply online by clicking here. *Travel Awards* are available. Women and underrepresented […]
Message from CRA Board Chair Susan Davidson
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /As I step up as Chair of the CRA Board of Directors, I’d like to share my thoughts about the organization, what it is doing, and what our next steps will be.
#ILookLikeAnEngineer Coverage Cites CRA Data
In: CRA, Taulbee, Diversity /News coverage of the wildly popular social media campaign #ILookLikeAnEngineer, often cites CRA data on enrollment statistics.
CRA at RESPECT 2015
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /The Computing Research Association will be participating in the Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT) 2015 Conference, the first international meeting of the IEEE Special Technical Community on Broadening Participation with technical co-sponsorship by the IEEE Computer Society.
CRA Congressional Fall Fly-In: September 16 – 17
In: Featured Announcements, Policy, For Researchers /In these times of increasingly tight federal budgets this is an important opportunity to help serve the computing community and ensure that Congress understands the value of computing research going on in their states and districts. We hope you’ll join us as the computing community descends en masse on Capitol Hill and makes the case for computing!
CRA will hold its fifth annual Congressional Fall Fly-in on September 16-17, 2015. This is an important opportunity for representatives from CRA member institutions to come to Washington as a group, meet with their representatives in Congress, and help make the case for federal support of computing research. We hope you, or someone you designate, will join us!
Check Out the New CRA.org
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /If you have visited the CRA website lately, you may have noticed that it’s been refreshed with a new look and feel. We are excited to announce the launch of a new website for CRA and its committees. The new website presents a more consistent visual identity for CRA and provides a seamless experience for a visitor viewing each of the committee sites in addition to CRA.
New CRA Board Leadership
In: CRA, Featured Announcements /CRA has elected new Board Officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2015. Susan Davidson has been elected Chair. She will be the first female to hold this position in CRA history. In addition, Susanne Hambrusch will become Vice Chair, and Greg Morrisett will become Secretary. The Board re-elected Ron Brachman as Treasurer. The current Board Chair J Moore and Vice Chair Laura Haas will end their terms on June 30, 2015. CRA thanks both of them for contributions during their outstanding service on the Board.
CRA Best Practices Memo on Evaluating Scholarship in Hiring, Tenure, and Promotion
In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Resources, Best Practices, For Researchers /The CRA Board of Directors has recently released its latest Best Practices Memo, “Incentivizing Quality and Impact: Evaluating Scholarship in Hiring, Tenure, and Promotion.” Distinguishing between quality and quantity is key to promoting the future growth of the computing and information field. The memo advocates adjustments to hiring, promotion, and tenure practices as well as […]
2015 CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awardees Announced
In: Featured Announcements /Farnam Jahanian Distinguished Service Award Vice President for Research, Carnegie Mellon University Farnam served as NSF Assistant Director for CISE from 2011 to 2014, the highest profile government position for computer science research. During his tenure he fought hard for computer science and launched three presidential initiatives: National Robotics Initiative, Big Data Research and Development Initiative […]