Published: September 2012, Issue: Vol. 24/No.4, Download as PDF
Archive of articles published in the September 2012, Vol. 24/No.4 issue.
CRA celebrated the 40th anniversary of its founding in July with the 20th instance of its biennial Chairs Conference at Snowbird. The two-day conference, held at the Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, is an opportunity for the leadership of the North American computing research community to gather and discuss issues of importance to the community.
With both parties having wrapped up their presidential nominating conventions, Congress returns to Washington with much of the Federal budget process unfinished. The congressional leadership has already conceded that they will not finish FY 2013 appropriations before the end of this session, leaving the 12 unfinished annual appropriations bills for the next Congress to resolve. Congress also remains unresolved about what to do with pending across-the-board cuts to federal agencies and programs that are scheduled for January, 2, 2013. Those cuts, called for in the Budget Control Act of 2011 and triggered because Congress failed to agree on a plan to cut the Federal budget deficit, will happen unless Congress agrees to do something to stop them.
The first ACW was conducted in the fall of 2005 on a shoestring budget and the beneficence of Texas A&M University. There were 16 attendees (mostly assistant professors and late-term graduate students) and four senior computer science/computational mathematics faculty. The panels included navigating the tenure process, starting a research program, and managing work/life balance; in addition, a major component involved research proposal development. The latter component consisted of a presentation on proposal development by a former NSF program officer, as well as a mock review panel. We obtained permission from proposers to use their awarded and declined NSF proposals in a mock NSF proposal review panel.
The Computing Research Association seeks your help in suggesting nominations for its Board of Directors. We seek individuals who have time, energy, initiative, and resources to work on CRA issues on behalf of the entire CRA community. Ours is a working board, and all members are expected to do a fair share of the work.
In early 2009, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), with the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF), launched the Computing Innovation Fellows Project, a short-term initiative providing recent Ph.D.s with one- to two-year postdoctoral positions at academic institutions and industrial organizations with fundamental computing research and education programs. Three years later, we have developed a new website: https://cra.org/ccc/cifellows to establish a permanent record for the program.
The CRA Taulbee Survey reports new PhDs and their employment by specialty area each year. This article is an in-depth look at these numbers for data gathered in 2008 – 2011 including a total of 7,178 PhDs. Results by specialty area are presented only for those with specialty areas that are not “other” or “unknown,” which is a total of 5,666 PhDs (78.9%). Similarly, percentages by gender, ethnicity, and citizenship are only for those who were not reported as “unknown.”
CRA was pleased to welcome a 2012 Tisdale Fellow as a summer intern. TJ Kaplan, a recent graduate of Georgia Tech in Electrical Engineering, spent eight weeks learning about science and technology policy in Washington through his work with the CRA Government Affairs staff and the Computing Community Consortium, and from other Tisdale Fellows.
Established six years ago through a Cooperative Agreement between CRA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) has sought to serve as a catalyst and enabler for the computing research community, providing mechanisms to encourage the community to identify compelling research visions for the future of the field, all the while attracting bright young talent and fostering development of the next generation of leaders. During this time, the CCC itself has evolved – from a startup-like organization into a much more stable, long-term enterprise that empowers the field broadly. This past spring, the CCC received a positive review from an independent peer review panel commissioned by NSF, and it is anticipated that a new Cooperative Agreement with support for another four years will be signed early this fall. So as we embark upon a new period, we would like to revisit our core activity – community-wide visioning exercises that bring together members of our community to coalesce around research visions – and describe ways in which you can get involved.
The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the CRA Distinguished Service Award and the A. Nico Habermann Award for 2013.
Taulbee Survey 2011-12
THEME: “Are We There Yet?”
