Published: September 2017, Issue: Vol. 29/No.8, Download as PDF

Archive of articles published in the September 2017, Vol. 29/No.8 issue.

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Nominations Open for CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards


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 who has made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. The CRA A. Nico Habermann Award is presented a person who has made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented groups in the computing research community.

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Nominations Open for 2018 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate 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. Beginning this year, departments that regularly nominate students for this award will be highlighted on the CRA website. In addition, a number of students who receive honorable mentions and above will be invited to describe their research in the new monthly “Undergraduate Research Highlights” series on the CRA-E website.

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CERP Director Discusses Strategies to Promote Diversity in Tech in EdTech Magazine


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 Surveys, Fall 2017


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.
  • May 2018: Published in CRN.

If you have any questions, contact Betsy Bizot at bizot@cra.org

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CRA Board Member Highlight: IEEE Honors Susan Davidson With TCDE Impact Award


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.

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Expanding the Pipeline: Celebrating Black Women in Computing


The dialogue about broadening participation in computing must extend beyond a narrow focus on women, in general, to one that focuses on the intersectionality of race and gender if the computing educational community will be more inclusive. Engaging more diverse perspectives in computing education can be described as a social justice issue, but also promoted as a necessity to increase innovations in industry (National Science Foundation and National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2013). More specifically, to succeed in increasing the participation of black women in computing, there must first be an acknowledgement that black women’s experiences in computing are different from those of other groups. Subsequently, an educational framework can be developed to address these differences.