Published: October 2019, Issue: Vol. 31/No.9, Download as PDF
Archive of articles published in the October 2019, Vol. 31/No.9 issue.
National Science Foundation Director France Córdova 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.
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 deadline for receipt of nominations is November 29, 2019.
Click here to fill out the nomination form.
To the CRA community –
I’d like to take this opportunity to give you a progress update on the CRA strategic planning effort. Over the course of October and November, the consultants from Greenway will hold focus group interviews with the steering committee for CRA-WP, the membership of the CCC, and the staff of CRA. They will also conduct interviews with individuals representing a variety of stakeholder groups for CRA, including academic and industry thought leaders, federal funders, heads of industrial and government research labs, and non-member institutions. In the spring, there will be an opportunity for all member institutions to provide input via a survey. In the meantime, if you have questions or comments on the strategic planning effort, please do not hesitate to contact me or a member of the steering committee.
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.
Click here to apply. The application deadline is October 31.
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). CRA-W was established in 1991 with the mission of increasing the success and participation of women in Computing Research. Since that time, we have organized numerous programs at various levels to engage, encourage, and sustain women in computing. In 2004, CRA-W first partnered with the Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC) to engage and increase the participation of individuals from additional underrepresented groups in computing. In 2008, this partnership became a BPC Alliance, further expanding and strengthening our outreach and programmatic efforts. Over the past decade, our programs have quite naturally shifted from being initially women-only or women-focused, to being increasingly co-ed, with a mission of serving a wide range of constituencies. This natural progression towards broadening our scope to address all forms of underrepresentation in computing continues to motivate and drive our extremely dedicated board of volunteers.
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. Applications are now open!
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.
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.
Past participants of both the Grad Cohort for URMD and Grad Cohort for Women workshops indicated which of the workshops provided participants with a number of benefits that relate to the goals of the program. Results indicate the majority believe both workshops provide attendees with many intended features.
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 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.
