Tag Archive: NSF CISE
Information from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer & Information Science (CISE).
Just what are some of our new Administration’s priorities in science, engineering, and technology research and education? And what implications do these priorities have for the computing community, for CISE, and for NSF?
CISE welcomes the following new program directors who joined us since March 2009
Computing innovations drive our economy, underlie scientific advances, change societal behavior, and support national security. Tomorrow’s innovations rely on today’s students. To sustain progress, we need a continuous supply of creative and highly trained computer science researchers, a diverse well-trained computing workforce, and an educated, IT-literate citizenry. So, how are we doing?
Autonomous cars. Robots at work, at play, at home. Intelligent, energy-efficient, earthquake-proof buildings. Physical infrastructure monitored and controlled by sensor nets. Embedded medical devices. Unobtrusive assistive technology. What is common to these systems? They have a computational core that interacts with the physical world.
This is the second in a series of columns by Jeanette Wing, Assistant Director of NSF for CISE, covering items of interest from the directorate.
Imagine a world where computers are everywhere—we use them everywhere, but we see them nowhere because they are either invisible to the naked eye or so visible they are taken for granted. Ubiquitous computing has been a dream since the late 1980s and is a reality today—to a degree. Looking ahead, computing will become even more ubiquitous along many dimensions, and for each dimension, at multiple scales.
We are pleased to introduce CISE Bytes, the first in a series of columns from Jeannette Wing, Assistant Director of NSF for CISE. They will provide brief items of interest about the people in CISE and activities within the directorate.
I have some exciting news to share with all of you: NSF is partnering with Google and IBM to explore data-intensive computing. Through NSF’s reach, Google and IBM are providing software and services running on a large cluster to the broad academic community to explore innovative research and education ideas in data-intensive computing. Google and IBM launched the Academic Cluster Computing Initiative last October with instructional programs at six pilot universities, and the NSF will be joining this initiative as the first research-oriented pilot partner. We are calling the NSF program to provide access to these types of resources the Cluster Exploratory (CluE).
In answering “What is computable?” we must consider the underlying machine, abstract or physical, that is the computer. Consider the Internet as a computer. Now ask “What is computable?” Consider a molecular computer, a DNA computer, or even a quantum computer. If those kinds of computers are not mind-bending enough for you, consider a human and a machine working together as a single computer to solve problems that neither can solve alone. Now ask “What is computable?”
I want to alert you to a major educational effort we have just announced and update you on continuing progress on the GENI Project. The pervasive impact of computing technology in our lives and throughout the global economy is indisputable, and it is clear that the U.S. workforce—most especially computing professionals of all types and at all levels—must be prepared to play a leading role in the technology-based economy of the 21st century. At the same time, enrollments are down significantly, full representation of the U.S. population is not reflected in our matriculated students, and our major computing industries are increasingly concerned about the quality of the computing education that we are providing.
For the fifth—and probably last—year, it is my honor on behalf of the NSF and CISE to welcome you back after what I hope was a productive and relaxing summer. The coming year promises to be an important one for NSF and CISE, so in addition to commenting briefly on the year past I want to highlight some issues for the coming year. I have received a number of comments—almost all positive—on my article in the May 2006 issue of CRN (http://www.cra.org/CRN/issues/0603.pdf). I’m very pleased that it struck a responsive chord, and even more pleased to report that we are making good progress on the Computing Community Consortium (described in the May issue of CRN) and GENI (http://www.nsf.gov/cise/geni/ and http://www.geni.net).
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. You can adjust all of your cookie settings.
