CISE Bytes
CISE welcomes the following new program directors who joined us since March 2009
Computing Research News
Tag Archive: NSF CISE
Information from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer & Information Science (CISE).
Educating Future Generations in Computing
By: Jeannette M. Wing, Assistant director of NSF for CISEIn: March 2009, Vol. 21/No.2 /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?
Cyber-Physical Systems
By: Jeannette M. Wing, Assistant Director of NSF for CISEIn: January 2009, Vol. 21/No.1 /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.
CISE Bytes
By: Jeanette Wing, Assistant Director of NSF for CISEIn: January 2009, Vol. 21/No.1 /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.
A7: Anytime Anywhere Affordable Access to Anything by Anyone Authorized
By: Jeannette M. Wing, Assistant Director of NSF for CISEIn: November 2008, Vol. 20/No.5 /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.
CISE Bytes
By: CRAIn: November 2008, Vol. 20/No.5 /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.
Data-Intensive Computing
By: Jeannette M. Wing, Assistant Director of NSF for CISEIn: March 2008, Vol. 20/No.2 /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).
Thinking About Computing
By: Jeannette M. Wing, Assistant Director of NSF for CISEIn: November 2007, Vol. 19/No.5 /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?”
Moving Forward Strategically
By: Peter A. Freeman, Assistant Director of NSF for CISEIn: November 2006, Vol. 18/No.5 /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.
Another Year, More Dollars
By: Peter A. Freeman, Assistant Director of NSF for CISEIn: September 2006, Vol. 18/No.4 /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).
Are Computer Scientists Timid?
By: Peter A. Freeman Assistant Director of NSF for CISEIn: May 2006, Vol. 18/No.3 /But, we’ve become too timid in many of the ambitions we collectively and individually have for our field. I start to come to that conclusion when I hear from our Program Directors that too few of the proposals they see offer truly innovative ideas that excite panels or themselves. While confirmatory or incremental work is essential, we must also have a continuous flow of exciting, innovative ideas (and the community must ensure they are well received, and then we must ensure they are funded).
