Tag Archive: CRA

Computing Research Association information.

NSF Selects CRA to Create Computing Community Consortium:


The National Science Foundation announced on September 18 an agreement with the Computing Research Association (CRA) to establish a consortium of computing experts that will provide scientific leadership and vision on issues related to computing research and future large-scale computing research projects. Under the three-year, $6 million agreement, CRA will create the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) to identify major research opportunities and establish “grand challenges” for the field. The CCC will create venues for community participation for developing visions and creating new research activities.

A Clarion Call within the Cacophony


Like many of you, I serve on a multiplicity of U.S. and international panels that offer advice and suggestions on science policy and computing. Indeed, there are times when it feels as if we are a proximate cause of deforestation, due to the number of voluminous reports we produce. The good ones are even read and have influence— sometimes! Recently, during the question-and-answer period for one of these panels, a U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) examiner noted that rarely do people come to Washington to plead, “I’m dumb, and I have too much federal money. Can you help me?” The comment generated a healthy laugh and knowing nods, but the OMB examiner was making a serious point.

Good Service: A Surprising Secret to Academic Success


Conventional wisdom is that service runs a distant third to research and teaching in academia. It is certainly sound advice for larval professors. If it applies to senior faculty as well, then only idealists would volunteer to serve, for example, on a National Research Council study panel, on the CRA Board, on a professional society leadership council, or in a government funding agency. Hence, when I congratulated Janie Irwin for winning the CRA Distinguished Service Award last spring, I was applauding her unselfish spirit. I was surprised to learn it was her fourth award that year, as CRA’s DSA was also my fourth award in 2006.1 It struck me as odd that in our 30-year careers we would win eight awards simultaneously. Although we both have good reputations in research and teaching, our service records were likely the most distinguished (so to speak) from many faculty. Could conventional wisdom be wrong? Could good service actually help a career and the lack of good service impair an otherwise successful career?

BLS Projects Strong Growth in IT Professions


The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that the professional-level IT workforce will grow at more than twice the rate of the overall workforce between 2004 and 2014, and account for 1 in 19 new jobs. In addition, many of these jobs should pay well. Every two years, BLS releases workforce projections covering a 10-year period. The definition for the ‘professional IT workforce’ adopted here is that used by the Department of Commerce’s Office of Technology Policy. This adds two occupations to the 10 listed under the “Computer specialists” category (15-0000 through 15-1099) in the BLS tables: Computer and information system managers (11-3021) and Computer hardware engineers (17-2061).

Education: Research by Another Name


By the time you hold this issue of CRN in your hands, the fall semester will be well underway. New students will be walking the hallways, revised course materials will be online and yes, that bane of all academics—committee meetings—will have returned. Hence, it seems appropriate to consider the continuum of research and education as we recommence our academic roles. I call it “the Tom Sawyer effect,” where Tom convinces a peer group that fence painting is a privilege. How many times have you lured students into research by calling it a class project?

Research: On Being the Right Size


In 1928, the British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane wrote a now famous essay entitled On Being the Right Size, where he noted, “The most obvious differences between different animals are differences of size … it is easy to show that a hare could not be as large as a hippopotamus, or a whale as small as a herring. For every type of animal, there is a most convenient size, and a large change in size inevitably carries with it a change of form.” It was a cogent argument about surface area to volume ratios, structures, respiration and energy.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Computational and Information Science


At Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, computational science is the foundation upon which this Department of Energy research and development laboratory depends to solve some of the greatest challenges our nation faces in national security, the environment and life sciences. That’s a tall order. But that’s what we do at PNNL. And that work would be impossible without the Computational and Information Sciences Directorate (CISD). CISD provides the tools, and the computing and networking infrastructure, our scientists and engineers rely on to be successful. Whether the tools address climate modeling, handling huge data flows in biology and proteomics or modeling the impact of new energy systems, computation is an integral piece of delivering science-based solutions.

The Future of American Innovation: The Gathering Storm


In response to a Congressional request and stimulated by a set of earlier studies (notably the National Innovation Initiative’s “Innovate America” report), the National Academies recently issued a report entitled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Future.” This report was produced in response to growing concern that a weakening of U.S. leadership (and, by extension, North American leadership) in science and technology would jeopardize future prosperity. This concern was based on the fact that a major fraction of economic growth in recent decades has been a direct consequence of prior investment in basic research.

From the Inside, Out


The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology’s TechLeaders tackles issue of the under-representation of Women in CS by supporting and training those already there

Computing Education and Careers: Perceptions, Myth, and Reality


If one believes the popular press, computer science careers are going the way of the passenger pigeon and the woolly mammoth.Of course, we know better. First, we’ve “seen this movie before” as enrollments dipped in the 1980s, before skyrocketing again during the dot-com boom. Some degree of oscillation is inevitable in a field where the core technologies evolve so rapidly.