In last year’s campaign, 20 million students participated, which is 1 in 4 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, and half of the students who participated were girls. At a Congressional hearing in early 2014, touting the success of the campaign, Code.org co-founder Hadi Partovi said, “more students participated in computer science during Computer Science Education Week 2013 (of which, the Hour of Code campaign was a part) than had ever taken computer science in the history of our K-12 system.” And for 2014, Code.org is hoping to more than double those numbers.
The goal this year is to get 50 million girls to participate in the HOC. As stated in their announcement, “the girl-power theme of the tutorial is a continuation of our efforts to expand diversity in computer science and broaden female participation in the field, starting with younger students.” And with three weeks before the weeklong event, Code.org has an excellent jump start by already signing up over 40,000 classrooms worldwide.
I know I’ll be getting my middle-school-aged niece to sign up, along with myself, and I highly encourage all of our readers to do the same. Sign up now!And start coding too!
Five leading computing societies and associations today released a letter they’ve jointly sent to House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and committee Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) expressing their concern over mischaracterizations of research on information diffusion in online social networks at Indiana University. The work has come under fire from Smith and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) who believe it may represent an affront to free speech. (Jeffrey Mervis in Science Magazine has good coverage of the controversy.) The joint letter argues that the work is focused on significant problems in computer science and calls on the committee to consult subject-matter experts and not rely on media mischaracterizations as they investigate the work further.
The letter reads:
November 4, 2014
To: The Honorable Lamar Smith, Chair; The Honorable Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member; House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
Dear Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Johnson,
As representatives of the computing community, we are dismayed by recent mischaracterizations and misplaced criticisms of research on information diffusion in online social networks at the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research at Indiana University. This work is focused on significant research problems in computer science, and in no way represents “a Federally-funded assault on free speech.”
The research project is a scientific study of how information spreads in social networks – a communication landscape that is fundamentally different than anything that has come before. It uses automated sentiment analysis algorithms and other network analysis tools to study real-time Twitter streams of millions of publicly available tweets to attempt to understand how information is spread across the network.
The work can help internet users discover where information they glean from the web or social networks has come from – did it arise organically, did it originate from authoritative sources, or has it been spread by bots designed to “game” social networks and spread misinformation? The work can provide great value to internet users in the U.S. by helping them understand the source of the messages they receive, allowing them to potentially avoid malware or phishing attacks.
The work can also have great value to other researchers studying the flow of information across the network, including a better understanding of why some memes travel faster than others, and how bad actors can game the network to their advantage.
And we believe the work can have value to national security and law enforcement as well: helping explain how movements organize across the globe using these new communication tools, helping understand the effectiveness of government communications for disaster preparedness and response, and helping authorities understand how frauds propagate.
We do not believe this work represents a threat to free speech or a suppression of any type of speech over the internet. The tools developed in the course of this research are capable of making no political judgements, no prognostications, and no editorial comments, nor do they provide any capability for exerting any control over the Twitter stream they analyze. The work is not a database tracking hate speech, or even defining it. It simply visualizes the patterns of flow of publicly available information in the Twitter stream.
We ask that as you exercise your oversight responsibilities over the National Science Foundation, which funded much of this research, you call on subject-matter experts to help guide your investigation and not let media mischaracterizations of the work color your effort. We commend you for your long support of fundamental computer science research and your appreciation of the value of the Federal investment. We trust that your investigation will draw on your long experience with the computing community, and we stand ready to help in any way that we can.
Sincerely,
Dr. J Strother Moore
Chair
Computing Research Association (CRA)
Dr. Thomas G. Dietterich
President
Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
Dr. Alexander L. Wolf
President
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Dr. Irene Fonseca
President
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
Dr. Brian Noble
President
USENIX Association (USENIX)
cc:
Members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology;
The Honorable Kevin McCarthy;
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi;
Update (11/7/14):The letter has generated some positive press.
By now, most in the computing community are no doubt aware that Microsoft in September announced the closing of Microsoft Research Silicon Valley, one of 12 research labs (now 11) the company runs around the globe. The lab’s primary focus was on distributed computing and included research on privacy, security, protocols, fault-tolerance, large-scale systems, concurrency, computer architecture, Internet search and services, and related theory — work considered by many in the community to be exceptional. So it was with some surprise that researchers learned on September 18th that the lab would close the following day — part of new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s workforce realignment strategy announced in July that will see the company ultimately shed 18,000 jobs by the end of the year.
Given the lab’s focus, the theoretical computer science community felt the sting of the closing particularly hard. Members of ACM’s SIGACT Committee for the Advancement of Theoretical Computer Science led an effort — an effort that ultimately grew beyond the SIGACT community — to send an open letter to Microsoft Executive Vice President for Technology and Research, Harry Shum and VPs for Research Peter Lee and Jeannette Wing, urging them to open a dialogue with the community about the closing and “reduce the damage that has been caused by the shutdown.” The letter was originally co-signed by 28 researchers and posted on the Theory Matters blog, and has garnered the support of many more in the blog’s comment section.
Tonight, Shum provides Microsoft’s perspective on the shutdown with a “Microsoft Open Letter to the Academic Research Community” posted on the Microsoft Research blog. In it, he reaffirms Microsoft’s commitment to fundamental research and its importance “for the long-term viability of our company, our industry and our society” and he pledges that Microsoft will play a part in community efforts to help those impacted by the cuts.
Both letters are worth reading. The dialogue between MSR and the academic community moving forward will be important to both sides. Despite the cuts, Microsoft Research remains one of the largest research institutions of its kind in the world, employing over 1,000 people, and the company still maintains 5 labs in the U.S. The connection between the company and the academic community is a critical part of advancing the field — a healthy MSR is important for the academic community, and a vigorous academic research community provides a healthy flow of people and ideas to MSR.
The group of universities, scientific societies, industry groups, and think tanks behind the 2014 Golden Goose Awards announced winners throughout the summer and pioneering computing researcher Larry Smarr is one of the recipients. As we’ve noted in previousyears, the Golden Goose Awards “demonstrate the human and economic benefits of federally funded research by highlighting examples of seemingly obscure studies that have led to major breakthroughs and resulted in significant societal impact.” Another way to describe the awards is they are to show what “silly-sounding science” has given back to the country, and that return on investment is often very big and unanticipated.
You can read in detail about Dr. Smarr’s award backstory on the Golden Goose Awards website, but the gist is that in the early 1980s Dr. Smarr was performing modeling of black hole collisions in space, a wholly curiosity driven area of research. The modeling requires massive computing power, something not readily available to the American university community. Smarr became a strong advocate that the country invest more in supercomputing infrastructure available to the academic community, who otherwise had to fight to get time on machines devoted to defense applications like nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship. In response, the National Science Foundation established a set of university-based supercomputing centers for researchers across the country to use for their research purposes. These centers would form the basis of the NSFnet, one of the significant predecessors to the Internet (Smarr was a big proponent of establishing the NSFnet too). So, a curiosity about what happens when black holes collide helped unleash a revolution in computing power, computational science, and networking that, in turn helped establish visualization and modeling as drivers of scientific discovery (right alongside theory, observation and experiment) – not to mention the Internet as we know it, and the internet web browsers, both part of the success of the NSF supercomputing centers. And Larry Smarr had a key role in all of it.
UMass Amherst CS Professor James F. Kurose will be the new head of NSF CISE
National Science Foundation Director France Córdova yesterday announced the appointment of James F. Kurose, UMass Amherst Professor and member of CRA’s Board of Directors, to serve as Assistant Director for the agency’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). CISE is the “home” for computing research at the agency, which supports over 80 percent of all university-based fundamental computer science research in the U.S. Kurose will take over the position in January 2015.
Kurose is currently Distinguished Professor at UMass Amherst’s School of Computer Science, a position he’s held since 2004. He’s been a member of Advisory Committee for CISE, a visiting scientist at a number of industrial research labs, and has served as a member of the CRA Board of Directors for the last seven years.
CRA’s Chair, J Strother Moore, shared his perspective on the appointment with NSF:
“Jim Kurose is a fantastic choice for NSF CISE Assistant Director,” said J. Strother Moore, chair of the Computing Research Association Board of Directors, Inman Professor of Computing in the Computer Science Department of the University of Texas at Austin and former co-chair of the CISE advisory committee. “He has served on the CRA Board for seven years. He is thus very familiar with many issues in computing research and with the potential and broad impact of that research. We at CRA will miss his perspective and wisdom on the Board, but are thrilled that NSF has made such a superlative choice for CISE and the computing research community.”
Kurose takes over the helm of CISE from Farnam Jahanian, who is now VP for Research at Carnegie Mellon University after a successful 3 year stint as CISE AD. Jahanian did an excellent job positioning CISE at the center of many NSF-wide and government-wide research initiatives during his tenure. Kurose joins an agency led by a new director in Córdova and faces the challenge of making CISE as relevant to national research priorities for her as it was to previous NSF Director Subra Suresh.
But my own sense is that Kurose is more than up to the task. He’s been a highly effective and respected member of the CRA Board during his tenure, demonstrating an ability to listen to others thoughtfully, process input objectively, and drive successful projects. Those skills will suit him well in Ballston (and Alexandria, after NSF moves) and on the Hill. We certainly will do what we can to help and wish him the best of luck in his new role!
Last week, over two dozen computing researchers (pictured above) from across the country came to Washington to make the case before Congress for federally supported computing research. The 27 volunteers, coming from as near as Maryland and New Jersey, and as far away as Utah and Kansas, participated in 60 House and Senate meetings on Wednesday September 17th. 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 armed with additional information from CRA, they made the “Federal case” for computing to Members of Congress and their staff. Just as important as the message they carried, they also made connections with those who represent them in DC. Those Members now know a little about the expertise and interesting (and important) work that goes on in their districts and states, and our participants have a sense of just who represents them in Congress — and they’ve hopefully created a lasting dialogue on both sides.
If you would like to participate in a future Congressional Visit Day, or if you are in Washington and would like to visit your representative’s office, contact Brian Mosley in the CRA Government Affairs Office. CRA can provide expert training, messaging, and materials, and we would be happy to accompany you on your meetings as well.
If your Facebook and Twitter feeds are anything like mine, you’re no doubt already aware of the rather unfortunate August 27th column in the Washington Post penned by small-business owner Casey Ark headlined “I studied computer science, not English. I still can’t find a job.” In it, Ark laments that the degree he received at Penn State failed to prepare him for employment in the real world.
Despite diligent studying, the only real-world business skills I’d learned at college were how to write a résumé and operate three-fifths of the Microsoft Office suite.
As someone fairly well-immersed in the world of academic computer science*, Ark’s piece didn’t seem to reflect any of the things I know about that community. And, as evidenced by my Facebook feed, I wasn’t alone. The piece spawned a lengthy comment thread on the Post site in which it was noted that Ark’s degree isn’t actually in computer science but rather in Information Systems (a business degree), as well as other responses including a Reddit thread and a blog post by UMass Amherst CS Professor Emery Berger featuring comments from a number of other CS colleagues and urging the Post to remove the column because of the inaccuracies it contains.
And that seems a reasonable request.
But I can see why the Post ran the piece in the first place. From the Post’s perspective, it’s a great contrarian anecdote (if it were accurate) to the prevailing narrative that STEM education ought to be a national priority for policymakers — a case CRA has played a role in making. And Ark could have made it a bit more compelling if he cited economists and labor analysts, as the Post did in this Sept 1st article, who argue that the data show no need for additional graduates in many STEM-related fields.
Hal Salzman, a professor of planning and public policy at Rutgers University, says there is no shortage of STEM workers. He says that technology companies profess a need for STEM employees, allowing them to push for lower-paid workers and to reform education policies to help their corporate goals.
This is, I think, the angle the Post was really shooting for in running Ark’s column. In fact, their original headline called out “engineering” instead of “computer science” — computer science was offered as a “correction” after commenters pointed out Ark didn’t actually study engineering at Penn State. (Nor did he really study computer science, either, but changing the headline further would probably completely neuter the piece’s relevance and timeliness in the Post’s view.)Update! (9/3/14 – 9 pm): The Post has changed “computer science” to “business and programming” in the headline, and edited the text a bit to clarify his major.)
So it’s worth trying to delineate a response to this case as well, I think.
The confusion, I believe, comes from conflating “computer science” or “computer engineering” with STEM overall. The demand for STEM workers is not uniform across all disciplines. Code.org Founder Hadi Partovi has a fairly detailed post on this subject, but the upshot is that computer science (broadly defined) drives 60 percent of all new jobs in the STEM fields. Indeed, computer science is the only STEM field in which there are more jobs than students.
Annualized Bureau of Labor Statistic Projections for Jobs by STEM field and NSF data on annual degrees granted in those fields. (via Code.org)
As Partovi points out, “Across all fields (not only STEM), computer science occupations are at the very top of the highest demand list, with the lowest unemployment rate across all fields.”
So Salzman and others may be right that, in total, STEM disciplines may be oversubscribed, but that’s not the case in computing. That’s what really made the inaccuracies in Ark’s column jump out to those of us in the community. Graduates in CS, especially graduates at the tops of their classes, are in high-demand — not just in the tech sector, but across the economy, across every industry from banking to to defense to health care to manufacturing. And it’s not just because they know how to use the other two-fifths of the Microsoft Office suite….
We are proud to announce the launch of a new brand for CRA and its committees. As the impact of CRA’s activities are becoming more widely recognized and valued across our industry, we decided to develop a new brand identity that reinforces and amplifies our mission, objectives and programs. Our new brand is part of our larger effort to create a comprehensive communications strategy for CRA and its many activities. After updating our mission statement, last fall we began developing a brand that positions CRA as dynamic and collaborative, while preserving the unique identities of CRA’s distinct committees.
The new CRA symbol is designed to represent great minds coming together. The symbol was created by combining many ovals of different sizes into one symbol to illustrate dynamic collaboration. Each committee’s logo is a different color to both strengthen its individual identity and connect it to the organization as a whole.
Attendees at the 2014 CRA Conference at Snowbird were among the first to view the new brand. We are excited to debut our new visual identity for all of CRA’s committees and programs.
This post was updated on June 1st 2022 with updated links and text.
Did you know that CRA is regularly looking for volunteers to participate in Congressional Visit Days in Washington? Or that we run a workshop designed to give an inside look to computing researchers on how policy is crafted at the Federal level? Have you wanted to learn how you can break into the exciting world of science policy? CRA has tools for all of these and a little bit more.
First, let’s talk about CRAN, or the Computing Research Advocacy Network. This is CRA’s e-mailing list; it’s where our members can get timely information and alerts about key advocacy opportunities. We’re also very careful to not waste your time; we try to keep the alerts to about 4 to 5 a year (ie: less than an email every two months). And it’s not a discussion list; only CRA staff will use the mailing list and only for the purposes of informing our members about policy related matters that will impact the CS community. It’s definitely worth signing up for!
Then there is CRA’s Congressional Visit Days held here in Washington. This is a chance for our membership to meet with the staffs of their Representatives and Senators and to make the case for computer science research directly. CRA provides the materials, the arguments, and the training; volunteers provide the flesh and blood example of the importance of federal research funding to their members of Congress. It’s a great way to be a Citizen Scientist and to take part in your government. This is a very important activity that the community can do to make sure federal support of CS research continues.
The Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI) is part of CRA’s mission, in partnership with CRA’s Computing Community Consortium, to develop the next generation of leaders in the computing research community. It is intended to educate computing researchers on how Federal science policy is formulated and how our government works. It’s a two-day workshop, which features presentations and discussions with science policy experts, current and former Hill staff, and relevant agency and Administration personnel. The goal is to walk CS researchers through the basics about the mechanics of the legislative process, interacting with agencies, advisory committees, and the federal case for computing. The goal is to make more people from the CS community consider taking a job, temporary or permanent, in the policy world of Washington. LiSPI isn’t open to everyone; you have to be nominated by a chair or department head and then go through an application process. It’s all explained on the LiSPI website; check it out if you’re interested.
Finally, we have the nuts and bolts of keeping our members informed: the Computing Research Policy Blog (which you’re reading) and Computing Research News (CRN). The Policy Blog is our home for up-to-date information about advocacy and policy analysis for the computing research community. CRN is for more general computing science news in academia, government, and industry. Of particular importance are the job announcements, which are posted regularly. But both are useful for staying informed as to what’s going on.
So there you have it: all of the useful tools that CRA provides, right at your digital fingertips! We’d recommend you check them all out and get involved.
The STEM Ed bill that would explicitly include CS in the definition of STEM will be on the House floor today on the “suspension” calendar, a status that allows the House to consider it in somewhat expedited fashion. This is reserved for non-controversial bills and limits debate on the bill to 40 minutes, doesn’t allow for amendments, and requires a 2/3 majority to pass. So it’s likely it will pass the House today. Whether it will go anywhere in the Senate isn’t known…
There are a total of 4 bills cobbled together from the ashes of FIRST that will be considered today:
HR 5031 — A bill to define STEM education to include computer science, and to support existing STEM education programs at the National Science Foundation.
HR 5035 — A bill to reauthorize the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and for other purposes.
HR 5056 — A bill to improve the efficiency of Federal research and development, and for other purposes.
HR 5029 — A bill to provide for the establishment of a body to identify and coordinate international science and technology cooperation that can strengthen the domestic science and technology enterprise and support United States foreign policy goals.
All are non-controversial. HR 5056 sounds ominous, given the committee’s recent efforts to “improve NSF accountability” in FIRST, but it’s just a bill calling on OSTP to put together a working group to study how to “harmonize, streamline, and eliminate duplicative Federal regulations and reporting requirements, and minimize the regulatory burden on US institutions of higher education performing federally funded research while maintaining accountability for Federal tax dollars.”
We’ll let you know how the vote turns out!
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Code.org’s Successful Hour of Code Campaign Returns for 2014, featuring characters from Disney’s Frozen
/In: Computing Education, STEM /by Brian MosleyWith their wildly successful 2013 drive under their belt, Code.org is ready to reach even more students with their 2014 Hour of Code (HOC) campaign. This year’s HOC, featuring Anna and Elsa from Disney’s Frozen, will be a one-hour activity where students, “will learn to write code to help Anna and Elsa create snowflakes and magical ‘ice craft,’ while also learning logic, math and cultivating creative confidence.”
In last year’s campaign, 20 million students participated, which is 1 in 4 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, and half of the students who participated were girls. At a Congressional hearing in early 2014, touting the success of the campaign, Code.org co-founder Hadi Partovi said, “more students participated in computer science during Computer Science Education Week 2013 (of which, the Hour of Code campaign was a part) than had ever taken computer science in the history of our K-12 system.” And for 2014, Code.org is hoping to more than double those numbers.
The goal this year is to get 50 million girls to participate in the HOC. As stated in their announcement, “the girl-power theme of the tutorial is a continuation of our efforts to expand diversity in computer science and broaden female participation in the field, starting with younger students.” And with three weeks before the weeklong event, Code.org has an excellent jump start by already signing up over 40,000 classrooms worldwide.
I know I’ll be getting my middle-school-aged niece to sign up, along with myself, and I highly encourage all of our readers to do the same. Sign up now! And start coding too!
Computing Community Weighs in on “Truthy” Controversy
/In: CRA, R&D in the Press, Research, Statements /by Peter HarshaFive leading computing societies and associations today released a letter they’ve jointly sent to House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and committee Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) expressing their
concern over mischaracterizations of research on information diffusion in online social networks at Indiana University. The work has come under fire from Smith and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) who believe it may represent an affront to free speech. (Jeffrey Mervis in Science Magazine has good coverage of the controversy.) The joint letter argues that the work is focused on significant problems in computer science and calls on the committee to consult subject-matter experts and not rely on media mischaracterizations as they investigate the work further.
The letter reads:
Update (11/7/14): The letter has generated some positive press.
The Closing of MSR Silicon Valley and MSR’s Letter to the Academic Community
/In: People, R&D in the Press, Research /by Peter HarshaGiven the lab’s focus, the theoretical computer science community felt the sting of the closing particularly hard. Members of ACM’s SIGACT Committee for the Advancement of Theoretical Computer Science led an effort — an effort that ultimately grew beyond the SIGACT community — to send an open letter to Microsoft Executive Vice President for Technology and Research, Harry Shum and VPs for Research Peter Lee and Jeannette Wing, urging them to open a dialogue with the community about the closing and “reduce the damage that has been caused by the shutdown.” The letter was originally co-signed by 28 researchers and posted on the Theory Matters blog, and has garnered the support of many more in the blog’s comment section.
Tonight, Shum provides Microsoft’s perspective on the shutdown with a “Microsoft Open Letter to the Academic Research Community” posted on the Microsoft Research blog. In it, he reaffirms Microsoft’s commitment to fundamental research and its importance “for the long-term viability of our company, our industry and our society” and he pledges that Microsoft will play a part in community efforts to help those impacted by the cuts.
Both letters are worth reading. The dialogue between MSR and the academic community moving forward will be important to both sides. Despite the cuts, Microsoft Research remains one of the largest research institutions of its kind in the world, employing over 1,000 people, and the company still maintains 5 labs in the U.S. The connection between the company and the academic community is a critical part of advancing the field — a healthy MSR is important for the academic community, and a vigorous academic research community provides a healthy flow of people and ideas to MSR.
Larry Smarr, pioneering computing researcher, recipient of 2014 Golden Goose Award
/In: People, Policy, Research /by Brian MosleyThe group of universities, scientific societies, industry groups, and think tanks behind the 2014 Golden Goose Awards announced winners throughout the summer and pioneering computing researcher Larry Smarr is one of the recipients. As we’ve noted in previous years, the Golden Goose Awards “demonstrate the human and economic benefits of federally funded research by highlighting examples of seemingly obscure studies that have led to major breakthroughs and resulted in significant societal impact.” Another way to describe the awards is they are to show what “silly-sounding science” has given back to the country, and that return on investment is often very big and unanticipated.
You can read in detail about Dr. Smarr’s award backstory on the Golden Goose Awards website, but the gist is that in the early 1980s Dr. Smarr was performing modeling of black hole collisions in space, a wholly curiosity driven area of research. The modeling requires massive computing power, something not readily available to the American university community. Smarr became a strong advocate that the country invest more in supercomputing infrastructure available to the academic community, who otherwise had to fight to get time on machines devoted to defense applications like nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship. In response, the National Science Foundation established a set of university-based supercomputing centers for researchers across the country to use for their research purposes. These centers would form the basis of the NSFnet, one of the significant predecessors to the Internet (Smarr was a big proponent of establishing the NSFnet too). So, a curiosity about what happens when black holes collide helped unleash a revolution in computing power, computational science, and networking that, in turn helped establish visualization and modeling as drivers of scientific discovery (right alongside theory, observation and experiment) – not to mention the Internet as we know it, and the internet web browsers, both part of the success of the NSF supercomputing centers. And Larry Smarr had a key role in all of it.
The other recipients of the GGAs were a medical researcher team whose research into massaging rat pups led to treatments for premature infants, and a team of economists, whose research into auctions and game theory helped to raise billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury through the FFCC spectrum auctions. It’s almost sport in Washington to find silly-sounding award abstracts and use them as a cudgel to bash science agencies for spending money, but these award winners are excellent examples of why the Federal investment in fundamental research is so important to innovation, that it pays off in extraordinary ways, and that it’s not so easy to judge the value of the award by its subject (or by the one paragraph abstract that accompanies it).
UMass-Amherst Prof and CRA Board Member Kurose Selected to Run NSF CISE
/In: CRA, People /by Peter HarshaUMass Amherst CS Professor James F. Kurose will be the new head of NSF CISE
National Science Foundation Director France Córdova yesterday announced the appointment of James F. Kurose, UMass Amherst Professor and member of CRA’s Board of Directors, to serve as Assistant Director for the agency’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). CISE is the “home” for computing research at the agency, which supports over 80 percent of all university-based fundamental computer science research in the U.S. Kurose will take over the position in January 2015.
Kurose is currently Distinguished Professor at UMass Amherst’s School of Computer Science, a position he’s held since 2004. He’s been a member of Advisory Committee for CISE, a visiting scientist at a number of industrial research labs, and has served as a member of the CRA Board of Directors for the last seven years.
CRA’s Chair, J Strother Moore, shared his perspective on the appointment with NSF:
Kurose takes over the helm of CISE from Farnam Jahanian, who is now VP for Research at Carnegie Mellon University after a successful 3 year stint as CISE AD. Jahanian did an excellent job positioning CISE at the center of many NSF-wide and government-wide research initiatives during his tenure. Kurose joins an agency led by a new director in Córdova and faces the challenge of making CISE as relevant to national research priorities for her as it was to previous NSF Director Subra Suresh.
But my own sense is that Kurose is more than up to the task. He’s been a highly effective and respected member of the CRA Board during his tenure, demonstrating an ability to listen to others thoughtfully, process input objectively, and drive successful projects. Those skills will suit him well in Ballston (and Alexandria, after NSF moves) and on the Hill. We certainly will do what we can to help and wish him the best of luck in his new role!
Computing Researchers Go To Washington!
/In: CRA, FY15 Appropriations, People /by Brian Mosley2014 Congressional Visit Day Participants
Last week, over two dozen computing researchers (pictured above) from across the country came to Washington to make the case before Congress for federally supported computing research. The 27 volunteers, coming from as near as Maryland and New Jersey, and as far away as Utah and Kansas, participated in 60 House and Senate meetings on Wednesday September 17th. 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 armed with additional information from CRA, they made the “Federal case” for computing to Members of Congress and their staff. Just as important as the message they carried, they also made connections with those who represent them in DC. Those Members now know a little about the expertise and interesting (and important) work that goes on in their districts and states, and our participants have a sense of just who represents them in Congress — and they’ve hopefully created a lasting dialogue on both sides.
If you would like to participate in a future Congressional Visit Day, or if you are in Washington and would like to visit your representative’s office, contact Brian Mosley in the CRA Government Affairs Office. CRA can provide expert training, messaging, and materials, and we would be happy to accompany you on your meetings as well.
About that WashPost Column on the Value of a CS Degree…
/In: Computing Education, Misc., People, R&D in the Press, STEM /by Peter HarshaIf your Facebook and Twitter feeds are anything like mine, you’re no doubt already aware of the rather unfortunate August 27th column in the Washington Post penned by small-business owner Casey Ark headlined “I studied computer science, not English. I still can’t find a job.” In it, Ark laments that the degree he received at Penn State failed to prepare him for employment in the real world.
As someone fairly well-immersed in the world of academic computer science*, Ark’s piece didn’t seem to reflect any of the things I know about that community. And, as evidenced by my Facebook feed, I wasn’t alone. The piece spawned a lengthy comment thread on the Post site in which it was noted that Ark’s degree isn’t actually in computer science but rather in Information Systems (a business degree), as well as other responses including a Reddit thread and a blog post by UMass Amherst CS Professor Emery Berger featuring comments from a number of other CS colleagues and urging the Post to remove the column because of the inaccuracies it contains.
And that seems a reasonable request.
But I can see why the Post ran the piece in the first place. From the Post’s perspective, it’s a great contrarian anecdote (if it were accurate) to the prevailing narrative that STEM education ought to be a national priority for policymakers — a case CRA has played a role in making. And Ark could have made it a bit more compelling if he cited economists and labor analysts, as the Post did in this Sept 1st article, who argue that the data show no need for additional graduates in many STEM-related fields.
This is, I think, the angle the Post was really shooting for in running Ark’s column. In fact, their original headline called out “engineering” instead of “computer science” — computer science was offered as a “correction” after commenters pointed out Ark didn’t actually study engineering at Penn State. (Nor did he really study computer science, either,
but changing the headline further would probably completely neuter the piece’s relevance and timeliness in the Post’s view.)Update! (9/3/14 – 9 pm): The Post has changed “computer science” to “business and programming” in the headline, and edited the text a bit to clarify his major.)So it’s worth trying to delineate a response to this case as well, I think.
The confusion, I believe, comes from conflating “computer science” or “computer engineering” with STEM overall. The demand for STEM workers is not uniform across all disciplines. Code.org Founder Hadi Partovi has a fairly detailed post on this subject, but the upshot is that computer science (broadly defined) drives 60 percent of all new jobs in the STEM fields. Indeed, computer science is the only STEM field in which there are more jobs than students.
Annualized Bureau of Labor Statistic Projections for Jobs by STEM field and NSF data on annual degrees granted in those fields. (via Code.org)
As Partovi points out, “Across all fields (not only STEM), computer science occupations are at the very top of the highest demand list, with the lowest unemployment rate across all fields.”
So Salzman and others may be right that, in total, STEM disciplines may be oversubscribed, but that’s not the case in computing. That’s what really made the inaccuracies in Ark’s column jump out to those of us in the community. Graduates in CS, especially graduates at the tops of their classes, are in high-demand — not just in the tech sector, but across the economy, across every industry from banking to to defense to health care to manufacturing. And it’s not just because they know how to use the other two-fifths of the Microsoft Office suite….
*and also an English major — double-whammy!
New Look for CRA Unveiled at the 2014 CRA Conference at Snowbird
/In: General /by Shar SteedWe are proud to announce the launch of a new brand for CRA and its committees. As the impact of CRA’s activities are becoming more widely recognized and valued across our industry, we decided to develop a new brand identity that reinforces and amplifies our mission, objectives and programs. Our new brand is part of our larger effort to create a comprehensive communications strategy for CRA and its many activities. After updating our mission statement, last fall we began developing a brand that positions CRA as dynamic and collaborative, while preserving the unique identities of CRA’s distinct committees.
The new CRA symbol is designed to represent great minds coming together. The symbol was created by combining many ovals of different sizes into one symbol to illustrate dynamic collaboration. Each committee’s logo is a different color to both strengthen its individual identity and connect it to the organization as a whole.
Attendees at the 2014 CRA Conference at Snowbird were among the first to view the new brand. We are excited to debut our new visual identity for all of CRA’s committees and programs.
Click here to view our new CRA brochure.
Regular Reminder of CRA Advocacy Tools!
/In: CRA, People /by Brian MosleyThis post was updated on June 1st 2022 with updated links and text.
Did you know that CRA is regularly looking for volunteers to participate in Congressional Visit Days in Washington? Or that we run a workshop designed to give an inside look to computing researchers on how policy is crafted at the Federal level? Have you wanted to learn how you can break into the exciting world of science policy? CRA has tools for all of these and a little bit more.
First, let’s talk about CRAN, or the Computing Research Advocacy Network. This is CRA’s e-mailing list; it’s where our members can get timely information and alerts about key advocacy opportunities. We’re also very careful to not waste your time; we try to keep the alerts to about 4 to 5 a year (ie: less than an email every two months). And it’s not a discussion list; only CRA staff will use the mailing list and only for the purposes of informing our members about policy related matters that will impact the CS community. It’s definitely worth signing up for!
Then there is CRA’s Congressional Visit Days held here in Washington. This is a chance for our membership to meet with the staffs of their Representatives and Senators and to make the case for computer science research directly. CRA provides the materials, the arguments, and the training; volunteers provide the flesh and blood example of the importance of federal research funding to their members of Congress. It’s a great way to be a Citizen Scientist and to take part in your government. This is a very important activity that the community can do to make sure federal support of CS research continues.
The Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI) is part of CRA’s mission, in partnership with CRA’s Computing Community Consortium, to develop the next generation of leaders in the computing research community. It is intended to educate computing researchers on how Federal science policy is formulated and how our government works. It’s a two-day workshop, which features presentations and discussions with science policy experts, current and former Hill staff, and relevant agency and Administration personnel. The goal is to walk CS researchers through the basics about the mechanics of the legislative process, interacting with agencies, advisory committees, and the federal case for computing. The goal is to make more people from the CS community consider taking a job, temporary or permanent, in the policy world of Washington. LiSPI isn’t open to everyone; you have to be nominated by a chair or department head and then go through an application process. It’s all explained on the LiSPI website; check it out if you’re interested.
Finally, we have the nuts and bolts of keeping our members informed: the Computing Research Policy Blog (which you’re reading) and Computing Research News (CRN). The Policy Blog is our home for up-to-date information about advocacy and policy analysis for the computing research community. CRN is for more general computing science news in academia, government, and industry. Of particular importance are the job announcements, which are posted regularly. But both are useful for staying informed as to what’s going on.
So there you have it: all of the useful tools that CRA provides, right at your digital fingertips! We’d recommend you check them all out and get involved.
That Was Quick — CS/STEM Ed bill on the Floor Today
/In: Computing Education, Policy, STEM /by Peter HarshaThe STEM Ed bill that would explicitly include CS in the definition of STEM will be on the House floor today on the “suspension” calendar, a status that allows the House to consider it in somewhat expedited fashion. This is reserved for non-controversial bills and limits debate on the bill to 40 minutes, doesn’t allow for amendments, and requires a 2/3 majority to pass. So it’s likely it will pass the House today. Whether it will go anywhere in the Senate isn’t known…
There are a total of 4 bills cobbled together from the ashes of FIRST that will be considered today:
HR 5031 — A bill to define STEM education to include computer science, and to support existing STEM education programs at the National Science Foundation.
HR 5035 — A bill to reauthorize the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and for other purposes.
HR 5056 — A bill to improve the efficiency of Federal research and development, and for other purposes.
HR 5029 — A bill to provide for the establishment of a body to identify and coordinate international science and technology cooperation that can strengthen the domestic science and technology enterprise and support United States foreign policy goals.
All are non-controversial. HR 5056 sounds ominous, given the committee’s recent efforts to “improve NSF accountability” in FIRST, but it’s just a bill calling on OSTP to put together a working group to study how to “harmonize, streamline, and eliminate duplicative Federal regulations and reporting requirements, and minimize the regulatory burden on US institutions of higher education performing federally funded research while maintaining accountability for Federal tax dollars.”
We’ll let you know how the vote turns out!