CRA is looking to expand its staff once again — we’re looking for a business/office manager type to help us get a handle on our growing responsibilities. If you know someone who fits the bill, please pass this along!
Wanted: Business Manager
The Computing Research Association, a non-profit representing the academic and industrial IT research community, seeks a Business Manager for its Washington, DC office. This position supports CRA initiatives, provides technical coordination and administration of grants and subcontracts, develops project management plans and monitors execution, works with stakeholders, prepares presentations and reports, and handles office human resource requirements. Requirements: a Bachelors degree or four years of related experience, an employment history of progressively responsible experience, and demonstrated management and administrative skills. Knowledge of federal grants/contracts management is desirable. Please email resume and salary requirements to: employment@cra.org.
Well after a lot of rumors, innuendo, and veto threats, the House supplemental appropriations bill — the last hope for rectifying the shortfall for science in FY 2008 — does not contain additional funding for science and technology but the Senate version does. The House version, which is scheduled to be debated and voted on today, only includes additional domestic funding for veterans education, unemployment benefits, and Medicaid and some additional international aid that the President requested. The Senate version, which is scheduled to have floor time next week, also includes $1.2 billion for science at NASA, NSF, NIH, and DOE. It is unlikely that the Senate will pass the supplemental with a veto proof majority so the question going forward is how to reconcile the two bills — and how they will handle the science funding — and avoid a Presidential veto. It is likely that much of the Senate funding will get stripped out in order to satisfy House Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats who would vote against the additional spending and to avoid a veto by the President. Well keep you posted as the debate and votes happen and let you know how it all shakes out in the end Update: Here is a breakdown of the funding for science the Senate is including in their version of the supplemental.
$150 million for NSF basic research activities and $50 million for four science/math education programs.
$400 million for DOE – $300 million for environmental management and $100 million for ACI, of which $50 million is fusion (ITER).
$200 million for NASA for a new account to reimburse NASA programs that helped to cover costs associated with Space Shuttle return to flight after 2003 Columbia accident.
$400 million for NIH.
This additional funding, while welcome, does not cover the short fall for the ACI-related agencies who lost out in the FY08 omnibus. But at least the Senate included science funding which is more than can be said for the House version. Sigh.
CRA Chair Dan Reed (who is also Microsoft’s “Scalable and Multicore Strategist”) will testify Thursday before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee to talk about the computational aspects of U.S. climate modeling.
From the committee:
This hearing will examine the current computing capacity to process models at the regional and local scales, the need for continuous observational data to support the models, and the basic science to support the improvement of the next generation of climate models to meet the needs of decisionmakers. The hearing will focus on developing applications, consumer expectations, and network operation.
We’ll have Dan’s testimony here, links to any archived video and audio coverage of the proceedings, as well as our take on how it all went down, so stay tuned.
The Computing Community Consortium — a partnership between CRA and the National Science Foundation that seeks to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer-range, more audacious research challenges, then work to realize them — has launched its new blog, and it’s definitely worth checking out.
Given the goal of CCC to get the community talking about research visions (and then setting to work on developing the most promising ones into clearly defined initiatives that could receive funding from various federal agencies), a blog seems like a reasonable way to help spur the discussions. Researchers on the CCC Council will author some of the initial (hopefully opinionated) pieces, but I think the hope is that the discussions will get carried on both in the open comments section and in some additional online fora.
Anyway, you can check it out at http://www.cccblog.org. They’ve already got a good summary of some of the activities of the new CCC “Big Data Computing Study Group” — including the Hadoop Summit and the Data-Intensive Scalable Computing Symposium.
The blog also looks really nice — I’m a little jealous and am wondering whether my IT guy (who is also CCC’s IT guy) can set me up with the same nice WordPress setup — and features open commenting and the ability to subscribe to the articles via e-mail, which is very handy. Definitely worth checking out.
The saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, NSF and AAAS agree and are sponsoring the sixth annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. There are five awards categories: Photographs/Pictures, Illustrations/Drawings, Informational/Explanatory Graphics, Interactive Media, and Non-Interactive Media. The deadline for entries is May 31.
The premise of the Challenge is that science is often communicated through visuals better than words, particularly in our web and graphics culture. Winning entries in each category will be published in Science Magazine and Science Online as well as at the NSF web site. One of the winners will be on the cover of Science Magazines September 26 issue.
More information and winning entries from the previous five years can be found here.
The National Academies, in conjunction with the National Math and Science Initiative, will hold a day long convocation today called Rising Above The Gathering Storm Two Years Later: Accelerating Progress Toward A Brighter Future. Discussions will include what has happened since the 2005 report was release at the federal, state, and private sector levels and, of course, what still needs to happen. Competitiveness overall, K-12, higher education, and research are all panel and breakout topics throughout the convocation. Frequent readers will remember that the Gathering Storm report, released in October 2005, was a report requested by Sens. Alexander (R-TN) and Bingaman (D-NM) and Reps. Boehlert (R-NY) and Gordon (D-TN) that listed the top 10 actions Congress should undertake to secure Americas competitiveness. The report was a catalyst for news, legislation, and further reports that we have reported on regularly over the last couple of years.
The convocation has spurred a grasstops effort, led by The Science Coalition, to bring the issue of research funding back to the forefront just as Congress begins to consider both a supplemental and the FY09 appropriations bills. The Coalition is encouraging university and association leaders to contact their Congressional members with letters emphasizing the call for increased funding of basic research contained in the Gathering Storm report and to contact local media on the ongoing competitiveness issue. Additional coverage of the convocation can be found at The Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog.
Two Nobel Prize winners have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (sub. reqd) today regarding the need to make science a top priority of the next Administration. David Baltimore and Ahmed Zewail write that the next President needs to have an Office of Science and a science advisor at the White House in order to protect Americas competitive future. The piece makes a strong case for the necessity of strong leadership on science and science funding and is worth a read if you have access to the Wall Street Journal.
The section that best sums up the argument of the op-ed and the community as a whole plays on the fact that the three major candidates for President turned down an opportunity to have a debate focused on science issues is:
Apparently the top contenders for our nation’s highest elective office have better things to do than explain to the public their views on securing America’s future.
Protecting that future starts with understanding that much of the wealth in this country comes from scientific research and technological innovation. Translating science into commerce has opened up vast new fields of endeavor and has raised the standard of living in America. The country that is on the cutting edge of developing new technology is the country best positioned to benefit from that new technology.
We’re starting to hear from folks on the Hill that it’s looking more like science funding might be included in the initial supplemental when it comes out of the Senate. What’s less clear is how much, though the consensus seems to be “likely less than the science and technology community hopes it will be.” It’s also not clear what the House might do with its version of the supplemental or what would happen if, as the President has repeatedly said, it gets vetoed for including domestic spending.
Another rumor buzzing around DC that the supplemental might actually get split into two bills: an Iraq-only funding bill and an Afghanistan and domestic spending bill. This is politically expedient for the Democrats as the issue of Iraq funding splits the party. By having a separate bill to fund the war in Afghanistan and some domestic programs, it allows the Democrats to vote against funding Iraq without withdrawal timetables but for Afghanistan and domestic program spending that they do support.
We’ll know a lot more in the next week or two as the House and Senate appropriations committees begin their hearings and markups on the supplemental bills. Meanwhile, the science advocacy community continues to be very active in trying to make the case for science funding in the supplemental. Last week’s grassroots effort (which included CRA’s Computing Research Advocacy Network’s involvement) appears to have generated a lot of phone calls to Members of Congress about the issue, and the various coalitions continue to weigh in with their corporate membership to make the case.
It’s expected that the various supplemental bills will hit the House and Senate floors in late April or early May, so keep it tuned here for details.
The latest data from the National Science Foundation reveal that there were more science and engineering graduates in the U.S. in 2006 than there were in 2003 and that there appears to be plenty of opportunity for those graduates in the S&E workforce. NSF and US Newsdetail the results of three recent studies released by NSF that indicate this “strong labor market for scientists and engineers.”
According to the studies, the number of individuals working in science and engineering (S&E) occupations grew by 4.3 percent between 2003 and 2006, while their unemployment rate dropped to 2.5 percent in 2006, its lowest since the early 1990s. “On the supply side, we can say that the current S&E labor force is expanding, new graduates are coming out, and people are able to find employment, or are continuing their education,” says Nimmi Kannankutty, the National Science Foundation (NSF) program manager responsible for compiling the data, which NSF released last month.
CRA’s Jay Vegso has some additional data detailing how computer science graduates appear to be faring in this market. The short answer is: quite well. According to the NSF data, “CS graduates tied for second with health majors for the highest median salary at the bachelor’s level ($45,000) and tied for first with engineering at the master’s level ($65,000).” Both figures are well above the median salaries among all science, engineering and health fields ($39,000 for bachelor’s and $56,000 for master’s).
For a look at all the data, see:
Unemployment Rate of U.S. Scientists and Engineers Drops to Record Low 2.5% in 2006
An Overview of Science, Engineering and Health Graduates: 2006
NSF’s Divison of Science Resources Statistics (SRS)
Here’s a note sent to members of our Computing Research Advocacy Network. You can join, too!:
ACTION REQUEST: Call your U.S. Senators, your Representative in the House, and the White House this week to urge support for science funding in the FY 08 Supplemental.
WHY?: Though the FY 08 Appropriations process ended with an omnibus appropriations bill that eliminated most of the planned increases to science accounts called for in the President’s budget and authorized in the bipartisan America COMPETES Act, we have one last chance to mitigate the damage to U.S. science efforts caused by that decision. Congress will soon consider a supplemental appropriations bill for FY 08 necessary to cover the costs of the ongoing war in Iraq and operations in Afghanistan, in addition to other immediate concerns not addressed in the FY 08 omnibus appropriation. CRA has covered this issue in depth in this space.
Members of the science advocacy community, including CRA, are mounting a strong effort, with the support of some Congressional champions, to address the shortfall for science in FY 08 in the supplemental spending bill. As part of that effort, CRA will be participating in a large-scale, grassroots effort to weigh-in with individual members of Congress about the importance of including additional funding for key science agencies in the supplemental appropriation.
We are asking members of CRAN to call their representatives in the House, their two U.S. senators and the White House on Tuesday, April 8th; Wednesday, April 9th; or Thursday, April 10th to urge support for the inclusion of additional funding for the Department of Energy Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology in the FY 08 supplemental appropriations bill.
HOW?: Here’s a handy guide for the effort with all the details for your participation, including a simple script to use when calling. The point of this exercise is simply to register your opinion on this issue with your representatives in Congress and the White House. Calls to these offices are logged daily by issue and Members of Congress are influenced by call volumes in trying to decide how much an issue matters to their district. We expect significant participation from scientists and researchers across the disciplines — we want to make sure computing researchers are heard from, too.
So, please plan to call your representative, senators and the White House this Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday as part of this effort. While the attached indicates you can place the call to the district offices or your representatives’ DC offices, we’ve found through experience that a call to the DC office is more beneficial (more likely to be logged).
Phone numbers to use:
To call White House: (202) 456-1111
To call your Representative and Senators: Look up their contact info at Vote Smart
We’d also like to gauge our members participation, so please send us an e-mail when you call, letting us know who you called and whether you received any response. Please send the email to mnorr@cra.org.
Thanks again for your participation and support of computing research. Your effort will help convey to Congress and the Administration the breadth and depth of support for fully funding these key federal science agencies. Good luck with your calls!
To join the Computing Research Advocacy Network (CRAN) and receive email alerts, please sign up here.
Please use the Category and Archive Filters below, to find older posts. Or you may also use the search bar.
We’re Looking For More Good Peeps!
/In: CRA /by Peter HarshaCRA is looking to expand its staff once again — we’re looking for a business/office manager type to help us get a handle on our growing responsibilities. If you know someone who fits the bill, please pass this along!
Update on the Supplemental
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrWell after a lot of rumors, innuendo, and veto threats, the House supplemental appropriations bill — the last hope for rectifying the shortfall for science in FY 2008 — does not contain additional funding for science and technology but the Senate version does. The House version, which is scheduled to be debated and voted on today, only includes additional domestic funding for veterans education, unemployment benefits, and Medicaid and some additional international aid that the President requested. The Senate version, which is scheduled to have floor time next week, also includes $1.2 billion for science at NASA, NSF, NIH, and DOE. It is unlikely that the Senate will pass the supplemental with a veto proof majority so the question going forward is how to reconcile the two bills — and how they will handle the science funding — and avoid a Presidential veto. It is likely that much of the Senate funding will get stripped out in order to satisfy House Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats who would vote against the additional spending and to avoid a veto by the President. Well keep you posted as the debate and votes happen and let you know how it all shakes out in the end
Update: Here is a breakdown of the funding for science the Senate is including in their version of the supplemental.
$150 million for NSF basic research activities and $50 million for four science/math education programs.
$400 million for DOE – $300 million for environmental management and $100 million for ACI, of which $50 million is fusion (ITER).
$200 million for NASA for a new account to reimburse NASA programs that helped to cover costs associated with Space Shuttle return to flight after 2003 Columbia accident.
$400 million for NIH.
This additional funding, while welcome, does not cover the short fall for the ACI-related agencies who lost out in the FY08 omnibus. But at least the Senate included science funding which is more than can be said for the House version. Sigh.
CRA Chair to Testify Before Senate on Climate Modeling
/In: General /by Peter HarshaCRA Chair Dan Reed (who is also Microsoft’s “Scalable and Multicore Strategist”) will testify Thursday before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee to talk about the computational aspects of U.S. climate modeling.
From the committee:
We’ll have Dan’s testimony here, links to any archived video and audio coverage of the proceedings, as well as our take on how it all went down, so stay tuned.
The CCC is Now Blogging!
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC) /by Peter HarshaThe Computing Community Consortium — a partnership between CRA and the National Science Foundation that seeks to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer-range, more audacious research challenges, then work to realize them — has launched its new blog, and it’s definitely worth checking out.
Given the goal of CCC to get the community talking about research visions (and then setting to work on developing the most promising ones into clearly defined initiatives that could receive funding from various federal agencies), a blog seems like a reasonable way to help spur the discussions. Researchers on the CCC Council will author some of the initial (hopefully opinionated) pieces, but I think the hope is that the discussions will get carried on both in the open comments section and in some additional online fora.
Anyway, you can check it out at http://www.cccblog.org. They’ve already got a good summary of some of the activities of the new CCC “Big Data Computing Study Group” — including the Hadoop Summit and the Data-Intensive Scalable Computing Symposium.
The blog also looks really nice — I’m a little jealous and am wondering whether my IT guy (who is also CCC’s IT guy) can set me up with the same nice WordPress setup — and features open commenting and the ability to subscribe to the articles via e-mail, which is very handy. Definitely worth checking out.
2008 NSF/AAAS Visualization Challenge
/In: Events, Misc., R&D in the Press, Research /by MelissaNorrThe saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, NSF and AAAS agree and are sponsoring the sixth annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. There are five awards categories: Photographs/Pictures, Illustrations/Drawings, Informational/Explanatory Graphics, Interactive Media, and Non-Interactive Media. The deadline for entries is May 31.
The premise of the Challenge is that science is often communicated through visuals better than words, particularly in our web and graphics culture. Winning entries in each category will be published in Science Magazine and Science Online as well as at the NSF web site. One of the winners will be on the cover of Science Magazines September 26 issue.
More information and winning entries from the previous five years can be found here.
National Academies Convocation on Gathering Storm Two Years Later
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Events, Funding, FY09 Appropriations, Policy /by MelissaNorrThe National Academies, in conjunction with the National Math and Science Initiative, will hold a day long convocation today called Rising Above The Gathering Storm Two Years Later: Accelerating Progress Toward A Brighter Future. Discussions will include what has happened since the 2005 report was release at the federal, state, and private sector levels and, of course, what still needs to happen. Competitiveness overall, K-12, higher education, and research are all panel and breakout topics throughout the convocation. Frequent readers will remember that the Gathering Storm report, released in October 2005, was a report requested by Sens. Alexander (R-TN) and Bingaman (D-NM) and Reps. Boehlert (R-NY) and Gordon (D-TN) that listed the top 10 actions Congress should undertake to secure Americas competitiveness. The report was a catalyst for news, legislation, and further reports that we have reported on regularly over the last couple of years.
The convocation has spurred a grasstops effort, led by The Science Coalition, to bring the issue of research funding back to the forefront just as Congress begins to consider both a supplemental and the FY09 appropriations bills. The Coalition is encouraging university and association leaders to contact their Congressional members with letters emphasizing the call for increased funding of basic research contained in the Gathering Storm report and to contact local media on the ongoing competitiveness issue.
Additional coverage of the convocation can be found at The Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog.
WSJ Op-Ed on Missing Leadership in Science
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, FY09 Appropriations, Policy /by MelissaNorrTwo Nobel Prize winners have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (sub. reqd) today regarding the need to make science a top priority of the next Administration. David Baltimore and Ahmed Zewail write that the next President needs to have an Office of Science and a science advisor at the White House in order to protect Americas competitive future. The piece makes a strong case for the necessity of strong leadership on science and science funding and is worth a read if you have access to the Wall Street Journal.
The section that best sums up the argument of the op-ed and the community as a whole plays on the fact that the three major candidates for President turned down an opportunity to have a debate focused on science issues is:
Rumors Swirl Around Supplemental
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, FY09 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrWe’re starting to hear from folks on the Hill that it’s looking more like science funding might be included in the initial supplemental when it comes out of the Senate. What’s less clear is how much, though the consensus seems to be “likely less than the science and technology community hopes it will be.” It’s also not clear what the House might do with its version of the supplemental or what would happen if, as the President has repeatedly said, it gets vetoed for including domestic spending.
Another rumor buzzing around DC that the supplemental might actually get split into two bills: an Iraq-only funding bill and an Afghanistan and domestic spending bill. This is politically expedient for the Democrats as the issue of Iraq funding splits the party. By having a separate bill to fund the war in Afghanistan and some domestic programs, it allows the Democrats to vote against funding Iraq without withdrawal timetables but for Afghanistan and domestic program spending that they do support.
We’ll know a lot more in the next week or two as the House and Senate appropriations committees begin their hearings and markups on the supplemental bills. Meanwhile, the science advocacy community continues to be very active in trying to make the case for science funding in the supplemental. Last week’s grassroots effort (which included CRA’s Computing Research Advocacy Network’s involvement) appears to have generated a lot of phone calls to Members of Congress about the issue, and the various coalitions continue to weigh in with their corporate membership to make the case.
It’s expected that the various supplemental bills will hit the House and Senate floors in late April or early May, so keep it tuned here for details.
S&E Supply Up, Unemployment Down in 2006, Says NSF
/In: People /by Peter HarshaThe latest data from the National Science Foundation reveal that there were more science and engineering graduates in the U.S. in 2006 than there were in 2003 and that there appears to be plenty of opportunity for those graduates in the S&E workforce. NSF and US News detail the results of three recent studies released by NSF that indicate this “strong labor market for scientists and engineers.”
CRA’s Jay Vegso has some additional data detailing how computer science graduates appear to be faring in this market. The short answer is: quite well. According to the NSF data, “CS graduates tied for second with health majors for the highest median salary at the bachelor’s level ($45,000) and tied for first with engineering at the master’s level ($65,000).” Both figures are well above the median salaries among all science, engineering and health fields ($39,000 for bachelor’s and $56,000 for master’s).
For a look at all the data, see:
Grassroots Effort to Urge Support for Science Funding in Supplemental
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, Policy /by MelissaNorrHere’s a note sent to members of our Computing Research Advocacy Network. You can join, too!:
ACTION REQUEST: Call your U.S. Senators, your Representative in the House, and the White House this week to urge support for science funding in the FY 08 Supplemental.
WHY?: Though the FY 08 Appropriations process ended with an omnibus appropriations bill that eliminated most of the planned increases to science accounts called for in the President’s budget and authorized in the bipartisan America COMPETES Act, we have one last chance to mitigate the damage to U.S. science efforts caused by that decision. Congress will soon consider a supplemental appropriations bill for FY 08 necessary to cover the costs of the ongoing war in Iraq and operations in Afghanistan, in addition to other immediate concerns not addressed in the FY 08 omnibus appropriation. CRA has covered this issue in depth in this space.
Members of the science advocacy community, including CRA, are mounting a strong effort, with the support of some Congressional champions, to address the shortfall for science in FY 08 in the supplemental spending bill. As part of that effort, CRA will be participating in a large-scale, grassroots effort to weigh-in with individual members of Congress about the importance of including additional funding for key science agencies in the supplemental appropriation.
We are asking members of CRAN to call their representatives in the House, their two U.S. senators and the White House on Tuesday, April 8th; Wednesday, April 9th; or Thursday, April 10th to urge support for the inclusion of additional funding for the Department of Energy Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology in the FY 08 supplemental appropriations bill.
HOW?: Here’s a handy guide for the effort with all the details for your participation, including a simple script to use when calling. The point of this exercise is simply to register your opinion on this issue with your representatives in Congress and the White House. Calls to these offices are logged daily by issue and Members of Congress are influenced by call volumes in trying to decide how much an issue matters to their district. We expect significant participation from scientists and researchers across the disciplines — we want to make sure computing researchers are heard from, too.
So, please plan to call your representative, senators and the White House this Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday as part of this effort. While the attached indicates you can place the call to the district offices or your representatives’ DC offices, we’ve found through experience that a call to the DC office is more beneficial (more likely to be logged).
Phone numbers to use:
To call White House: (202) 456-1111
To call your Representative and Senators: Look up their contact info at Vote Smart
We’d also like to gauge our members participation, so please send us an e-mail when you call, letting us know who you called and whether you received any response. Please send the email to mnorr@cra.org.
Thanks again for your participation and support of computing research. Your effort will help convey to Congress and the Administration the breadth and depth of support for fully funding these key federal science agencies. Good luck with your calls!
To join the Computing Research Advocacy Network (CRAN) and receive email alerts, please sign up here.