[Apologies once again for the lag in posts. I’ve been in babyland.]
The Senate has finally begun to get its act together and organize some key committees, announcing yesterday the chairs and ranking members of the 10 Commerce Committee subcommittees and last week announcing a reorganization of the Appropriations Committee to fall more in line with the House Appropriations revamp (as we predicted).
On the Commerce Committee, the new chairs and ranking members that are likely most relevant to computing researchers are Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) who take over as the chair and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Science and Space; and Sens. John Ensign (R-NV) and John Kerry, chair and ranking member of the new Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation and Competitiveness. The agenda for this new subcommittee hasn’t yet been set, but given that it’s grown out of the work of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force headed by Ensign, chances are good that it will involve itself in issues important to the computing community.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, initially reluctant to adopt the House Appropriations reorganization, ultimately decided that failing to adopt some realignment would guarantee chaos come conference time and agreed to reshape the panel to reflect most of the changes made by the House. Most importantly to computing researchers, the Senate VA-HUD committee, which included responsibility for NASA and NSF, was dissolved and its jurisdiction the two science agencies was placed in the new Commerce-Justice-Science panel, matching the House plan. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) will take the helm of the new subcommittee, meaning that long-term NSF champion Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) will no longer oversee the agency in the appropriations process. It’s not clear how Shelby’s leadership will impact the NSF budget, though he has apparently said that within the committee, NASA and NSF are his number one and two priorities. In any case, a new chairman represents a new opportunity for the science community to make the case for priority. On the minority side, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, long-term NSF champion and former ranking member on VA-HUD, will join Shelby as ranking member on the new panel.
CRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) held its 2005 edition of the Grad Cohort Workshops over the weekend in San Francisco. If you’re not familiar with the program, it aims to increase the ranks of senior women in computing by building and mentoring nationwide cohorts of women through their graduate studies as they make the transition from student to researcher. Here’s how CRA-W describes the workshops:
At the Workshop, [we] welcome Cohort participants – Computer Science and Engineering students in their first or second year of grad school – into the community of computing researchers and provide them with a variety of professional role models. The Grad Cohort Workshop [are] modeled on the CRA-W’s very successful Academic Careers Workshop. Students meet for two days with 10-15 senior researchers who share pertinent information on the transition from student to researcher as well as more personal information and insights about their experiences. The rewards of a research career [are] emphasized. The workshop includes a mix of formal presentations and informal discussions and social events. All participants – students and researchers – [are] present for the whole time, making it possible for students to build mentoring relationships and develop peer networks.
Jim Horning points to a nice writeup of the event in Campus Technology. This is just one of a number of important programs CRA-W runs aimed at addressing the underrepresentation of women in computing research — a complete list is here. And it isn’t the first time they’ve received recognition for their efforts. Just last year, CRA-W was honored by President George W. Bush as “exemplars” for their role as leaders in the national effort to more fully develop the Nation’s human resources in science, mathematics and engineering. Though this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone in the discipline, as CRA-W has been doing great work since 1991.
While CRA-W put this particular event together, they couldn’t have done it without the generous support of Microsoft, Google, and Lucent, as well as federal support from agencies and programs like NSF, EOT-PACI and others.
A group of seventeen computer scientists yesterday filed an amicus brief (pdf) in the MGM v. Grokster case before the Supreme Court, “to call to the Court’s attention several computer science issues raised by Petitioners [i.e., the movie and music companies] and amici who filed concurrent with Petitioners, and to correct certain of their technical assertions.” If you’re not familiar with the case or the potential impact it may have on anyone who creates technology, there’s an interesting summary and some thoughts about what Congress might do as a result at the 463 Communications blog.
Ed Felten, one of the 17 amici (along with CRA board members Gene Spafford and Jennifer Rexford), has a summary of the arguments in the compsci professor’s brief over at Freedom to Tinker, and a series of good posts on the case. USACM has been tracking the issue as well. Update: USACM joined an amicus brief with sixty law professors in support of Grokster. Cameron Wilson has the details.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) worries (sub. may be req’d?) in the latest issue of Science that the U.S. isn’t doing what it could to continue the pace of innovation and “nuture the next Einsteins.”
All revolutions begin with a seminal moment. This year, we will celebrate one of the greatest in the history of science: the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s 1905 landmark papers that introduced the special theory of relativity and the equivalence of mass and energy. As we explore their impact, we must ask ourselves if we as a nation are doing what it takes to spark new scientific revolutions. Are we nurturing the next Einsteins? Regrettably, the answer is no. The lack of federal investment in basic research and restrictive immigration policies are eroding America’s leadership in the sciences. The ripple effects of these two troublesome trends are enormous: Our future economic competitiveness and quality of life depend on our ability to stay ahead of the scientific and technological curve.
The splitting of the atom ushered in an unprecedented era of public investment in basic scientific research after World War II. The National Academy of Sciences (citing the work of Nobel Laureate Robert Solow) estimates that nearly half of our nation’s economic growth since that time can be attributed to advances in science and technology.
However, in recent years investment has shifted away from research in the physical sciences and engineering to the life sciences. The irony is that advances in the life and medical sciences will be impossible without their physical and engineering counterparts. I agree with the recommendation of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology that the funding levels for the physical sciences and engineering be brought to parity with that for the life sciences, which has more than doubled over the past decade. Adequate funding alone, however, will not guarantee that science in the United States maintains its strength.
I’m getting more encouraged by the frequency with which the concept that federal support of R&D leads to innovation, which in turn enables U.S. competitiveness, is showing up in the press and out of the mouths of policy makers on both sides of the aisle. As soon as I get some time, I think I’ll compile all the recent examples I can find — it’s a big list. But in the meantime, you can probably get more than a few examples by browsing the funding and policy categories in the archives on the left.
And the rest of the Alexander editorial is certainly worth reading.
Apologies for the lack of timely blogging, but things in CRA-ville are a little bit crazy as we prepare for our Spring Board Meeting, CRA’s Computing Leadership Summit, and our annual congressional visits day — all next week. But there is a story that is a little dated, but certainly worth a note here. CRA Board Member Leah Jameson, along with her colleagues Edward J. Coyle and William Oakes from Purdue’s Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program were awarded the Bernard M. Gordon Prize by the National Academy of Engineering on Monday night.
The EPICS project pairs teams of undergraduate engineering students with nonprofit organizations to solve engineering problems in the community.
Community service agencies face a future in which they must take advantage of technology to improve, coordinate, account for, and deliver the services they provide. They need the help of people with strong technical backgrounds. Undergraduate students face a future in which they will need more than solid expertise in their discipline to succeed. They will be expected to work with people of many different backgrounds to identify and achieve goals. They need educational experiences that can help them broaden their skills.
The challenge is to bring these two groups together in a mutually beneficial way.
Apparently, the NAE felt EPICS was meeting that challenge. The Gordon prize is given annually for “innovation in engineering and technology education” and carries a $500,000 award. And it’s not the first the program has received.
With a new Congress comes a new organization of congressional committees and memberships. We’ve covered the reorganization of the Appropriations committees and its impact on science funding. USACM’s Cameron Wilson has a great writeup on some of the other IT policy implications on USACM’s Technology Policy Weblog. It’s a good look at the new congressional landscape for intellectual property, privacy, and security issues. Update: (3/2) Fixed the link to Cameron’s post.
NSF is facing a tough budget year (as we’ve noted). They’re requesting a slight increase in funding — about 2.4 percent for FY 2006 — but it turns out most of the increase will go to fund the operation of some former Coast Guard icebreakers, as well as hiring some long-awaited new staff. Now news comes that a NSF-owned ship, the research vessel Maurice Ewing, apparently ran aground off the coast of Mexico this week and damaged a coral reef. The Mexican government is talking about “substantial fines” to NSF as a result of the accident and are threatening to seize the ship to ensure the fines are paid.
The story is only just starting to play out, but it bears some watching. Because the amount of increase planned for the agency budget is so small, a fine need not be terribly substantial to result in cuts to existing research budgets. And it wouldn’t be the first time NSF’s legal issues threatened to impact the Foundation’s research budget….
Anyway, keep it here for details…. Update: It’s been suggested that because this is an international incident, perhaps the State Department will take care of it. That sounds plausible to me. But I’d love to hear from anyone with more detailed information. harsha [a t] cra . org.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) — a CRA-affiliated organization — has named Vint Cerf and CRA Board Member Bob Kahn the winners of the 2004 A.M. Turing Award for pioneering work on the design and implementation of the Internet’s basic communications protocols.
ACM President David Patterson said the collaboration of Cerf and Kahn in defining the Internet architecture and its associated protocols represents a cornerstone of the information technology field. “Their work has enabled the many rapid and accessible applications on the Internet that we rely on today, including email, the World Wide Web, Instant Messaging, Peer-to-Peer transfers, and a wide range of collaboration and conferencing tools. These developments have helped make IT a critical component across the industrial world,” he said.
“The Turing Award is widely acknowledged as our industry’s highest recognition of the scientists and engineers whose innovations have fueled the digital revolution,” said Intel’s David Tennenhouse, Vice President in the Corporate Technology Group and Director of Research. “This award also serves to encourage the next generation of technology pioneers to deliver the ideas and inventions that will continue to drive our industry forward. As part of its long-standing support for innovation and incubation, Intel is proud to sponsor this year’s Turing Award. As a fellow DARPA alumnus, I am especially pleased to congratulate this year’s winners, who are outstanding role models, mentors and research collaborators to myself and many others within the network research community.”
Lots going on today. The House Science Committee will hold the first of its hearings on the FY 2006 Science Budget today at 11 am. Scheduled to appear are:
It’s always a little depressing to listen to directors of the science agencies forced to defend the lean budgets they’ve been saddled with, but for those who want to watch, the hearing will be webcast starting at 11 am today. Here’s the hearing charter (pdf).
Also happening today is a press conference hosted by the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation — a coalition of industry and academic groups advocating for support of the physical sciences and engineering. The Task Force is releasing a series of benchmarks for measuring U.S. global competitiveness in research and innovation. Scheduled to appear at the press conference today at 1 pm are:
John Engler, President, National Association of Manufacturers
Craig Barrett, Chief Executive Officer, Intel
Nils Hasselmo, President, Association of American Universities
Deborah Wince-Smith, President, Council on Competitiveness
Burton Richter, Paul Pigott Professor in the Physical Sciences and former Director, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University
Diana Hicks, Chair, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology.
All will make the case for strengthening federal investments in science and engineering research, emphasizing the impact of those investments on long-term economic growth and prosperity.
The strength of this particular coalition, as can be seen above, is the strong participation of the high-tech companies and industry associations — who have some influence in the current administration — along with the academic groups (CRA is a member of the task force).
I’ll have more coverage of the benchmarks, as well as some other comments after the event this afternoon. Update: (2/16 6:30pm EST) – The Task Force press conference was remarkably well-attended — the 70-person capacity room was filled, with people lining the walls. It appears a good number of attendees were actually press, too. I’ll be posting links to coverage of the event here as I come across them.
For now, here is the official Benchmarks report (pdf). And the accompanying press release (pdf). Reuters is already out with the story.
Just a quick note to point out an editorial in today’s New York Times commending the State Department for finally “bringing some sanity” to the student visa issue. CRA has been urging this sort of reform since it became clear shortly after 9/11 that it was having a real impact on our member institutions. Thanks should go to AAAS, AAU and the National Academies — some of the real heavyweight academic associations — for moving the issue forward.
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Catching Up: Senate Reorganization (Appropriations and Commerce)
/In: Misc. /by Peter Harsha[Apologies once again for the lag in posts. I’ve been in babyland.]
The Senate has finally begun to get its act together and organize some key committees, announcing yesterday the chairs and ranking members of the 10 Commerce Committee subcommittees and last week announcing a reorganization of the Appropriations Committee to fall more in line with the House Appropriations revamp (as we predicted).
On the Commerce Committee, the new chairs and ranking members that are likely most relevant to computing researchers are Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) who take over as the chair and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Science and Space; and Sens. John Ensign (R-NV) and John Kerry, chair and ranking member of the new Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation and Competitiveness. The agenda for this new subcommittee hasn’t yet been set, but given that it’s grown out of the work of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force headed by Ensign, chances are good that it will involve itself in issues important to the computing community.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, initially reluctant to adopt the House Appropriations reorganization, ultimately decided that failing to adopt some realignment would guarantee chaos come conference time and agreed to reshape the panel to reflect most of the changes made by the House. Most importantly to computing researchers, the Senate VA-HUD committee, which included responsibility for NASA and NSF, was dissolved and its jurisdiction the two science agencies was placed in the new Commerce-Justice-Science panel, matching the House plan. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) will take the helm of the new subcommittee, meaning that long-term NSF champion Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) will no longer oversee the agency in the appropriations process. It’s not clear how Shelby’s leadership will impact the NSF budget, though he has apparently said that within the committee, NASA and NSF are his number one and two priorities. In any case, a new chairman represents a new opportunity for the science community to make the case for priority. On the minority side, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, long-term NSF champion and former ranking member on VA-HUD, will join Shelby as ranking member on the new panel.
Nice Writeup for CRA-W’s Grad Cohort Program
/In: People /by Peter HarshaCRA’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) held its 2005 edition of the Grad Cohort Workshops over the weekend in San Francisco. If you’re not familiar with the program, it aims to increase the ranks of senior women in computing by building and mentoring nationwide cohorts of women through their graduate studies as they make the transition from student to researcher. Here’s how CRA-W describes the workshops:
Jim Horning points to a nice writeup of the event in Campus Technology. This is just one of a number of important programs CRA-W runs aimed at addressing the underrepresentation of women in computing research — a complete list is here. And it isn’t the first time they’ve received recognition for their efforts. Just last year, CRA-W was honored by President George W. Bush as “exemplars” for their role as leaders in the national effort to more fully develop the Nation’s human resources in science, mathematics and engineering. Though this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone in the discipline, as CRA-W has been doing great work since 1991.
While CRA-W put this particular event together, they couldn’t have done it without the generous support of Microsoft, Google, and Lucent, as well as federal support from agencies and programs like NSF, EOT-PACI and others.
Seventeen Computer Scientists File Amicus in Grokster
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaA group of seventeen computer scientists yesterday filed an amicus brief (pdf) in the MGM v. Grokster case before the Supreme Court, “to call to the Court’s attention several computer science issues raised by Petitioners [i.e., the movie and music companies] and amici who filed concurrent with Petitioners, and to correct certain of their technical assertions.” If you’re not familiar with the case or the potential impact it may have on anyone who creates technology, there’s an interesting summary and some thoughts about what Congress might do as a result at the 463 Communications blog.
Ed Felten, one of the 17 amici (along with CRA board members Gene Spafford and Jennifer Rexford), has a summary of the arguments in the compsci professor’s brief over at Freedom to Tinker, and a series of good posts on the case.
USACM has been tracking the issue as well.
Update: USACM joined an amicus brief with sixty law professors in support of Grokster. Cameron Wilson has the details.
Sen. Alexander Frets That U.S. Isn’t Nurturing Next Einsteins
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaSen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) worries (sub. may be req’d?) in the latest issue of Science that the U.S. isn’t doing what it could to continue the pace of innovation and “nuture the next Einsteins.”
I’m getting more encouraged by the frequency with which the concept that federal support of R&D leads to innovation, which in turn enables U.S. competitiveness, is showing up in the press and out of the mouths of policy makers on both sides of the aisle. As soon as I get some time, I think I’ll compile all the recent examples I can find — it’s a big list. But in the meantime, you can probably get more than a few examples by browsing the funding and policy categories in the archives on the left.
And the rest of the Alexander editorial is certainly worth reading.
Catching Up: Gordon Prize
/In: People /by Peter HarshaApologies for the lack of timely blogging, but things in CRA-ville are a little bit crazy as we prepare for our Spring Board Meeting, CRA’s Computing Leadership Summit, and our annual congressional visits day — all next week. But there is a story that is a little dated, but certainly worth a note here. CRA Board Member Leah Jameson, along with her colleagues Edward J. Coyle and William Oakes from Purdue’s Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program were awarded the Bernard M. Gordon Prize by the National Academy of Engineering on Monday night.
The EPICS project pairs teams of undergraduate engineering students with nonprofit organizations to solve engineering problems in the community.
Apparently, the NAE felt EPICS was meeting that challenge. The Gordon prize is given annually for “innovation in engineering and technology education” and carries a $500,000 award. And it’s not the first the program has received.
Congressional Reorganization: IT Policy Implications
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaWith a new Congress comes a new organization of congressional committees and memberships. We’ve covered the reorganization of the Appropriations committees and its impact on science funding. USACM’s Cameron Wilson has a great writeup on some of the other IT policy implications on USACM’s Technology Policy Weblog. It’s a good look at the new congressional landscape for intellectual property, privacy, and security issues.
Update: (3/2) Fixed the link to Cameron’s post.
New NSF Liability?
/In: Funding /by Peter HarshaNSF is facing a tough budget year (as we’ve noted). They’re requesting a slight increase in funding — about 2.4 percent for FY 2006 — but it turns out most of the increase will go to fund the operation of some former Coast Guard icebreakers, as well as hiring some long-awaited new staff. Now news comes that a NSF-owned ship, the research vessel Maurice Ewing, apparently ran aground off the coast of Mexico this week and damaged a coral reef. The Mexican government is talking about “substantial fines” to NSF as a result of the accident and are threatening to seize the ship to ensure the fines are paid.
The story is only just starting to play out, but it bears some watching. Because the amount of increase planned for the agency budget is so small, a fine need not be terribly substantial to result in cuts to existing research budgets. And it wouldn’t be the first time NSF’s legal issues threatened to impact the Foundation’s research budget….
Anyway, keep it here for details….
Update: It’s been suggested that because this is an international incident, perhaps the State Department will take care of it. That sounds plausible to me. But I’d love to hear from anyone with more detailed information. harsha [a t] cra . org.
2004 Turing Award to Cerf, Kahn
/In: People /by Peter HarshaThe Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) — a CRA-affiliated organization — has named Vint Cerf and CRA Board Member Bob Kahn the winners of the 2004 A.M. Turing Award for pioneering work on the design and implementation of the Internet’s basic communications protocols.
Here’s ACM’s press release.
More news coverage at the New York Times.
Busy Day: Hearing and Press Conference
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaLots going on today. The House Science Committee will hold the first of its hearings on the FY 2006 Science Budget today at 11 am. Scheduled to appear are:
It’s always a little depressing to listen to directors of the science agencies forced to defend the lean budgets they’ve been saddled with, but for those who want to watch, the hearing will be webcast starting at 11 am today. Here’s the hearing charter (pdf).
Also happening today is a press conference hosted by the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation — a coalition of industry and academic groups advocating for support of the physical sciences and engineering. The Task Force is releasing a series of benchmarks for measuring U.S. global competitiveness in research and innovation. Scheduled to appear at the press conference today at 1 pm are:
All will make the case for strengthening federal investments in science and engineering research, emphasizing the impact of those investments on long-term economic growth and prosperity.
The strength of this particular coalition, as can be seen above, is the strong participation of the high-tech companies and industry associations — who have some influence in the current administration — along with the academic groups (CRA is a member of the task force).
I’ll have more coverage of the benchmarks, as well as some other comments after the event this afternoon.
Update: (2/16 6:30pm EST) – The Task Force press conference was remarkably well-attended — the 70-person capacity room was filled, with people lining the walls. It appears a good number of attendees were actually press, too. I’ll be posting links to coverage of the event here as I come across them.
For now, here is the official Benchmarks report (pdf). And the accompanying press release (pdf).
Reuters is already out with the story.
NY Times Applauds Improvements to Student Visa Process
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaJust a quick note to point out an editorial in today’s New York Times commending the State Department for finally “bringing some sanity” to the student visa issue. CRA has been urging this sort of reform since it became clear shortly after 9/11 that it was having a real impact on our member institutions. Thanks should go to AAAS, AAU and the National Academies — some of the real heavyweight academic associations — for moving the issue forward.