CRA-I Blog

The CRA-I Blog frequently shares news, timely information about the computing research industry community, and items of interest to the general community. Subscribe to blog emails here to stay connected.

Heather Stephens (Oracle) Joins CRA-Industry Council

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CRA-Industry (CRA-I) is thrilled to share that Heather Stephens (Oracle) is now a member of the CRA-I Council. Heather joins a dynamic group of Council members, led by CRA-I Council Chair Divesh Srivastava (AT&T), who are dedicated to collaborating with the CRA-I Steering Committee. Together, they will steer the direction of future committees, engage with the community, and drive towards the goals of CRA-I.

“Heather is excited about shaping computing curricula in universities to be responsive to evolving trends and the needs of industry, and we look forward to Heather enabling CRA-I to strengthen these bonds between industry and academia,” said Srivastava.

Heather Stephens is a Senior Director at Oracle Corporation. She started her career in physics research at NASA and DOE working on large scale data models and analysis for satellites and environmental research prototypes and devices. She switched over to high tech to advance technology for real world use and be closer to the people that use it. She has spent the bulk of her career working in various startups as well as larger companies like Microsoft on products ranging from language development to IDEs to various Cloud platform/services to Connected Cars. She is actively engaged with the Leadership Institute at her alma mater, Montana State University, to foster innovation and technical leadership by creating an interdisciplinary science and technology extracurricular program. This experience led her to take a role at Oracle to build out a program that supports the education sector in advancing to modern Java. She is learning many things about the challenges educators face and how difficult it is to stay abreast of changes in modern technology. She wants to be a force for good to develop methods for tech and education to stay current, so students are excited about coding and so they have the necessary knowledge to build the next wave of technology that helps the world.

Please help the industry research community by continuing to nominate outstanding colleagues for the CRA-I Council. Read more here and send nominations to industryinfo@cra.org.

Welcome, Heather!

CRA-I Co-Chair Ben Zorn Elected as 2023 AAAS Fellow

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This post benefited from contributions by Petruce Jean-Charles, Communications Associate for the Computing Community Consortium (CCC).

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2023 Fellows! Fellows are elected each year by their peers serving on the Council of AAAS, the organization’s member-run governing body. The honor recognizes diverse accomplishments, including pioneering research, leadership within a given field, teaching and mentoring, fostering collaborations and advancing public understanding of science.

Among the 2023 Fellows is CRA-Industry’s Co-Chair Ben Zorn (Microsoft Research)! Zorn has served as one of the inaugural co-chairs of CRA-I since its inception in 2021, spearheading a number of workshops, roundtables, and working groups to really grow the committee to what it is today.

“My whole career has been fed by that energy and I have been extremely privileged to work first with incredible colleagues at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and for the last 25 years with friends and colleagues at Microsoft,” Zorn said. “Those collaborations have resulted in both academic research and product impact that I am very proud of. Along the way I was again fortunate to become deeply involved in professional service activities at ACM SIGPLAN and with the CRA. It is for both my research and professional service that AAAS chose to recognize me as a Fellow.  It is a lifelong dream to receive such recognition and I give much of the credit for my accomplishments to the people I’ve been so fortunate to work with over the years.”

Other 2023 Fellows include two Computing Community Consortium (CCC) council members Michela Taufer and Holly Yanco. Congratulations to all the Fellows on their significant achievements! To see the full list of Fellows visit the AAAS page.

Register to attend CRA-I’s GenAI for Research and Science Roundtable on May 1st!

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The Computing Research Association-Industry (CRA-I) is hosting a virtual roundtable event on May 1st, from 3-4:30 PM ET, focusing on Generative AI (GenAI) for Research and Science. Please register to attend here.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is at the forefront of technological advancement and has the potential to transform and accelerate research across diverse fields. The goal of this roundtable is to discuss examples of new frontiers of GenAI in both academia and industry, consider the impact on scientific discovery and the R&D community, and discuss how to ensure responsible use and development. The roundtable will look at use cases from various fields such as biomedical, energy, and materials science. The aim is to inspire and enlighten the broad research community, while emphasizing the importance of caution to ensure that advancements benefit everyone.

Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of this transformative conversation! Please register to attend here.