The CRA Bulletin frequently shares news, timely information about CRA initiatives, and items of interest to the general community. Subscribe to the RSS feed to stay connected.
The Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship recognizes emerging leaders in the field of computing who have exceptional talent for research and innovation. Qualifying faculty must have received their terminal degree in May 2016 or later, and their research must be closely related to the general research areas carried out by Microsoft Research. These full-time faculty members must also conduct research, advise graduate students, and teach in the classroom in North or South America. Provisions of the award include $100,000 USD awarded annually for two years starting in the fall of 2021.
The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2021 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award. The deadline has been extended to February 8.
CRA-WP is accepting applications for two programs: Scholarships for Women Studying Information Security and Distributed Experiences for Undergraduates. Nominations are due March 31 for two award programs: Skip Ellis Early Career Award and Anita Borg Early Career Award.
The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) recently elected its 2021 Fellows. The AAAI Fellows program recognizes individuals who have made significant, sustained contributions — usually over at least a ten-year period — to the field of artificial intelligence. Three individuals involved with CRA were among those elected Fellows this year – Ayanna Howard, Chad Jenkins and Holly Yanco.
CRA welcomes Forrest Shull as a new Board Member. Shull is President of IEEE-CS and replaces Greg Byrd as one of the IEEE-CS representatives on the CRA Board, serving along with Leila De Floriani.
This updated work follows a full study released in November 2020, on faculty hiring in Computer Science for hires starting in 2021. That work analyzed hiring based on ads through mid-November 2020 and found significant decreases in the number of institutions searching and the number of positions being sought. This updated work considers ads through the end of December 2020 and is intended to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on whether searches have been delayed or simply will not materialize this hiring season.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is broadening its commitment to young scientists through a new Information Innovation Office (I2O) PostDoc Fellowship Program focused on postdoctoral researchers in the field of computer science with grants sized to support each fellow for up to two years.
CRA welcomes Arvind Krishnamurthy as a new Board Member. Krishnamurthy is the Vice President of the USENIX Board of Directors and replaces Brian Noble as the USENIX representative on the CRA Board. Noble joined the CRA Board in 2017, and CRA thanks him for his term of service.
The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Virtual Pre‐Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2021. The event will be held on Friday, March 12, 2021 from 1:00 – 5:00 PM EST. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda. 2020 event information is available here.
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2021 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. This year’s nominees are a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several are authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others have made presentations at major conferences, and some have produced software artifacts that were in widespread use.
CRA Board Member Timothy Pinkston is featured in this week’s “People of ACM”. In the Q&A, Pinkston discusses topics such as what prompted him to establish his research group, deadlock-free adaptive routing techniques, the importance of CISE’s Expeditions in Computing program, and efforts to broaden participation in computing.
To fulfill its mission, the CCC needs visionary leaders — people with great ideas, sound judgment, and the willingness to work collaboratively to see things through to completion. The Council is composed of 20 researchers representing the breadth and diversity of computing today.
CRA welcomes Timothy M. Pinkston as a new Board Member. Pinkston replaces Mark D. Hill as an academic member on the Board. Hill recently moved into industry with a position at Microsoft as Partner Hardware Architect with Azure, requiring him to step down from the Board. We would like to thank Hill for his term of service on the CRA Board.
The IEEE Computer Society Build Your Career Webinar Series focuses on topics that help you hone your professional skills. Webinars focus on topics that include effective communication, tips for email writing, personal brand management, career transition, interviewing skills, and more. New topics are covered each month. You are invited to Solutions Thinking 101, which takes […]
This work uses the same methodology as previous work to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised tenure-track searches for the current hiring season. This work also provides an opportunity to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty hiring in Computer Science for hires starting in 2021.
IEEE recently named its 2021 class of newly elevated Fellows. IEEE Fellow is a distinction reserved for select IEEE members whose extraordinary accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest are deemed fitting of this prestigious grade elevation. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elevated to Fellows.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2020 Fellows. The honor recognizes diverse accomplishments, including pioneering research, leadership within a given field, teaching and mentoring, fostering collaborations and advancing public understanding of science. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows.
Part 2 of the CMD-IT Standing Against Racial Injustice conversation brings together a group of Black industry tech professionals for a breadth of conversation on how we create the change we want to see and how Commanding Our Voices drives Inclusion, Innovation and Impact to our community, society and the nation.
Undergraduate enrollments in CS have grown considerably and continue to grow. Yet opportunities for undergraduates to engage in CS research have not grown proportionally. Engaging undergraduates in research has tremendous benefits for students, and is critical to the health of the North American CS PhD pipeline.
The CRA’s Education committee has released a new report documenting best practices and concrete suggestions for departments wishing to expand undergraduate research opportunities in CS (without overwhelming their faculty!). The report is based on a broad examination of existing structured research programs at universities across North America. It compiles the main challenges departments face in implementing undergraduate research programs, and provides best practices for addressing these challenges.
As part of the rollout of the 2020 Computing Research Associations (CRA) Quadrennial Papers, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to publish the final group of papers around the “Artificial Intelligence (AI)” theme, including papers on AI being deployed at the edge of the network, cooperation between AI and humans, new approaches to understanding AI’s impact on society, AI-driven simulators, and the next generation of AI. The Quadrennial Papers are intended to help inform the computing research community and those who craft science policy about opportunities in computing research to help address national priorities. This group of papers is the final installation of the CCC’s contribution, in addition to the previous themes of Broad Computer Science, Core Computer Science, and Socio-Technical Computing.
Applications are now open for the 2021 CRA-WP Graduate Cohort Workshops.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Women will likely be a virtual workshop on April 23-24, 2021. Apply here.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills – The IDEALS Workshop (formerly the Grad Cohort Workshop for URMD) will be a virtual workshop on March 11-12, 2021. Apply here.
CRA-WP has renamed the Grad Cohort for URMD Workshop to the Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills – The IDEALS Workshop.
The ACM Prize in Computing recognizes an early to mid-career fundamental, innovative contribution in computing that exemplifies the greatest achievements in the discipline.
With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), NSF draws attention to the opportunity for supplemental funding to help researchers, who are confronted with a short-term increase in dependent care responsibilities, ensure that the research activities supported by an NSF award can continue.
The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Highlights series is now in its third year of featuring outstanding undergraduate researchers from universities across North America. It is one of the many CRA-E activities that supports the computing research pipeline by honoring undergraduate research and promoting graduate education and research careers in computing fields.
Each article describes the journey of a successful undergraduate researcher, from finding research opportunities to disseminating their work. The highlights series features students from the Finalists and Honorable Mentions of the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher competition, with the goal of offering guidance to the next generation of undergraduate researchers and to share how research has shaped their career aspirations. CRA-E chooses a diverse set of students for the highlights series to reflect the wide range of undergraduate institutions, research areas, and paths to research.
The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting nominations for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in a computing field to contribute to CRA-E projects, to network with computer science education advocates on the committee, and to engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.
Today CRA released its third set of 2020 Quadrennial Papers, part of a series of white papers produced though its subcommittees, exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Today’s release focused on papers around the themes of Socio-Technical Computing and Diversity & Education.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate just announced a new newsletter that will share “periodic updates about CISE and NSF broadly, including up-to-date information about [their] newest programs and activities.” The first newsletter released today highlights three recent major activities that the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its committees were heavily involved in.
As part of the rollout of the 2020 Computing Research Association’s (CRA) Quadrennial Papers, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to publish the second group of papers around “Broad Computer Science,” including papers on pandemic informatics, infrastructure for AI, High Performance Computing (HPC) and Quantum, robotics in the workforce and a new research ecosystem for secure computing. The Quadrennial Papers are intended to help inform the computing research community and those who craft science policy about opportunities in computing research to help address national priorities. As part of CCC’s contribution, in addition to the theme of Core Computer Science from last week, two more sets of Quadrennial Papers organized around the themes of Artificial Intelligence and Socio-Technical Computing will be released over the next several weeks.
Numerous events of 2020 have placed a national spotlight on the inequities and inequalities that are present in K-16 education and society at large. In this conversation, Dr. Nicki Washington discusses how her personal journey in computing influenced her research on identity in computing, including the development of her “Race, Gender, Class, and Computing” course and why “teaching is political.”
Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member William “Bill” Gropp has been voted IEEE Computer Society 2021 president-elect and will serve as president in 2022!
Today the Computing Research Association (CRA) released the first of more than a dozen planned white papers produced through its subcommittees, exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Called Quadrennial Papers, the white papers attempt to portray a broad picture of computing research detailing potential research directions, challenges, and recommendations for policymakers and the computing research community. The release of the 2020 Quadrennial Papers covers five thematic areas: Core Computer Science, Broad Computing, Socio-Technical Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Diversity & Education.
To identify and broadly engage the next generation of computer science researchers, the Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions (CAHSI), an NSF INCLUDES Alliance, piloted a national virtual Research Experience for Undergraduates (vREU) during the summer of 2020. Funded by an NSF RAPID grant, the pilot provided undergraduate research experiences for 50 students and 20 faculty drawn from 20 colleges and universities widely distributed throughout the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico. The program used the Affinity Research Group (ARG) model to guide faculty mentors throughout the experience. ARG is a CAHSI signature practice with a focus on deliberate, structured faculty and student research skills development. At weekly meetings, Drs. Morreale, Villa, and Gates discussed and provided resources for specific skills that were appropriate at a specific point in time of a student’s research experience. Faculty mentors put skills development into immediate practice throughout their summer research program.
Published online each fall, the CRA Academic Member Book highlights institutions that are member departments of CRA. Each academic member department is invited to submit a one page pdf about their department. Thanks to all the departments that took the time to prepare a submission.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) are calling upon the academic community to create and submit Departmental BPC Plans to BPCnet.org.
Departmental BPC Plans are important because they help departments:
reaffirm their commitment to equity and inclusion,
identify and organize their BPC related goals and activities,
and support PIs in their department who are submitting CISE proposals requiring a Project BPC Plan at the time of award.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) have named CRA Board Member Vivek Sarkar of Georgia Institute of Technology as the recipient of the 2020 ACM/IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. Sarkar is recognized for “foundational technical contributions to the area of programmability and productivity in parallel computing, as well as leadership contributions to professional service, mentoring, and teaching.”
The Computing Research Association (CRA) is hosting the third workshop in its series of Departmental BPC Plan workshops starting on October 29, 2020. All departments with faculty submitting CISE proposals are welcome to attend this workshop.
The structure for this workshop is as follows:
Presentation Day – October 29, 2020
Writing Day #1 – November 12, 2020 (optional)
Writing Day #2 – December 3, 2020 (optional)
On the presentation day, academic departments will learn about the NSF CISE requirements and expectations for BPC Plans. The workshop will also cover in-depth discussions on BPC Plan components and have BPC experts available for Q&A.
The two writing days are optional, but strongly encouraged. For each writing day, attendees will dedicate a few hours to writing a BPC plan with available assistance from BPC experts. Of importance, you are not required to attend the presentation day if you would like to attend the writing days. For example, previous workshop participants could use these days to further develop their drafts.
Click here to sign up for the workshop. The deadline to sign up for the presentation day is 11:59 pm (ET), October 25, 2020. Those signing up for the writing days only will be accepted on a rolling basis. All notifications and action items related to the workshop will be sent in advance.
The National Science Foundation is pleased to accept nominations for the 2021 Alan T. Waterman Award. Each year, the Foundation bestows the Waterman Award to recognize the talent, creativity, and influence of a singular young researcher. The award consists of a $1,000,000 prize, a medal, a certificate, and a trip to Washington, DC, to receive the award. For details about the Waterman Award’s history, the nomination procedure and the selection criteria please visit http://www.nsf.gov/od/waterman/waterman.jsp.
The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. It recognizes those who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
Applications are now open for the 2020 CRA-WP Early and Mid-Career Mentoring Workshop! The purpose of the workshop is to provide historically underserved groups in computing research and education with support to further develop your career. Apply today to join sessions on career tracks in education, research and industry/government laboratories, participate in group mentoring, and build one-on-one mentoring relationships with senior researchers. Deadline: October 12.
CRA Board Member and CCC Chair Emeritus Mark D. Hill recently held a virtual presentation to CRA staff on “How Computing May Change Our World.” The talk is a great introduction on current topics facing computing and is approachable for audiences who do not have a computer science background. Much of the work discussed is based on visioning work Hill collaborated on when he was Chair of the CCC.
The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) recently published a webinar featuring the Data Buddies Survey (DBS). This webinar details some of the background of the Data Buddies Survey, tips for good response rates, benefits for participating departments, and requirements for participating departments. This webinar is designed for a broad audience, including prospective DBS participants. You can view the webinar by clicking here.
The 2020 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As has been our recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.
This past spring, when hiring practices were rapidly changing due to COVID-19, the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its Computing Community Consortium (CCC) launched the CIFellows 2020 program, with strong support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program aims to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent and soon-to-be PhD graduates in computing. This effort was inspired by the CRA/CCC’s NSF-funded Computing Innovation Fellows Programs with cohorts starting 2009, 2010, and 2011, which funded a total of 127 fellows after the 2008 recession.
Undergraduate computing departments have long suffered from issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). However, there has been, to date, no large-scale effort that focuses on addressing issues of systemic racism and bias that directly impact not only students from minoritized groups, but also faculty (as issues of race, gender, and intersectionality impact hiring, […]
Former CRA Board Member, Moshe Vardi from Rice University will present “Lessons from COVID-19: Efficiency vs Resilience,” as part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Distinguished Lecture series on September 17, 2020 from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM ET.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
For nearly 50 years, the Computing Research Association (CRA) has brought the leadership of the computing research community together every other year at Snowbird, UT to discuss community issues. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted our plans to hold an in-person event this year, just like it has disrupted much of our way of life, both professionally and personally. After canceling the in-person event, CRA quickly pivoted to provide the conference in an online format with specialized content addressing the current environment and challenges during these unprecedented times. CRA Board members Ran Libeskind-Hadas and James Allan stepped up as chair and co-chair of the Virtual Conference.
Conference sessions provided a community forum to share best practices for continuing to navigate the unpredictable challenges imposed during the coronavirus pandemic and addressing community issues around race, equity, and equality. The conference videos are now available here and lightning talk videos are available here.
The National Science Board (NSB) has named computer scientist and disability advocate Richard Ladner as the 2020 recipient of its Public Service Award. This award is granted to individuals and groups that have contributed substantially to increasing public understanding of science and engineering.
Recent trends such as increasing industry demands for technical talent from academia, as well as changes in the academic environment with increased industry interactions have prompted the need for a fresh look at the relationships between academia and industry. A CRA ad hoc committee on Industry/Academia Interactions was studied these trends and determined how CRA can have an impact.
CRA conducted two surveys about the COVID-19 disruption in summer 2020. CRA Director of Statistics and Evaluation Betsy Bizot recently presented these results at the ACM Education Advisory Committee Meeting.
CRA is sad to report that former CRA and CRA-W Board Member Frances “Fran” Allen passed away yesterday. Fran spent her career advancing the field of computing and inspired generations of technologists. She was a computing pioneer – the first woman to receive the A.M. Turing Award (2006) and the first woman to be named an IBM Fellow in 1989. Fran served as a speaker for CRA-W’s Discipline-Specific Mentoring program in 2008 and Career Mentoring Workshop in 2005.
Join the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT) this Friday, August 7 (1:30 – 2:30 pm CT) for a panel discussion examining racial injustice from the perspective of Black professionals in computing. Panelists will provide their stories of overcoming racial injustices to get to where they are today. They will also share advice and insights about systemic changes needed for equity and inclusion. Register here.
Eve Riskin from the University of Washington, recently received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM). Riskin is Associate Dean of Diversity and Access in the College of Engineering, Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Faculty Director of the ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change.
CRA has recently hired Colin Karnes as a research assistant for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). In this role, Colin supports CERP activities, as they relate to CERP’s research and administrative tasks.
Prior to joining CRA, Colin worked as a graduate research assistant at the Department of Public and Nonprofit Studies at Georgia Southern University. Colin holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Georgia Southern University (2019) and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences from the University at Buffalo (2014). He has experience in public education, nonprofit administration, and corporate governance. In his free time, Colin enjoys reading, volunteering, and exploring Washington, DC.
CRA is dedicated to creating an environment that is more welcoming, just, and equitable to all. In the Communications of the ACM article, “CS Teachers, It’s (Past) Time To Learn About Race,” Mark Guzdial encourages CS teachers to make changes to CS education that ensure everyone is welcome and supported.
In this workshop, academic departments will learn about the NSF CISE requirements and expectations for BPC Plans. The workshop will also cover in-depth discussions on BPC Plan components, have BPC experts available for Q&A, and provide time for departments to discuss ideas and make future plans. Following the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to receive additional feedback as they continue to develop and refine their plans.
AnitaB.org, The National Center for Women & Technology (NCWIT) and the STARS Computing Corps (STARS) are conducting a survey to understand the impact of the global pandemic on the conditions of work and educational environments related to computing and technical degree programs and professions. Through the Investigating Compounding Impacts of Racism & COVID-19 on Learning & Employment in Computing & Technology (CIRCLE-CT) Study, we are gathering responses from individuals across the computing and technical ecosystem including K-12 teachers; post-secondary program leaders, educators and students; and individuals in the computing and technical workforce and tech startup communities.
We invite you to participate in the 10-minute survey by clicking below. There will be no compensation for participating in this research study. However, with your consent, we will enter you in a drawing for one of four $50 Amazon gift cards or one of 45 $10 Amazon gift cards. For more information about this study, please contact the Principal Investigator, Dr. Quincy K. Brown, at QuincyB@AnitaB.org. The survey will be open until July 31.
Nominations are now open for the 2021 Microsoft Research Ada Lovelace Fellowship and Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship. Doctoral students must be nominated by the department chair’s office in their field of study by August 14, 2020. Students will then be contacted to submit their proposals by September 21, 2020.
Experts including computing researchers are prized by the federal government. With assignments in federal agencies, on Capitol Hill and in the judicial branch, AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellows (STPF) are on the front line of vital issues that impact society. The STPF fellowship program is the premier opportunity for outstanding scientists and engineers to learn first-hand about policymaking and contribute their STEM-informed perspective to American government.
CRA is dedicated to creating an environment that is more welcoming, just, and equitable to all. Many want to take action in this area but are not sure how. Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones wrote an article, “What Can CS Departments Do?” detailing a set of recommendations for computing departments to improve inclusiveness: Some of my recommendations […]
On Monday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) disclosed its intent to remove its current, temporary exemptions on F-1 and M-1 visas. The exemptions allowed students on visas to remain in the USA during the spring and summer even if they were taking all their classes online because of the pandemic. The removal of the exemptions would mean that any students on student visas who are not taking at least some classes in person will cease to be in compliance. Thus, if they are enrolled in colleges or universities that will move their fall classes online for safety of their community, those students would be forced to either (a) transfer to another institution where they must take classes in person, despite any health risk, or (b) leave the country. It also means that foreign students accepted for fall at those institutions will not be granted visas to enter the USA.
July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. We welcome four new members to our board of directors: Alex Aiken, Cindy Bethel, Liz Bradley and Fatma Özcan. Aiken, Bethel, and Özcan were elected earlier this year, and their terms run from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023. Also beginning July 1, Bradley replaces Mark Hill as the CCC Chair and representative on the board. Hill continues on the CRA board in an elected position.
Retiring from the board as of June 30, are Susan Davidson, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, and Barbara Ryder. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
To support departments developing a Departmental BPC Plan, the Computing Research Association (CRA) will host a series of workshops funded by NSF. The first two workshops in this series will be held virtually on July 13-14, 2020 and August 6-7, 2020.
These two workshops will present the same content on BPC plans, and include hands-on activities and real-time feedback for writing these plans. At the end of the workshop, the participants will have their own draft Departmental BPC Plan. Following the workshops, the participants will also have the opportunity to receive additional feedback as they continue to refine their BPC plans.
With this particularly challenging academic year coming to an end, and the upcoming NSF CISE program submissions, it is a good time to update everyone on the NSF CISE Pilot Program for Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plans. All Medium and Large CISE Core Programs, Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC), and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) project proposals require an approved BPC Plan by the time of award. CRA and NCWIT have led an effort to develop the BPCnet.org portal as a resource for the community to assist in developing Departmental BPC Plans and Individual BPC Plans.
You are invited to participate in the NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Proposal Writing Workshop, to be held as an interactive online meeting on Friday, September 18th from 1pm – 5pm EST. This event is intended for PIs working in CISE-relevant research areas planning on submitting an NRT proposal for the fiscal year 2021 competition.
The amount of pain and suffering we are witnessing and feeling is only a snapshot of a broader social reality. We, and everyone before us, have had a role in arriving at where we are today. As such, it is of paramount importance to step up and take a stance. It is our responsibility and a moral imperative to not stand by and simply witness the events around us. We must collectively find our voice and reject racism and inequality. Silence perpetuates, doubt reinforces, and rationalization of incident after incident only compounds the pain so many in our society continue to endure.
Important notice to all applicants: the application deadline has been extended by 5 days to Wednesday, June 17, 2020 at 11:59 pm EDT in recognition of the unrest and protests across the nation. If possible, please try to begin your application through Task 2, Academic Information, by the initial deadline of June 12, 2020 at 11:59 pm EDT.
CRA-WP is honored to present the recipients of the inaugural Skip Ellis Early Career Award and the 2020 Anita Borg Early Career Award. Tawanna Dillahunt of the University of Michigan and Michel A. Kinsy of Boston University have been selected as the Skip Ellis Early Career Award recipients. Olga Russakovsky of Princeton University has been selected as the Anita Borg Early Career Award recipient.
Applications are now open for the Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Program for 2020.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) recently announced the election of new officers and members at large. CRA Board Member and Vice Chair Nancy M. Amato has been elected for a four-year Member-at-Large term. She will serve from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2024. Additionally, CCC Council Member Elisa Bertino has been elected Secretary/Treasurer of ACM for a two-year term from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020. Bertino is the Samuel D. Conte Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University.
After twelve years of sustained growth in undergraduate enrollment, there may be signs of a slowdown in that there are, on average, fewer new undergraduate majors in 2019-20 than there were in 2018-19. Nevertheless, the average number of CS majors continued its rise in 2018-19, both in U.S. CS departments and overall.
The following is a letter to the community from Margaret Martonosi (Assistant Director) and Erwin Gianchandani (Deputy Assistant Director) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE). The CCC announced the CIFellows 2020 project last week and highlighted the upcoming 5/26 webinar earlier this week.
We will be hosting a one-hour CIFellow 2020 Informational Webinar on Tuesday, May 26th at 3:00PM ET. There will be a brief 10-minute presentation on the program, followed by a Q&A. Presenters will be CCC Chair Mark D. Hill and CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura. Please register for the webinar here. Please note that the webinar will be recorded and posted on the CIFellow 2020 webpageafter the event.
Congratulations to CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura (Georgia Tech) for being appointed a Regents’ Professor by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. Regents’ Professorships are granted to outstanding tenured, full professors, based on excellence in research and contributions to their profession and to Georgia Tech.
Vijay Kumar from the University of Pennsylvania has been selected as the recipient of the prestigious 2020 IEEE Robotics and Automation Technical Field Award. He was honored for “Contributions to cooperative robotics; networked mobile manipulation systems, particularly unmanned aerial vehicles; and leadership in robotics research, policy, and education.” CRA provided funding support to Kumar when he spent a year at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Obama administration.
ACM has announced a special category of the ACM Gordon Bell Prize to recognize outstanding research achievements that use high performance computing applications to understand and combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the ACM Gordon Bell Special Prize for High Performance Computing-Based COVID-19 Research. Financial support of the $10,000 cash prize that accompanies the award is provided by Gordon Bell, a pioneer in high performance computing and parallel computing.
In advance of the 2019 CRA Taulbee Report, which will be published in the May 2020 issue of CRN next week, we’d like to share a preview of the degree, enrollment, faculty and diversity numbers for bachelor’s and doctoral level programs in the departments responding to the survey.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) have come together to launch a conference series on the Foundations of Data Science. The inaugural event, the ACM-IMS Interdisciplinary Summit on the Foundations of Data Science, took place in San Francisco in 2019. Starting in 2020, they will have an annual […]
The Computing Research Association extends a heartfelt congratulations to former board member and CRA-W Co-Chair Leah H. Jamieson for receiving the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal to honor her “contributions to the promotion, innovation, and inclusivity of engineering education.”
Recently, the National Academy of Sciences announced the election of 120 members and 26 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. One of the newly elected members is Jennifer Rexford, who is a Computing Community Consortium Council member and former CRA board member.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) invites the academic computing community to complete a brief survey about the broadening participation in computing (BPC) plans required for proposals submitted to some programs of the NSF CISE Directorate.
After careful consideration of the current and projected situation surrounding the pandemic, CRA’s 2020 Conference at Snowbird planning committee has unfortunately decided to cancel the in-person conference scheduled to take place at Snowbird, Utah, July 21-23, 2020.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is aware of the disruption to undergraduate employment and education opportunities caused by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. We understand that many internships are being canceled, leaving students without expected opportunities this Summer. The Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) previously issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL; NSF 20-016) expressing interest in funding supplements to active CISE awards for Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), consistent with NSF’s REU Sites and Supplements solicitation (NSF 19-582). In light of COVID-19, and to enable the CISE research community to provide additional opportunities to engage undergraduates who are US citizens and permanent residents in research pathways, CISE reiterates this interest via this DCL.
The American Academy of Arts& Sciences recently announced that more than 250 outstanding individuals have been elected to the Academy in 2020. Three former CRA board members and a council member were among those honored.
Daniela Rus, a former Computing Community Consortium Council member, has been appointed to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
From my calendar, March 4, 2020: Working on a Mobicom submission, meeting a faculty candidate one-on-one, meeting with two students for an ongoing research project, meeting with the undergraduate lead for the Bits of Good student organization, talking by phone to a department chair about a two-body opportunity. Anticipating my younger daughter coming home for spring break. Going to yoga.
4 weeks later: BlueJeans presentations by three project participants, BlueJeans faculty candidate talk, Skype research meeting with two students on same ongoing research project, Zoom call about CRA strategic planning, BlueJeans student presentation for Bits of Good organization, one more BlueJeans meeting. Daughter is home for good. Yoga by YouTube.
Much is the same. Surprisingly much is the same. But also everything is different.
CRA-WP is excited to announce that the deadline for the 2020 CRA-WP GHC Research Scholars has been extended to May 15, 2020.
Encourage an undergraduate student to apply for an opportunity to attend the 2020 Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC 20)!
Program Description: This CRA-WP program provides guidance to research-interested undergraduate women to navigate the vast offerings at the Grace Hopper Celebration Conference (GHC) and opportunities to meet and interact with students and mentors with similar interests in small-group settings. The program will include gatherings on the first and last days of GHC, as well as research-focused activities that all Research Scholars will be required to attend.
CRA members have elected three new members to its Board of Directors: Alex Aiken, Cindy Bethel and Fatma Özcan. Nancy Amato, Carla Brodley, Dan Grossman and Kim Hazelwood were re-elected to the CRA board. Mary Hall and Mark Hill, who held non-elected positions on the board, have also been elected. All of their terms run from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023. CRA would like to thank everyone who agreed to run this year.
There have also been changes to the appointed members to the board. Kathleen Fisher has been appointed the new ACM representative, replacing Mary Hall and joining Alexander Wolf. Beginning July 1, Liz Bradley will replace Mark Hill as the CCC Chair and representative on the board.
Retiring from the board as of June 30, are Susan Davidson, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, and Barbara Ryder. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
Submissions are now open for an international program of graduate fellowships in computational and data science. The ACM SIGHPC Computational and Data Science Fellowships were created to increase the diversity of students pursuing graduate degrees in data science and computational science, including women as well as students from racial/ethnic backgrounds that have not traditionally participated in the computing field. The program will support students pursuing degrees at institutions anywhere in the world.
ACM has opened the ACM Digital Library to all. For the next three months, there will be no fees assessed for accessing or downloading work published by ACM.
CRA has recently hired Maddy Hunter as a program associate for the Computing Community Consortium (CCC). In this role, she supports CCC staff and council members by handling administrative and logistical matters surrounding meetings, conferences and workshops.
CRA continues to monitor the situation concerning COVID-19 and its potential impact on our upcoming CRA’s Conference at Snowbird, July 21-23, 2020. At the moment, the circumstances remain too uncertain for us to make any decisions about whether the conference will take place as planned.
The Computing Research Association today announced it has selected the CARES movement – the Committee to Aid Reporting on Discrimination and Harassment Policy Violations – as the recipient of the 2020 CRA Distinguished Service Award for positively transforming the computing research community rapidly and fundamentally. CARES provides a resource for helping people experiencing issues related to discrimination, harassment, or bullying.
Today ACM named Patrick M. (Pat) Hanrahan and Edwin E. (Ed) Catmull recipients of the 2019 ACM A.M. Turing Award. They are recognized for fundamental contributions to 3-D computer graphics, and the revolutionary impact of these techniques on computer-generated imagery (CGI) in filmmaking and other applications.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor the CRA Taulbee Survey with the 2020 Service to CRA Award in recognition of 50 years of providing an invaluable resource to CRA as well as to the computing community.
The Computing Research Association today announced Carla Ellis as the recipient of the 2020 CRA A. Nico Habermann Award. For more than 30 years, Ellis has worked tirelessly to address diversity at all stages of the computing education pipeline. She has contributed significantly to initiatives and organizations dedicated to increasing participation of women and under-represented groups in computing research, including Systers, the CRA Committee on Widening Participation (CRA-WP), and the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT).
CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected two 2020 CRA-E Graduate Fellows – Ian Ludden from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Jean Salac from the University of Chicago.
The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 6, 2020. This workshop will be held at the new headquarters of the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, VA. The goal of this workshop is to introduce junior CAREER-eligible faculty to the NSF CAREER program and help them to prepare their CAREER proposals to target CISE programs. Attendees will have the opportunity to improve their skills in proposal writing, as well as to interact with NSF program directors from different CISE divisions (CCF, CNS, IIS and OAC) and recent NSF CAREER awardees. The workshop is also open to multidisciplinary researchers with a CISE-specific focus, including cyber-infrastructure. The workshop includes presentations and discussions on proposal preparation, experience sharing, a mock panel, and meetings with Program Directors from various research programs within CISE. In order to attend this event, registration is required on or before March 2, 2020. For more information and to register, please visit: https://cisecareerworkshop.web.unc.edu/
CRA is pleased to announce the 2020 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition. Petition nominations must be signed by the Designated Voting Representatives of at least five Constituent Member Organizations that are current in dues payment.
By Meredith Ringel Morris, Sr. Principal Researcher & MSR Dissertation Grant Chair We are currently accepting proposals for the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant through March 30, 2020. You can read more about the grant and find instructions to submit a proposal at http://aka.ms/Dissertation-Grant. We encourage you to share this announcement within your communities either directly with your […]
Recently, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced it has elected 87 new members and 18 international members. Among those elected were two former CRA board members: Joel Emer from NVIDIA and former NSF CISE AD Jim Kurose. Congratulations to all members of the computing community who were recognized.
The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2020 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Lenore Cowen from Tufts University and Samir Khuller from Northwestern University.
These outstanding individuals are being recognized for providing exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of their students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
Leila De Floriani has been appointed to serve as one of the two IEEE-CS representatives on the CRA board of directors. De Floriani joins Greg Byrd and replaces David Ebert on the board. CRA would like to thank Ebert for his contributions during his term of service on the board.
CRA Director of Programs Erik Russell was recently announced the winner of the AccessComputing 2019 Capacity Building Award. The award recognizes individuals whose work and accomplishments have changed the way the world views people with disabilities and their potential to succeed in challenging computing careers and activities.
The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting nominations for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in a computing field to contribute to CRA-E projects, to network with computer science education advocates on the committee, and to engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.
This work uses the same methodology as previous work to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised faculty searches for the current hiring season. While the number of and areas for faculty searches does not necessarily translate into the same for faculty hires, we believe that they provide insight into current and future needs within the discipline.
Alexander Wolf has been appointed to serve as one of the two ACM representatives on the CRA board of directors. Wolf joins Mary Hall and replaces Andrew Sears on the board. CRA would like to thank Sears for his contributions during his term of service on the board.
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2020 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. This year’s nominees are a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several are authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others have made presentations at major conferences, and some have produced software artifacts that were in widespread use.
The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce its newest award, the Skip Ellis Early Career Award, which will recognize outstanding scientists and engineers with exceptional potential for leadership in computing. The award joins the Anita Borg Early Career Award for Women in advancing excellence and equal opportunity in computing research. Nominations for the inaugural Skip Ellis Early Career Award are now open and will close on February 15.
The ACM recently named 58 of its members as ACM Fellows for wide-ranging and fundamental contributions in areas including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, combating cybercrime, quantum computing and wireless networking. CCC Council and CRA-WP Board Member Maria L. Gini, former CRA Board Member Lise Getoor, and former CCC Council Members Elizabeth F. Churchill and Robin R. Murphy were among those honored.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2019 elected Fellows. The Fellows are recognized with this lifetime honor for their extraordinary achievements in advancing science. Fellows are elected annually by the AAAS Council from the list of approved nominations from the Section Steering Groups. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows to the Section on Information, Computing & Communication.
The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Pre‐Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2020. The event will be held on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 from 8:30 AM- 4:00 PM. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.
CRA has recently hired Nicole Beck as a part-time reimbursement specialist, working closely with CRA’s Grant Specialist Jill Hallden to ensure the organization’s bills get paid on time and reimbursements for participants in CRA-sponsored events are processed expeditiously. Prior to joining CRA, Nicole was a stay at home mom while also attending college at George Mason University and Arizona State University. She graduated from Arizona State with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in geography with a specialization in geographic information systems. In her free time, Nicole enjoys all things geography and cartography, spending as much time as possible with her two daughters, as well as discovering new music to listen to.
The biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird is the flagship invitation-only conference for the leadership of the North American computing research community. The upcoming conference will be held July 21-23, 2020 in Snowbird, Utah. The New Chairs Workshop will take place on July 21, 2020.
This work directly follows previous work that analyzed current and future Computer Science needs via advertised tenure-track faculty searches for 2019. This follow-on work looked to understand the relative success of institutions in hiring the tenured/tenure-track faculty in the areas of Computer Science that were being sought.
Recently, ACM named 62 Distinguished Members for outstanding contributions to the field. Several from the CRA community were recognized for outstanding educational contributions to computing, including CRA Board Member and CRA-WP Co-Chair Andrea Danyluk. Congratulations to all!
On September 11, 21 computing researchers from across the country visited Washington, D.C. to make the case for federally funded computing research. The volunteers, traveling from as near as Virginia and Maryland, and as far away as Wyoming and Montana, participated in over 50 House and Senate meetings. 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 reinforced with additional information from CRA, they made the “Federal case” for computing to Members of Congress and their staff. Those Members of Congress now know more about the expertise and interesting (and important) computing work that occurs in their districts and states, and our participants have a sense of just who represents them in Congress. And they’ve hopefully started a lasting dialogue on both sides.
The goal of the upcoming CUE.NEXT workshops — organized by Larry Birnbaum (Northwestern), Susanne Hambrusch (Purdue), and Clayton Lewis (UC Boulder) — is to initiate a national dialog on the role of computing in undergraduate education. Computing educators and CS departments, as well as colleagues and academic units representing other stakeholder disciplines, will work together to define and address the challenges. Three NSF funded workshops are scheduled to take place in Chicago (November 18 and 19), DC (December 5 and 6) and Denver (January 2020).
The ACM Prize in Computing recognizes an early to mid-career fundamental, innovative contribution in computing that exemplifies the greatest achievements in the discipline. The award is given for achievements during the early years of an individual’s career – candidates are typically within 8-16 years of the terminal degree. The award is presented each June at the ACM Awards Banquet and is accompanied by a prize of $250,000.
The eleventh biennial Career Mentoring Workshop will be offered by the Computing Research Association on February 27 and 28, 2020 in Washington, DC. This exciting workshop provides advice and mentoring activities for those starting an academic computing research career. Most attendees are in their first or second year as assistant professors. The workshop, consisting of a series of panels, is interspersed with opportunities to network with senior researchers and representatives from government agencies.
The Computing Research Association seeks your help in recruiting candidates for its Board of Directors. We want individuals who have time, energy, initiative, and resources to work on CRA issues on behalf of the entire CRA community. We have a working Board, and all members are expected to work on community issues.
The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting nominations for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in a computing field to contribute to CRA-E projects, to network with computer science education advocates on the committee, and to engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.
The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. It recognizes those who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
Teaching is hard — and teaching computer science can be even harder. With the growing need for computer science teachers in the classroom and an increased focus on access to computer science education, the role of the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) is more important than ever. With the mission of supporting K–12 teachers in the field, CSTA provides educators with the professional development events and community they need to improve their craft.
At the 2019 Grad Cohort for Women Workshop, more than 400 graduate students spent two days building both professional and support networks, while also attending sessions on how to succeed in graduate school. In three new videos, students, speakers, and sponsor representatives share their thoughts on the program’s impact. Check out these three 2019 Grad […]
Since 2017, the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) has been asking CISE Principal Investigators to include meaningful BPC plans in proposals submitted to a subset of CISE’s research programs. To support departments in preparing for this new effort, teams of 2-3 administrators and faculty members from computing institutions are invited to apply to participate in a workshop focused on Department Plans for Broadening Participation in Computing.
Each year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) recognizes an outstanding young researcher in a field of science or engineering with the Alan T. Waterman Award. Nominations for the 2020 Waterman Award are now being accepted and are due, via https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/honawards/index.jsp, by October 21, 2019.
National Science Foundation Director France Córdova today named former CRA board member, current CRA-WP co-Chair, and current Princeton Computer Science professor Margaret Martonosi as the next head of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate at NSF. Martonosi will assume the role of Assistant Director, CISE on February 1, 2020.
Recently, CRA Board Member and CRA-WP Co-Chair Margaret Martonosi was selected to receive the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) Aristotle Award.
The 2019 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As has been our recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.
It is with great excitement that we share with our friends, colleagues, and broader computing community that CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is now officially CRA Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP).
Last Friday, September 6 was the last day for former CRA Board Member Jim Kurose in his role as Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). CRA was thrilled was when Kurose was appointed to the position, and we appreciate his dedication and service to the community over the years.
As we noted an year ago at this time, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is an important but, from our experience, often overlooked funding opportunity for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) community. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported areas who are pursing full-time, research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. As the deadline of October 22, 2019, approaches for applicants who fall within CISE fields of study, we want to be sure you all – as members of our community – are aware of this opportunity for your undergraduate seniors and first-year graduate students.
As a first step to address recent recruiting challenges in the computing research community, the Computing Research Association (CRA) launched the CV Database initiative in Fall 2018. This initiative provides a database of candidates for academic and industrial/government laboratory research positions. Recruiting continues to be one of the top computing research community challenges. Thus, CRA plans to strengthen the CV Database initiative and take additional actions in 2019-20. The CRA has reviewed usage data from the first year application cycle and made adjustments to improve the user experience and process. The CV Database will re-open for the 2019-20 recruiting season in mid-September 2019. In mid-October 2019, recruiter access to the CV Database will be made available to all CRA academic members. Additionally, industrial and government laboratory CRA member institutions that sponsor Grad Cohort 2020 at the silver level and above will receive access.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
This article examines gender and residency/ethnicity differences in PhD specialty areas as reported to the CRA Taulbee Survey from 2012-2018. The Taulbee Survey is conducted each fall and, among other questions, asks doctoral departments of Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Information for data about each PhD they awarded in the previous academic year. The data on each new PhD includes gender, residency/race/ethnicity, and PhD specialty area. A total of 12,968 PhDs were awarded by Taulbee respondents during the 7 year period from 2012-2018. Of those, the specialty area was listed as Other or Unknown for 3,328. Those individuals are omitted from the analyses described here; individuals where gender was not provided or where residency/ethnicity was listed as Unknown are not included in the analysis by that category.
CRA has recently hired Evelyn Yarzebinski as a research associate for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). In this role, Evelyn supports CERP activities through administrative and research efforts, such as contributing to the CERP website and blog, data management, and analysis.
The annual CRA Data Buddies Survey will open October 2019. If your department is not yet a member, sign up here to learn more about your students and how your department compares to other similar departments.
In 2017, CRA published the Generation CS report on the surge in undergraduate computer science enrollments, based on data gathered through an Enrollments Survey of doctoral and non-doctoral academic units of computer science in fall 2015.Since then, enrollments have continued to grow. In fall 2018, as part of the Taulbee Survey of doctoral departments, CRA included some questions to assess the current impact. Are academic units still struggling, or has the increase become the new normal? What changes have occurred in department resources or policies? What is the observed impact on students and faculty, including student diversity?
Four years ago, I left a tenured faculty position at Grinnell, a selective liberal arts college, to found a brand new computer science program at Whitman, another selective liberal arts college. Since establishing this program, I’ve started to receive mailings not only from my own Ph.D. program, but from a range of graduate programs in computer science and related fields.
If you’re reading this, you probably care about attracting graduate student applicants from institutions like mine. If you don’t, you should: Baccalaureate colleges are second only to “very high research activity universities” in their institutional-yield ratios for graduates who go on to receive a doctorate in science or engineering.
I am writing to share the timeline and process for the strategic planning effort that CRA is undertaking, as well as to highlight some of the opportunities for you to be involved. The ultimate goal of strategic planning is to determine how CRA can best serve its members and the computing research community. Given the many challenges and opportunities, it is imperative that we clearly understand the needs of our members and focus our activities to address those needs.
On Tuesday June 25th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2019 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows to the CRA office. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. At the CRA office, the fellows attended a presentation by Brian Mosley, policy analyst in CRA’s Office of Government Affairs, covering the policy concerns and issues that the association works on and attempts to influence at the federal level.
As many of you know, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has a long history of investing in education and workforce development across all areas of science and engineering, including CISE areas.
The ACM Future of Computing Academy is a new initiative enabling early-career researchers, practitioners, educators, and entrepreneurs to develop a strong and influential collective voice to help shape the future of computing. It consists of talented professionals who are committed to making a positive and lasting impact on ACM and the global computing profession. ACM is now accepting applications for membership. The application deadline is 23 August 2019.
Proposals for Cycle 20 of the U.S.-Egypt S&T Joint Fund will be accepted until September 5. This year there is a new research focus on artificial intelligence/machine learning applications in the areas of health, energy, water, and agriculture. Collaborative Research Grants provide up to $400,000 USD for a joint U.S. and Egyptian research team. Junior Scientist Grants provide up to $30,000 for training visits to U.S. institutions.
CRA recently published two videos on the 2019 Grad Cohort for URMD – one targeted at sponsors and the other targeted at potential attendees. In both videos, students, speakers, sponsor representatives, and CRA Director of Programs Erik Russell share their experiences, the impact it has and the benefits it delivers to sponsors.
We are pleased to announce CRA’s annual reports for the fiscal years 2016-17 and 2017-18 are now available for download as a PDF file. The CRA fiscal year runs from July 1 – June 30 of each year. These reports highlight the activities of CRA and its committees.
Former CRA Board Member David Bader will direct the new institute for data science at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The institute will focus on cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and development in all areas pertinent to digital data. It will bring existing research centers in big data, medical informatics and cybersecurity together with new research centers in data analytics and artificial intelligence, cutting across all NJIT colleges and schools, and conduct both basic and applied research.
My name is Jesse Anderson, and I am thrilled to be CRA’s Tisdale Fellow this summer. I am a rising sophomore double-majoring in computer science and journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a minor in math. Within my university, I am heavily involved in the Maryland Lead Program, the Girl Up Club, and the Association for Women in Computing. I am the president of the Girls Who Code club.
July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. In February, the CRA board of directors elected new board officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2019. Ellen Zegura is chair; Nancy Amato is vice-chair; Ran Libeskind-Hadas is secretary; and James Allan is treasurer.
We welcome three new members to our board of directors: Lorrie Cranor, Divesh Srivastava and Marvin Theimer. Their terms run from July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2022. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2019 are Ron Brachman, Chris Johnson, Josep Torrellas, and Min Wang. CRA would like to thank all retiring board members for contributions during their service on the board.
The CCC welcomed new council members, and Khari Douglas was promoted to CCC senior program associate focusing on engagement.
The NSF International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program is now accepting applications – this is a program where CISE communities have not leveraged very well in the past, having only 7 of the 158 active IRES awards. The program supports international research and research-related activities for U.S. science and engineering students. If you have (or are considering reaching out to) international research partners who would be willing to host and train undergraduate and graduate students in research, this is a fantastic opportunity to advance science through such collaborations. See list of active IRES awards to explore the rich set of topics that has been supported thus far, and to help identify appropriate IRES collaborations – communicate this information to your students as well.
Today, Cornell University announced that CRA Board Secretary Greg Morrisett has been named the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech, effective August 1. Morrisett is currently the dean of Computing and Information Sciences at Cornell University and an international expert in software security. He joined the CRA board of directors in 2012 and has served two year terms on the executive committee as board secretary. Morrisett has also been a member of the CCC Council since 2017.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society recently announced that CRA Board Member and CCC Chair Mark D. Hill of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the recipient of the 2019 Eckert-Mauchly Award. Hill was cited for contributions to the design and evaluation of memory systems and parallel computers. The Eckert-Mauchly Award is known as the computer architecture community’s most prestigious award.
The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a 1 hour webinar on June 12th, 2019 to provide the CISE community with information and answer questions about the revised Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research Initiation Initiative (CRII) solicitation that seeks to help early-career PIs. The solicitation may be found on the NSF website here. A revised FAQ for program will also be posted on the solicitation website shortly. To Join the Webinar, please register before June 11th by visiting https://nsf.gov/events/event_summ.jsp?cntn_id=298656.
The 2019 CISE/Computer Systems Research (CSR) Aspiring Investigators Workshop, will be held at the National Science Foundation on June 20-21, 2019. The goal of the workshop is to familiarize aspiring investigators with the scope of activities supported by CSR, various funding opportunities within the program, and crosscutting programs in which CSR plays a significant role. Aspiring investigators will hear from NSF personnel, as well as other senior investigators on best practices in putting proposals together, developing strong education and outreach programs, maximizing broader impact, and intellectual property and commercialization opportunities. The workshop is open to investigators from institutions eligible to receive NSF funding, who have not received prior regular research grants (excluding CRII and SGER grants) from CSR.
This November, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will host Rising Stars, an academic career workshop for women in EECS. At this workshop, female graduate students and postdocs who are interested in faculty careers will learn how to navigate academic life while meeting new mentors and peers. This year’s event, to be held in Urbana, IL during Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 2019, will bring together more than 60 top young women in EECS for two days of research presentations, poster sessions, and candid discussions about navigating academic life.
Today, President Trump announced his intent to appoint former CRA Board Chair Daniel A. Reed to the National Science Board (NSB). Reed will serve as a member of the NSB for the remainder of a six-year term, expiring May 10, 2024. He is currently senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah. Reed served on the CRA board of directors from 1999-2009.
Omidyar Network, Mozilla, Schmidt Futures, and Craig Newmark Philanthropies recently announced the Stage I winners of the Responsible Computer Science Challenge. They are awarding $2.4 million to 17 initiatives that integrate ethics into undergraduate computer science courses.
Former CRA Board Member Lance Fortnow will take over as dean of the College of Science at Illinois Institute of Technology on August 15. Fortnow is currently professor and chair of the School of Computer Science of the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also a former member of the CCC Council.
CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2019 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Joslenne (Joss) Peña. Joss is a Ph.D. candidate and Sloan MPHD Scholar in Informatics at Penn State University (PSU) under the direction of Mary Beth Rosson. She earned her M.S. in Information Sciences and Technology in 2015 (also at PSU). Joss completed a 14-month internship as a research intern in the Human-Centered Systems group at Honeywell Aerospace. Broadly, her research interests are in human-computer interaction, design, computer science education, and human factors psychology. Specifically, her dissertation work is investigating non-programmers’ behaviors and attitudes in higher education through small exposures to coding and how their trajectories relate to a reexamined view of computational thinking.
A recent Forbes article written by Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and a former CRA board member, addresses “Why We Need Inclusive Teaching In Every Classroom.” In the article, Klawe interviews Colleen Lewis, a computer science professor at Harvey Mudd, about Lewis’ work to develop, incorporate, and disseminate inclusive teaching practices. Lewis researches […]
Recently, former CRA Board Chair James Foley was inducted into the 2019 Georgia Tech College of Computing Hall of Fame. He was one of six luminaries from the Georgia Tech computing community inducted this year.
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC)’s recently launched Catalyzing Computing podcast is now included on the NSF’s Science360 Radio stream. Science360 Radio showcases shows from radio and podcast series, and also includes webcasts, events, in-depth interviews, and documentaries from NSF and other contributors. Catalyzing Computing focuses on topics of interest within the computing research community and is hosted by CCC […]
On March 22-23, CRA hosted the second annual Graduate Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD Grad Cohort) in picturesque Waikoloa Village, Hawaii. The location provided beautiful scenery as students spent two days learning how to succeed in graduate school and networked with a diverse group of peers and senior researchers.
The Data Buddies Survey came to a close at the end of February 2019. CERP wishes to thank all the departments who made data collection possible, with special appreciation extended to departments with at least a 20% response rate.
The Computing Research Association has released its latest white paper, “Creating Institutional Homes for Computing: Transforming a Department into a School or College.” This white paper addresses the growing interest and trend in transforming a department of computer science, usually housed within a college of engineering or science, into a school or college of computing. It follows up on a successful panel at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird on Schools and Colleges of Computing and a second panel on transitioning to Colleges of Computing at the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has announced it’s 2018 Prize in Computing award to Shwetak Patel, of the University of Washington and Google and a Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council Member. The ACM Prize in Computing is their second most prestigious award in all of computing (after the Turing Award – known as the Nobel Prize in Computing). Patel is the recipient of the 2018 ACM Prize in Computing for contributions to creative and practical sensing systems for sustainability and health. In just a decade, he has had incredible impact in the applications of AI and sensing in two broad areas – developing methods for disaggregating energy and water usage in the home and developing new methods of health sensing and advancing clinical science through the use of commodity sensors.
CRA Board Member Charles Isbell has been named the next dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, effective July 1. Isbell serves as the AAAI representative to the CRA Board.
Submissions opened March 15 for the ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational & Data Science Fellowships. The fellowships were created to increase the diversity of students pursuing graduate degrees in data science and computational science, including women as well as students from racial/ethnic backgrounds that have not traditionally participated in the computing field. The program will support students pursuing degrees at institutions anywhere in the world.
The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline concluded its fall 2018 Data Buddies Survey. The survey was modified to provide additional insight on student experiences in computing degree programs. These new data will be used in annual reporting and program evaluation.
My research explores algorithmic methods for determining whether a pair of species are likely to have coevolved and, if so, finding the “best” scenarios that explain their evolutionary histories. This work explores the computational complexity of these reconciliation problems, seeks to develop efficient reconciliation algorithms where possible, and, ultimately, to implement these algorithms in practical tools for biologists and educators.
Convention tells us that research involves a selection of topic, literature review, framework development, refining/defining your research question, developing a design, collecting data, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions, but at a community college the formality cannot always be used as a rule, but as a guideline for developing a realistic, learning opportunity. Community college participation in undergraduate research is an important part of education, but can be easily fall by the wayside to address life challenges often faced by community college students. However, given the opportunity to participate, research can be a rewarding and valuable skill that should be afforded to more students.
On February 25, CRA hosted its annual Computing Research Leadership Summit for the senior leadership of CRA member societies (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Association for Computing Machinery, CS-Can/Info-Can, IEEE Computer Society, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and USENIX). Several engaging talks at the Leadership Summit provided useful information on current issues important to the organizations.
In partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT), CRA announces an initial launch of BPCnet.org, a resource portal designed to amplify the NSF CISE Directorate’s efforts in broadening participation in computing (BPC). CRA anticipates that BPCnet.org will provide a much-needed clearinghouse for the community to learn about and engage with ongoing projects to diversify computing.
Colleges and universities across the country are experiencing a significant influx of students in their undergraduate computer science (CS) courses. Many of these students are seeking the “traditional,” CS-centric undergraduate degrees that have evolved over decades, along with changes in our field. But many other students are quite different from the students whom we have found in our undergraduate majors. While they are interested in computing, they are more interested in creatively applying sophisticated computational skills and methods to a range of disciplines from biology to linguistics to art. They understand that CS knowledge is critical to helping them succeed in nearly any job, that “every field is becoming an information field.”
CRA members have elected three new members to its board of directors: Lorrie Cranor, Divesh Srivastava and Marvin Theimer. The CRA board of directors has elected new board officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2019. At the February board meeting, Ellen Zegura was elected chair; Nancy Amato was elected vice-chair; Ran Libeskind-Hadas was elected secretary; and James Allan was elected treasurer.
The CRA board of directors is pleased to announce its selections for the 2019 CRA Awards.
Edward Felten – Distinguished Service Award Winner
Maria Gini – A. Nico Habermann Award Winner
This CRA-W program provides guidance to research-interested students on how to navigate the vast offerings at the GHC conference and opportunities to meet and interact with students and mentors with similar interests in small-group settings
By Meredith Ringel Morris, Principal Researcher & MSR Dissertation Grant Chair Broadening participation in computing is a core part of Microsoft‘s values; accordingly, we are excited to continue the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant that aims to recognize, support, and mentor diverse doctoral students as they complete their dissertation research in computing-related fields. This grant is open to doctoral students in their fourth […]
The National Science Foundation is initiating a national search for the Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).
Recently, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) elected 86 new members and 18 foreign members. This brings the total U.S. membership to 2,297 and the number of foreign members to 272. Former CRA Board Member Margo Seltzer was among those elected.
Find out what participants thought about the 2018 CRA-W Grad Cohort for Women in this recently released video. In testimonials collected at the end of the workshop, a resounding theme was the participants’ renewed motivation to complete their Ph.D.
The goal of this workshop is to introduce junior CAREER-eligible faculty to the NSF CAREER program and help them to prepare their CAREER proposals to target CISE programs.
The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2019 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Jennifer Rexford from Princeton University and Westley Weimer from the University of Michigan. These outstanding individuals are being recognized for providing exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of their students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is launching the “Catalyzing Computing” podcast, which will focus on topics of interests within the computing research community. The podcast is hosted by CCC Program Associate Khari Douglas and will feature interviews with researchers and policy makers about their background and experiences in the computing community. You can stream or download the podcast on Soundcloud now.
Today’s New York Times features an article “The Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting Into Class.” The story explores how the increasing student demand for computer science courses is outstripping the supply of professors. The article cites CRA Taulbee data and quotes several current and former CRA board members.
My computer science research career started during my college internship at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, during the early 1970s in the center that later produced UNIX and the portable C compiler. This experience taught me that computing was broader than the introduction to scientific programming in my undergraduate studies in applied math. (There was no computer science undergraduate major at the time.) For most of my career, I was interested in deriving descriptions of program execution behaviors from code in order, for example, to optimize program time and/or memory performance, to validate desirable properties such as correctness or data security, or to refactor code for ease of maintenance.
Increasingly, jobs rely on the ability to use computers to interpret, understand, and trust data. For example, my students and I have worked with ornithologists who cannot understand the representations of their bird sightings, civil engineers who cannot easily use their own building data, finance experts who cannot trace money between companies and their subsidiaries, and an XML document company whose clients cannot understand data that appears outside of their reports. In each case, the data users have been hampered because their data is exceedingly difficult to understand and trust, even though the users are experts in their fields. One reason for this difficulty is that the organization of the data is often designed for computers, not for people (i.e., for storage, not accessibility). Another reason is that data often come from different sources, leaving users with the challenge of integrating data that they neither understand nor trust.
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2019 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. This year’s nominees are a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several are authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others have made presentations at major conferences, and some have produced software artifacts that were in widespread use.
The organizers of the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird session, “Increasing Diversity in Computing is Easier Than You Think: Some Small Steps that Make a Big Difference,” recently published a list of 10 small steps departments can take to increase diversity at their institutions.
This work uses the same methodology as work over the past five years to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions by examining data obtained from advertised faculty searches for the current hiring season. While the number of and areas for faculty searches does not necessarily translate into the same for faculty hires, we believe that they provide insight into current and future needs within the discipline.
We analyzed ads from 409 institutions seeking to fill hundreds of tenure-track faculty positions in Computer Science. There was a small one-year increase in the number of institutions searching but there has been a 83% increase over the five years of our studies. The number of tenure-track positions sought shows a one-year increase of 5% and a 118% increase over the five years.
The ACM recently named 56 of its members as ACM Fellows for transformative contributions and advancing technology in the digital age. The Fellows were honored for significant contributions in areas including computer architecture, mobile networks, robotics, and systems security. From the ACM Press Release: The accomplishments of the 2018 ACM Fellows underpin the technologies that define the digital age […]
Three CRA contributors were recently recognized on Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in Tech List. From Forbes: “The Top 50 Women In Tech is an unranked assessment of technologists in five categories: Moguls, Founders, Innovators, Engineers and Warriors. The list showcases the breadth and depth of entrepreneurial women who are changing the world.” CRA and […]
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2018 Elected Fellows. The Fellows are recognized with this lifetime honor for their extraordinary achievements in advancing science. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows to the Section on Information, Computing & Communication.
The 2018 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference, presented by CMD-IT, was held September 19-22 in Orlando, Florida. The Tapia conferences bring together undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, researchers, and professionals in computing from all backgrounds and ethnicities.
Research shows that it takes 25 minutes to reach full productivity after an interruption, yet we are interrupted every 3 minutes. And even without external interruptions, our focus is fragmented. We look at any given desktop window for an average of only 40 seconds, constantly self-interrupting to check email or Facebook. We also try to complete multiple tasks at once, even though we all know that multitasking typically fails. Our tendency to be easily distracted kept our hunter-and-gatherer ancestors alive when they needed to attend to potential predators, but now, in the safety of our offices, it is amazing we manage to get anything done. Chances are you won’t even read this entire article in one go.
It is an exciting, impactful, and important time to be in computer science, not only as a researcher or educator, but also as an expert serving the community – and we want to invite you to consider opportunities for service at the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Former CRA Board Member Sarita Adve (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) was recently named the 2018 recipient of the ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. She is being recognized “for research contributions and leadership in the development of memory consistency models for C++ and Java, for service to numerous computer science organizations, and for exceptional mentoring.” […]
The number of faculty openings in computing has increased significantly in recent years, which has placed stress on the faculty recruiting process. Both academic departments and faculty candidates go through an arduous process. CRA has started a new service intended to improve the recruiting process for academic and industrial/government laboratory research positions. Candidates for these positions […]
The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) has just announced a new program, NSF 19-507, NSF Quantum Computing & Information Science Faculty Fellows (QCIS-FF). This program aims to grow academic research capacity in the computing and information science fields to support advances in quantum computing and/or communication over the long term.
A new initiative, backed by the foundations of Pierre Omidyar, Eric Schmidt, Craig Newmark and Mozilla aims to convince the nation’s computer science departments to spend more time teaching the ethics of the profession alongside the basics of coding.
We will again host two Graduate Cohort Workshops in 2019. The CRA URMD Grad Cohort Workshop is designed specifically for underrepresented minorities in computing and persons with disabilities in graduate school in computing fields. The CRA-W Grad Cohort Workshop is designed for women students in their first, second, or third year of graduate school in computing fields. The workshops will include a mix of formal presentations, informal discussions and social events. By attending Grad Cohort, participants will be able to build mentoring relationships and develop peer networks that are intended to form the basis for ongoing activities during their graduate career and beyond. Both applications are open now and will close on November 15.
The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting applications for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in a computing field to contribute to CRA-E projects, to network with computer science education advocates on the committee, and to engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.
The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. It recognizes those who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
The VMware academic team is pleased to announce the third annual award in support of the computer science research community. The objective of this award is to call attention to a valuable and promising body of emerging computer science systems research and provide support for continued advances by an emerging research leader.
The 2018 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As has been our recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.
The Computing Research Association seeks your help in recruiting candidates for its Board of Directors. We want individuals who have time, energy, initiative, and resources to work on CRA issues on behalf of the entire CRA community. We have a working Board, and all members are expected to work on community issues.
The Computing Research Association seeks a highly motivated individual to serve as a Deputy Director for the Computing Community Consortium. The Deputy Director works with the CCC Director, Council Members, and the CRA staff to ensure that the CCC succeeds in its mission: to serve as a catalyst and enabler for the computing research community, to provide mechanisms for the community to identify compelling research visions for the future of the field and to articulate those visions to key stakeholders.
These guidelines were established to articulate successful strategies for mentoring African-American doctoral students in Computing Sciences (CS). iAAMCS defines “student mentoring” as the process of supporting, encouraging and guiding students’ academic and social progress with the goal of facilitating career and personal development. Grounded in project-based results and similar empirical research, the following guidelines emerged: (1) recruit strategically, (2) establish community, (3) foster a research culture, (4) provide holistic advising, (5) provide funding and (6) promote professional development. iAAMCS hopes that institutions, departments and faculty use these guidelines to bolster the participation of African-American students pursuing doctoral degrees in CS.
Although the iAAMCS Guidelines serve as best practices for mentoring African-American students in computing, these strategies are useful for optimal mentoring all students.
The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2018 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
The CRA Distinguished Service Award is presented to a person or multiple people who have made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. The CRA A. Nico Habermann Award is presented to a person or multiple people who have made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented groups in the computing research community.
The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
In the report of the CRA Taulbee Survey published in the May 2018 CRN, there is an error in specialty area labeling in Tables D4 (Employment of New PhD Recipients by Specialty) and D4a (Detail of Industry Employment). In both D4 and D4a, the column labels for High Performance Computing and Human Computer Interaction were swapped. In addition, in D4a the column labels in alphabetical sequence between Informatics: Biomedical/Other Science and Social Computing/Social Informatics were incorrect.
On Friday, June 29th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2018 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows to the CRA office in Washington, D.C. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. Additionally, they took two class credits at George Mason University, and attended briefings at institutions such as the U.S. Capitol, Department of State, World Bank, and Federal Reserve. The fellows were in the office to attend a presentation by Brian Mosley, policy analyst in CRA’s Office of Government Affairs, covering the policy concerns and issues that the association works on and attempts to influence legislation and other concerns at the federal level.
As a researcher, I am fascinated by the challenge of advancing the high-level foundations of computer software (programming models, compilers, and runtimes) to productively exploit the latest advances in computing systems. While there has been a long tradition of research in this area since the dawn of computing, the rapid evolution of hardware has continuously fueled a need for new software technologies as old approaches quickly become obsolete. Current explorations of new hardware directions that go beyond Moore’s law have further amplified the motivation for this research direction.
From July 16-18, the Computing Research Association (CRA) held its biennial Conference at Snowbird with more than 300 people in attendance. Every two years, the chairs of computing and information departments, as well as the leaders of government and industrial laboratories from across the country and the world, gather in Snowbird, Utah, to network and discuss common issues concerning the future of the field.
The National Academies’ Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine recently released a study on the sexual harassment of women in academic sciences, engineering, and medicine, specifically looking at how it affects the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in these fields. The report examines the factors that predict high rates of sexual harassment and includes recommendations for addressing and preventing sexual harassment. Evidence reviewed in the study shows that organizational climate is the strongest predictor of sexual harassment in an environment and that it can either encourage or discourage sexually harassing behavior. Please join GUIRR for a webinar with two members of the authoring committee—Gilda Barabino, dean of the Grove School of Engineering at the City College of New York, and Vicki Magley, professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut—to discuss why addressing organizational climate is important to preventing sexual harassment and how certain policies and strategies recommended in the report can be applied in academia and industry to prevent sexual harassment.
Stuart Reges’ recent article entitled “Why Women Don’t Code” elicited strong reactions. I am a colleague of Reges’ in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington (UW). Like a number of my colleagues, I found myself surprised and troubled by his article.
CRA has recently hired Alejandra Guzman as a program associate. In this role, Alejandra supports CRA and CRA-W program activities with meeting planning, workshops, outreach activities, and committee support.
CRA and CRA-W Board Member Ayanna Howard was recently named the recipient of the 2018 Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing from the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Information Technology (CMD-IT). “The Richard A. Tapia Award is awarded annually to an individual who demonstrates significant research leadership and strong commitment and contributions to diversifying computing.
CRA-W will hold early and mid career mentoring workshops for women on November 3-4 in Phoenix, AZ. The goal of these workshops is to provide an environment for mentoring, practical information, advice, and support among computing researchers.
To achieve their educational mission, computing departments at research universities increasingly depend on full-time teaching faculty who choose teaching as a long-term career. This memo discusses the need for teaching faculty, explores the impact of teaching faculty, and recommends best practices.
For the past 30 years I have had two passions – machine learning (ML) that makes a difference in the real world and increasing diversity in computer science (CS). For the first 26 years, I focused on my first passion and developed new approaches to ML though applications to remote sensing, neuroscience, digital libraries, astrophysics, content-based image retrieval of medical images, computational biology, chemistry, evidence-based medicine, detecting lesions in the MRIs of epilepsy patients, and predicting disease progression for MS patients. For the last four years, my focus has been on my second passion: increasing diversity in CS.
In April, NSF requested input from the research community on a policy change to eliminate/reduce deadlines for core programs in the CISE Directorate, and we passed along your feedback. This month, NSF announced a change to remove deadlines for all proposals to the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program.
Recently, Nancy Amato, a robotics expert and CRA board member, was selected to lead the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science. She will be the first woman to hold this position at the University.
NSF CISE/IIS has several open program director positions. We encourage you consider serving in this role and sharing the opportunity with your colleagues.
This work directly follows previous work that analyzed current and future Computer Science needs via advertised tenure-track faculty searches for 2018. This follow-on work looks to understand the relative success of institutions in hiring the tenured/tenure-track faculty in the areas of Computer Science that were being sought.
We are less than two weeks away from the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird. CRA is excited to welcome the computing research leadership to this invitation-only biennial conference in Snowbird, Utah July 16-18.
July 1 marked a new fiscal year for CRA. We welcome seven new members to our board of directors: James Allan, Mark Hill, Ayanna Howard, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Margaret Martonosi, Rachel Pottinger, and Chris Ramming. Retiring from the board as of June 30 are Sarita Adve, Joel Emer, Greg Hager, Julia Hirschberg, H.V. Jagadish, Farnam Jahanian, and Elizabeth Mynatt. CRA would like to thank each of them for contributions during their service on the board.
The National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) brings together organizations throughout the United States that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, computer science, and mathematics. NGCP serves more than 35,000 programs in 41 states and uses a collective impact model that builds the capacity of educational programs.
I’m Amita, a rising junior at Columbia University in New York City where I’m majoring in computer engineering and minoring in political science. I’m also really interested in data science and just joined the WuLab at Columbia’s Data Science Institute.
The fourth (and last NSF-funded) New Computing Faculty Workshops will be held August 5-10, 2018 in San Diego. The goal of the workshops is to help new computing faculty to be better and more efficient teachers. By learning a little about teaching, we will help new faculty (a) make their teaching more efficient and effective and (b) make their teaching more enjoyable. We want students to learn more and teachers to have fun teaching them.
On April 13-14, more than 400 women graduate students in computing from more than 150 institutions converged on San Francisco, CA, for the 2018 CRA-W Graduate Cohort for Women (CRA-W Grad Cohort). Throughout the two-day workshop, professional connections were made, new friendships were formed, and mentoring relationships with senior researchers were established.
CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2018 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Robert (“Rob”) Bowden. Rob is a Ph.D. student in computer science at Harvard University. After earning his undergraduate degree at Harvard in 2013, he spent a year working as the course preceptor for Harvard’s CS50 course, and then returned to graduate school with Margo Seltzer as his adviser. Rob’s Ph.D. research includes work on file systems and code synthesis. His current work focuses on how to use the vast amount of CS50 solutions generated by students to not only detect errors in student programs but also propose ways to fix them. Rob’s goal is to advance automated program repair of buggy solutions to introductory programming assignments.
This article and the accompanying figures and tables present the results from the 47th annual CRA Taulbee Survey. The survey, conducted annually by the Computing Research Association, documents trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant the Ph.D. in computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), or information (I). Most of these academic units are departments, but some are colleges or schools of information or computing.
The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor Mary Fernández with the 2018 Service to CRA Award for her work in transforming the visual identity and communications of the organization. Mary was a member of the CRA Board from 2009 to 2015, during which time she spearheaded several key initiatives to re-brand and revitalize communications.
Recently ACM announced that former CRA and CRA-W board member Jan Cuny has been named the recipient of the 2017 ACM Distinguished Service Award. She received the award for the establishment and tireless promotion of projects that have nationally transformed computer science education by increasing and diversifying access to high-quality CS education. From the announcement: When she joined […]
As you prepare to attend the biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird, we invite you to join an important event that is being organized by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) on Monday, July 16, 2018, from 10:00am to 1:00pm, in Salt Lake City, UT (this event will take place just prior to the main conference, and just a short distance away from Snowbird). This three-hour workshop will be an opportunity for the CISE community – and as department chairs, you all are a key part of this community! – to gather regarding a new effort on Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC). This effort involves the NSF/CISE core research programs, as well as the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace and Cyber-Physical Systems programs. The effort therefore impacts nearly all faculty who submit proposals to NSF/CISE.
Two recent articles have addressed the shortage of Computer Science professors at many institutions.
Inside Higher Ed featured an article titled “System Crash” on CS student complaints that their departments can’t meet demand. The article highlights the CRA Generation CS Report, the National Academies study, and Craig Wills’ November 2017 CRN article on faculty search results. The article places the concerns of students at specific institutions within the national context.
CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) recently underwent staffing changes when former Director Jane Stout left the CRA. Burçin Tamer, Ph.D., is now the Director of CERP and Heather Wright is the Associate Director. Under their leadership, CERP will extend its reach as a resource for the computing community through its Data Buddies Project, evaluation services, and other activities. Heather and Burçin are both excited to make contributions to the computing community and drive the broader mission of CRA to facilitate the development of strong, diverse talent in the field.
Our friends at the National Science Foundation (NSF) have asked for research community input on a proposed policy change to eliminate/reduce deadlines for core programs in the CISE Directorate. Given the increased pressures on securing federal funding and, in some cases, reduced capacity for grant management at computing research institutions, do you think the Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Directorate should follow the lead of the BIO and GEO directorates and consider eliminating or reducing deadlines for proposal submissions? What positive or negative impact could such a shift have on our community?
Supporting, celebrating, and advocating for women in computing is the mission that lies at the heart of the activities of ACM-W. Our longstanding projects of scholarships, celebrations, and student chapters provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to increase their technical knowledge while networking and building community. Recently we have begun to expand our activity to include projects that support populations of women in computing beyond students. This article provides an overview of all of our projects, old and new.
Approximately 100 graduate students in computing and more than 20 speakers assembled on March 16-17 in San Diego, CA, to convene the inaugural CRA Graduate Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD Grad Cohort). It was the first gathering of its kind hosted by CRA. This new iteration of the Grad Cohort Workshop focused on the following underrepresented groups in computing: Alaska Native, Black/African American, Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, and persons with disabilities. The workshop aimed to increase representation from these groups in computing research by building and mentoring nationwide communities through their graduate studies, and is modeled on the highly successful CRA-W Grad Cohort Workshop for Women.
After serving for more than five years as CERP director, Jane Stout has left CRA to pursue a senior project director position for YOUGOV. During Jane’s tenure at CRA, she oversaw the Data Buddies Project; led CERP in evaluation work for the CRA-W, CCC, and CRA-E; and obtained an NSF grant to conduct computing education research focusing on diversity. Jane also gave numerous talks and interviews on the importance of diversity in computing and shared CERP’s research findings with the computing community.
While she will be missed by her colleagues at CRA, CERP, and the CRA-W community, we wish all the best for her as she embarks on this next stage of her career.
Last fall, the CRA Education Committee added a new resource to its website for “Teaching Computer Science: Capacity Building and Scaling.” Across the United States and Canada, universities and colleges are facing significant increases in undergraduate computer science (CS) enrollments. This surge has exceeded all previous CS program booms and there is a general sense that the current enrollment growth is substantially different than that of the mid-1980s and late 1990s. CRA’s Generation CS Study provides excellent insight into enrollment trends and their impact on computer science units, diversity, enrollment management strategies, and more.
The Computing Alliance for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) is a consortium of Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) committed to consolidating the strengths, resources, and efforts of public, private, federal, state, and local organizations that share the core value of increasing the number of Hispanics who pursue and complete baccalaureate and advanced degrees in computing areas. CAHSI plays a critical role in evaluating, documenting, and disseminating effective practices that support students in computing disciplines at the critical junctures in the academic pipeline.
The 2018 NSF Workshop for Aspiring Principal Investigators (PIs) in Computer Systems Research (CSR) will help aspiring PIs gain a better understanding of the CSR program and prepare them for developing competitive CSR proposals in the future.
CRA-E’s new “Undergraduate Research Highlights” series showcases outstanding research done by undergraduate students at universities and colleges across North America. Each article features the story of a successful undergraduate researcher and offers personal insights into their experiences with finding an advisor, undertaking new research projects, and discovering how research can impact their personal and professional futures.
ACM has named John L. Hennessy, former president of Stanford University, and David A. Patterson, professor emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley, recipients of the 2017 ACM A.M. Turing Award for pioneering a systematic, quantitative approach to the design and evaluation of computer architectures with enduring impact on the microprocessor industry. Patterson is a former CRA Board Chair and will be a plenary speaker at the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird, and Hennessy was the keynote speaker at the 2012 CRA Conference at Snowbird.
Submissions opened March 15 for the ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational & Data Science Fellowships. The fellowships were created to increase the diversity of students pursuing graduate degrees in data science and computational science, including women as well as students from racial/ethnic backgrounds that have not traditionally participated in the computing field. The program will support students pursuing degrees at institutions anywhere in the world.
CRA members have elected five new members to its board of directors: James Allan, Maria Ebling, Ayanna Howard, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, and Rachel Pottinger. Current board members Michael Franklin, Stephanie Forrest, Kathryn McKinley, Greg Morrisett, and Vivek Sarkar were re-elected to the CRA board. Their terms run from July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2021. CRA […]
Please nominate colleagues and peers who have extraordinarily advanced the scientific enterprise for this prestigious honor. Nominations and three letters of support must be submitted to NSF by April 16, 2018.
CRA Board Member Farnam Jahanian has been named President of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). From 2011 to 2014, Jahanian served as Assistant Director (AD) for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation (NSF). In 2015, he was elected to the CRA Board of Directors and also received the CRA Distinguished Service Award. Jahanian is currently […]
On Monday, February 26, in Arlington, VA, the CRA hosted its annual Computing Research Leadership Summit for the senior leadership of CRA member societies (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Association for Computing Machinery, CS-Can/Info-Can, IEEE Computer Society, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and USENIX Association) and the CSTB.
This year, the CRA Board of Directors selected two recipients of the 2018 A. Nico Habermann Award: Juan E. Gilbert from the University of Florida and Manuel A. Pérez Quiñones from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Both individuals are being recognized for their contributions aimed at increasing the number and success of members of underrepresented groups in the computing research community. Gilbert has had an incredible impact on diversifying the field of computer science, especially on increasing the number of African-American Ph.D. recipients and faculty members in all of the institutions in which he has worked. Pérez Quiñones has tirelessly and passionately worked throughout his career for diversity and inclusion in computing at all levels, spanning from high school to Ph.D., especially for Latino/as.
Paul Messina was selected as the 2018 recipient of the CRA Distinguished Service Award for his significant contributions to the advancement of high performance computing and decades of service to the field. Messina has an incredible record of building and managing large-scale, diverse research activities. Over the course of his career, he has designed, directed, and otherwise executed numerous initiatives that have influenced U.S. policy and programs resulting in the U.S. leadership position in high-performance computing.
The ACM/IEEE Computer Society George Michael Memorial HPC (GMM) Fellowship is endowed in memory of George Michael, one of the founding fathers of the SC Conference series. The fellowship honors exceptional PhD students throughout the world whose research focus is on high performance computing applications, networking, storage or large-scale data analytics using the most powerful computers that are currently available. The Fellowship includes a $5,000 honorarium and travel expenses to attend SC18 in Dallas on November 15, where the GMM Fellowships will be formally presented.
CRA has recently hired Daniela Cárdenas as a program assistant. In her new role, Daniela supports CRA and CRA-W program activities with administrative and logistical matters such as planning meetings, workshops, outreach activities, and committee support.
The program for the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird has recently been updated. A third plenary session will consist of a panel on “Diversity in Computing Leadership” chaired by Carla Brodley. The confirmed participants include Shinder Dhillon, Head of Global Diversity & Inclusion – Engineering & Corporate Functions, Microsoft, Brian Reaves, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Dell, Inc., and Ayanna Howard, Chair, School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech.
CRA wishes to thank the computing departments who distributed CERP’s Data Buddies survey during the fall of 2017. These departments’ collective effort provided vital data for CERP’s research and evaluation assessing students’ varied experiences in computing degree programs.
Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship Accepting Nominations
/In: Research, Funding /The Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship recognizes emerging leaders in the field of computing who have exceptional talent for research and innovation. Qualifying faculty must have received their terminal degree in May 2016 or later, and their research must be closely related to the general research areas carried out by Microsoft Research. These full-time faculty members must also conduct research, advise graduate students, and teach in the classroom in North or South America. Provisions of the award include $100,000 USD awarded annually for two years starting in the fall of 2021.
Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards Nominations: Deadline Extended to February 8
/In: CRA, Awards /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2021 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award. The deadline has been extended to February 8.
ACM-W’s “Celebrating Technology Leaders” Web Series
/In: CRA, CRA-W, ACM /ACM-W’s “Celebrating Technology Leaders” web series brings stories and advice from engaging speakers, with diverse careers in computing, directly to you.
Get Involved With CRA-WP Opportunities
/In: Featured Announcements, CRA-W /CRA-WP is accepting applications for two programs: Scholarships for Women Studying Information Security and Distributed Experiences for Undergraduates. Nominations are due March 31 for two award programs: Skip Ellis Early Career Award and Anita Borg Early Career Award.
Congratulations to the 2020 ACM Fellows!
/In: CRA /The ACM recently named 95 of its members as ACM Fellows for outstanding contributions that underpin today’s computing innovations.
Nominations Open for Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards
/In: Awards /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2021 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
Congratulations to Newly Elected AAAI Fellows
/In: People /The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) recently elected its 2021 Fellows. The AAAI Fellows program recognizes individuals who have made significant, sustained contributions — usually over at least a ten-year period — to the field of artificial intelligence. Three individuals involved with CRA were among those elected Fellows this year – Ayanna Howard, Chad Jenkins and Holly Yanco.
New CRA Board Member: Forrest Shull
/In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA welcomes Forrest Shull as a new Board Member. Shull is President of IEEE-CS and replaces Greg Byrd as one of the IEEE-CS representatives on the CRA Board, serving along with Leila De Floriani.
Updated Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2021
/In: Featured Announcements /This updated work follows a full study released in November 2020, on faculty hiring in Computer Science for hires starting in 2021. That work analyzed hiring based on ads through mid-November 2020 and found significant decreases in the number of institutions searching and the number of positions being sought. This updated work considers ads through the end of December 2020 and is intended to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on whether searches have been delayed or simply will not materialize this hiring season.
I2O PostDoc Fellowship- Deadlines February 1st and March 1st, 2021
/In: Funding /The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is broadening its commitment to young scientists through a new Information Innovation Office (I2O) PostDoc Fellowship Program focused on postdoctoral researchers in the field of computer science with grants sized to support each fellow for up to two years.
New CRA Board Member: Arvind Krishnamurthy
/In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA welcomes Arvind Krishnamurthy as a new Board Member. Krishnamurthy is the Vice President of the USENIX Board of Directors and replaces Brian Noble as the USENIX representative on the CRA Board. Noble joined the CRA Board in 2017, and CRA thanks him for his term of service.
CRA-E 2021 SIGCSE TS Virtual Pre‐Symposium Event: Application Deadline February 1
/In: Featured Announcements, Education, Opportunities /The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Virtual Pre‐Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2021. The event will be held on Friday, March 12, 2021 from 1:00 – 5:00 PM EST. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda. 2020 event information is available here.
2021 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Recipients
/In: Featured Announcements, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /Congratulations to the recipients of the 2021 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. This year’s nominees are a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several are authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others have made presentations at major conferences, and some have produced software artifacts that were in widespread use.
CRA Board Member Timothy Pinkston Featured in People of ACM
/In: Featured Announcements, People /CRA Board Member Timothy Pinkston is featured in this week’s “People of ACM”. In the Q&A, Pinkston discusses topics such as what prompted him to establish his research group, deadlock-free adaptive routing techniques, the importance of CISE’s Expeditions in Computing program, and efforts to broaden participation in computing.
Nominations Sought for New CCC Council Members
/In: Featured Announcements, Opportunities /To fulfill its mission, the CCC needs visionary leaders — people with great ideas, sound judgment, and the willingness to work collaboratively to see things through to completion. The Council is composed of 20 researchers representing the breadth and diversity of computing today.
Please help the computing community by nominating outstanding colleagues for the Council.
New CRA Board Member: Timothy M. Pinkston
/In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA welcomes Timothy M. Pinkston as a new Board Member. Pinkston replaces Mark D. Hill as an academic member on the Board. Hill recently moved into industry with a position at Microsoft as Partner Hardware Architect with Azure, requiring him to step down from the Board. We would like to thank Hill for his term of service on the CRA Board.
IEEE Computer Society Build Your Career Webinar Series: Solutions Thinking 101 on December 17
/In: For Researchers, Opportunities /The IEEE Computer Society Build Your Career Webinar Series focuses on topics that help you hone your professional skills. Webinars focus on topics that include effective communication, tips for email writing, personal brand management, career transition, interviewing skills, and more. New topics are covered each month. You are invited to Solutions Thinking 101, which takes […]
Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2021
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements /This work uses the same methodology as previous work to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised tenure-track searches for the current hiring season. This work also provides an opportunity to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty hiring in Computer Science for hires starting in 2021.
Congratulations to Newly Elevated IEEE Fellows
/In: People /IEEE recently named its 2021 class of newly elevated Fellows. IEEE Fellow is a distinction reserved for select IEEE members whose extraordinary accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest are deemed fitting of this prestigious grade elevation. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elevated to Fellows.
2020 AAAS Fellows Announced
/In: Featured Announcements, People /The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2020 Fellows. The honor recognizes diverse accomplishments, including pioneering research, leadership within a given field, teaching and mentoring, fostering collaborations and advancing public understanding of science. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: Join CMD-IT on December 2 for Standing Against Racial Injustices – Commanding Our Voice
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /Part 2 of the CMD-IT Standing Against Racial Injustice conversation brings together a group of Black industry tech professionals for a breadth of conversation on how we create the change we want to see and how Commanding Our Voices drives Inclusion, Innovation and Impact to our community, society and the nation.
CRA-E Releases Report on Best Practices for Scaling Undergraduate CS Research Opportunities
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Education /Undergraduate enrollments in CS have grown considerably and continue to grow. Yet opportunities for undergraduates to engage in CS research have not grown proportionally. Engaging undergraduates in research has tremendous benefits for students, and is critical to the health of the North American CS PhD pipeline.
The CRA’s Education committee has released a new report documenting best practices and concrete suggestions for departments wishing to expand undergraduate research opportunities in CS (without overwhelming their faculty!). The report is based on a broad examination of existing structured research programs at universities across North America. It compiles the main challenges departments face in implementing undergraduate research programs, and provides best practices for addressing these challenges.
CCC Quadrennial Papers: Artificial Intelligence
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements /As part of the rollout of the 2020 Computing Research Associations (CRA) Quadrennial Papers, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to publish the final group of papers around the “Artificial Intelligence (AI)” theme, including papers on AI being deployed at the edge of the network, cooperation between AI and humans, new approaches to understanding AI’s impact on society, AI-driven simulators, and the next generation of AI. The Quadrennial Papers are intended to help inform the computing research community and those who craft science policy about opportunities in computing research to help address national priorities. This group of papers is the final installation of the CCC’s contribution, in addition to the previous themes of Broad Computer Science, Core Computer Science, and Socio-Technical Computing.
Applications Open for 2021 CRA-WP Graduate Cohort Workshops: Deadline November 30
/In: CRA /Applications are now open for the 2021 CRA-WP Graduate Cohort Workshops.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Women will likely be a virtual workshop on April 23-24, 2021. Apply here.
The 2021 Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills – The IDEALS Workshop (formerly the Grad Cohort Workshop for URMD) will be a virtual workshop on March 11-12, 2021. Apply here.
Both applications will close on November 30.
CRA-WP Renames the Grad Cohort for URMD Workshop
/In: Featured Announcements /CRA-WP has renamed the Grad Cohort for URMD Workshop to the Grad Cohort for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Leadership Skills – The IDEALS Workshop.
Nominate Outstanding Mid-Career Colleagues for the ACM Prize in Computing: Deadline January 15
/In: Research, Awards, ACM /The ACM Prize in Computing recognizes an early to mid-career fundamental, innovative contribution in computing that exemplifies the greatest achievements in the discipline.
NSF Dear Colleague Letter: Career-Life Balance (CLB) Supplemental Funding Requests
/In: NSF /With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), NSF draws attention to the opportunity for supplemental funding to help researchers, who are confronted with a short-term increase in dependent care responsibilities, ensure that the research activities supported by an NSF award can continue.
CRA-E Spotlights Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers in the Highlights Series
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Education /The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Highlights series is now in its third year of featuring outstanding undergraduate researchers from universities across North America. It is one of the many CRA-E activities that supports the computing research pipeline by honoring undergraduate research and promoting graduate education and research careers in computing fields.
Each article describes the journey of a successful undergraduate researcher, from finding research opportunities to disseminating their work. The highlights series features students from the Finalists and Honorable Mentions of the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher competition, with the goal of offering guidance to the next generation of undergraduate researchers and to share how research has shaped their career aspirations. CRA-E chooses a diverse set of students for the highlights series to reflect the wide range of undergraduate institutions, research areas, and paths to research.
CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program Accepting Nominations
/In: Featured Announcements, Education /The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting nominations for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in a computing field to contribute to CRA-E projects, to network with computer science education advocates on the committee, and to engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.
2020 Quadrennial Papers: Socio-Technical Computing and Diversity & Education
/In: CRA /Today CRA released its third set of 2020 Quadrennial Papers, part of a series of white papers produced though its subcommittees, exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Today’s release focused on papers around the themes of Socio-Technical Computing and Diversity & Education.
Subscribe to the New NSF CISE Newsletter
/In: Featured Announcements, NSF, For Researchers, Computing Innovation Fellows /The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate just announced a new newsletter that will share “periodic updates about CISE and NSF broadly, including up-to-date information about [their] newest programs and activities.” The first newsletter released today highlights three recent major activities that the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its committees were heavily involved in.
CCC Quadrennial Papers: Broad Computer Science
/In: Featured Announcements, Policy /As part of the rollout of the 2020 Computing Research Association’s (CRA) Quadrennial Papers, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to publish the second group of papers around “Broad Computer Science,” including papers on pandemic informatics, infrastructure for AI, High Performance Computing (HPC) and Quantum, robotics in the workforce and a new research ecosystem for secure computing. The Quadrennial Papers are intended to help inform the computing research community and those who craft science policy about opportunities in computing research to help address national priorities. As part of CCC’s contribution, in addition to the theme of Core Computer Science from last week, two more sets of Quadrennial Papers organized around the themes of Artificial Intelligence and Socio-Technical Computing will be released over the next several weeks.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: NCWIT Conversations for Change Webinar Tomorrow
/In: CRA, People, Resources, Diversity /Numerous events of 2020 have placed a national spotlight on the inequities and inequalities that are present in K-16 education and society at large. In this conversation, Dr. Nicki Washington discusses how her personal journey in computing influenced her research on identity in computing, including the development of her “Race, Gender, Class, and Computing” course and why “teaching is political.”
CCC Council Member William Gropp Voted IEEE CS 2022 President
/In: People /Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member William “Bill” Gropp has been voted IEEE Computer Society 2021 president-elect and will serve as president in 2022!
CRA Releases ‘2020 Quadrennial Papers’ Focused on Illuminating Computing Research Challenges and Opportunities for the Next Four Years
/In: Featured Announcements, Policy /Today the Computing Research Association (CRA) released the first of more than a dozen planned white papers produced through its subcommittees, exploring areas and issues around computing research with the potential to address national priorities over the next four years. Called Quadrennial Papers, the white papers attempt to portray a broad picture of computing research detailing potential research directions, challenges, and recommendations for policymakers and the computing research community. The release of the 2020 Quadrennial Papers covers five thematic areas: Core Computer Science, Broad Computing, Socio-Technical Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Diversity & Education.
NSF AD for CISE Margaret Martonosi Video on the Importance of Departmental BPC Plans
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, NSF, CERP /Listen to NSF AD for CISE Margaret Martonosi discuss the importance of Departmental BPC Plans in this new video.
CRA’s CV Database Initiative Turns Two
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements /Recruiting continues to be one of the top computing research community challenges. Thus, CRA plans to strengthen the CV Database initiative and take additional actions in 2020-21.
Expanding the Pipeline – CAHSI introduces National Virtual Research Experience for Undergraduates
/In: CRA, Research /To identify and broadly engage the next generation of computer science researchers, the Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions (CAHSI), an NSF INCLUDES Alliance, piloted a national virtual Research Experience for Undergraduates (vREU) during the summer of 2020. Funded by an NSF RAPID grant, the pilot provided undergraduate research experiences for 50 students and 20 faculty drawn from 20 colleges and universities widely distributed throughout the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico. The program used the Affinity Research Group (ARG) model to guide faculty mentors throughout the experience. ARG is a CAHSI signature practice with a focus on deliberate, structured faculty and student research skills development. At weekly meetings, Drs. Morreale, Villa, and Gates discussed and provided resources for specific skills that were appropriate at a specific point in time of a student’s research experience. Faculty mentors put skills development into immediate practice throughout their summer research program.
2020 CRA Academic Member Book Released
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements /Published online each fall, the CRA Academic Member Book highlights institutions that are member departments of CRA. Each academic member department is invited to submit a one page pdf about their department. Thanks to all the departments that took the time to prepare a submission.
Nominations Open for CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards
/In: Featured Announcements, Awards, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2021 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
An Important Message from USENIX
/In: Featured Announcements /To help make up for a budgetary shortfall, USENIX is seeking donations large and small from individuals and corporations.
Call for Submissions: Departmental BPC Plans
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Diversity, CERP, For Researchers /The Computing Research Association (CRA) and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) are calling upon the academic community to create and submit Departmental BPC Plans to BPCnet.org.
Departmental BPC Plans are important because they help departments:
CRA Board Member Vivek Sarkar Selected to Receive the 2020 ACM/IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award
/In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards /The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) have named CRA Board Member Vivek Sarkar of Georgia Institute of Technology as the recipient of the 2020 ACM/IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. Sarkar is recognized for “foundational technical contributions to the area of programmability and productivity in parallel computing, as well as leadership contributions to professional service, mentoring, and teaching.”
Attend the Upcoming Departmental BPC Plan Workshop Starting on October 29
/In: Featured Announcements, CERP /The Computing Research Association (CRA) is hosting the third workshop in its series of Departmental BPC Plan workshops starting on October 29, 2020. All departments with faculty submitting CISE proposals are welcome to attend this workshop.
The structure for this workshop is as follows:
On the presentation day, academic departments will learn about the NSF CISE requirements and expectations for BPC Plans. The workshop will also cover in-depth discussions on BPC Plan components and have BPC experts available for Q&A.
The two writing days are optional, but strongly encouraged. For each writing day, attendees will dedicate a few hours to writing a BPC plan with available assistance from BPC experts. Of importance, you are not required to attend the presentation day if you would like to attend the writing days. For example, previous workshop participants could use these days to further develop their drafts.
Click here to sign up for the workshop. The deadline to sign up for the presentation day is 11:59 pm (ET), October 25, 2020. Those signing up for the writing days only will be accepted on a rolling basis. All notifications and action items related to the workshop will be sent in advance.
2021 NSF Alan T. Waterman Award Nominations Open
/In: Awards /The National Science Foundation is pleased to accept nominations for the 2021 Alan T. Waterman Award. Each year, the Foundation bestows the Waterman Award to recognize the talent, creativity, and influence of a singular young researcher. The award consists of a $1,000,000 prize, a medal, a certificate, and a trip to Washington, DC, to receive the award. For details about the Waterman Award’s history, the nomination procedure and the selection criteria please visit http://www.nsf.gov/od/waterman/waterman.jsp.
Nominations Open for 2021 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
/In: Featured Announcements, Awards, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. It recognizes those who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
CRA-WP Career Mentoring Workshop: Application Deadline October 12
/In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, CRA-W /Applications are now open for the 2020 CRA-WP Early and Mid-Career Mentoring Workshop! The purpose of the workshop is to provide historically underserved groups in computing research and education with support to further develop your career. Apply today to join sessions on career tracks in education, research and industry/government laboratories, participate in group mentoring, and build one-on-one mentoring relationships with senior researchers. Deadline: October 12.
How Computing May Change Our World by CRA Board Member and CCC Chair Emeritus Mark D. Hill
/In: Research, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA Board Member and CCC Chair Emeritus Mark D. Hill recently held a virtual presentation to CRA staff on “How Computing May Change Our World.” The talk is a great introduction on current topics facing computing and is approachable for audiences who do not have a computer science background. Much of the work discussed is based on visioning work Hill collaborated on when he was Chair of the CCC.
CERP Announces Webinar for Data Buddies Survey
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources /The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) recently published a webinar featuring the Data Buddies Survey (DBS). This webinar details some of the background of the Data Buddies Survey, tips for good response rates, benefits for participating departments, and requirements for participating departments. This webinar is designed for a broad audience, including prospective DBS participants. You can view the webinar by clicking here.
CRA Taulbee Survey Announcement
/In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee Announcements /The 2020 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As has been our recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.
Announcing the 2020 Computing Innovation Fellows
/In: Featured Announcements /This past spring, when hiring practices were rapidly changing due to COVID-19, the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its Computing Community Consortium (CCC) launched the CIFellows 2020 program, with strong support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program aims to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent and soon-to-be PhD graduates in computing. This effort was inspired by the CRA/CCC’s NSF-funded Computing Innovation Fellows Programs with cohorts starting 2009, 2010, and 2011, which funded a total of 127 fellows after the 2008 recession.
Cultural Competence in Computing (3C) Fellows Program Now Accepting Applications
/In: People, Resources, Diversity /Undergraduate computing departments have long suffered from issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). However, there has been, to date, no large-scale effort that focuses on addressing issues of systemic racism and bias that directly impact not only students from minoritized groups, but also faculty (as issues of race, gender, and intersectionality impact hiring, […]
NSF CISE Distinguished Lecture: Former CRA Board Member Moshe Y. Vardi on Lessons from COVID-19
/In: People /Former CRA Board Member, Moshe Vardi from Rice University will present “Lessons from COVID-19: Efficiency vs Resilience,” as part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Distinguished Lecture series on September 17, 2020 from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM ET.
Nominations Open for 2021 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers
/In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
Highlights from the CRA Virtual Conference 2020
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /For nearly 50 years, the Computing Research Association (CRA) has brought the leadership of the computing research community together every other year at Snowbird, UT to discuss community issues. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted our plans to hold an in-person event this year, just like it has disrupted much of our way of life, both professionally and personally. After canceling the in-person event, CRA quickly pivoted to provide the conference in an online format with specialized content addressing the current environment and challenges during these unprecedented times. CRA Board members Ran Libeskind-Hadas and James Allan stepped up as chair and co-chair of the Virtual Conference.
Conference sessions provided a community forum to share best practices for continuing to navigate the unpredictable challenges imposed during the coronavirus pandemic and addressing community issues around race, equity, and equality. The conference videos are now available here and lightning talk videos are available here.
Richard Ladner Receives 2020 National Science Board Public Service Award
/In: People, Diversity, Awards /The National Science Board (NSB) has named computer scientist and disability advocate Richard Ladner as the 2020 recipient of its Public Service Award. This award is granted to individuals and groups that have contributed substantially to increasing public understanding of science and engineering.
CRA Committee on Industry/Academia Interactions Releases Report
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Industry /Recent trends such as increasing industry demands for technical talent from academia, as well as changes in the academic environment with increased industry interactions have prompted the need for a fresh look at the relationships between academia and industry. A CRA ad hoc committee on Industry/Academia Interactions was studied these trends and determined how CRA can have an impact.
Reports on Surveys of Computer Science Faculty and Academic Units/Chairs: COVID-19 Impact
/In: Featured Announcements, Research, Resources, For Researchers, Education /CRA conducted two surveys about the COVID-19 disruption in summer 2020. CRA Director of Statistics and Evaluation Betsy Bizot recently presented these results at the ACM Education Advisory Committee Meeting.
In Memoriam: Frances Allen
/In: People /CRA is sad to report that former CRA and CRA-W Board Member Frances “Fran” Allen passed away yesterday. Fran spent her career advancing the field of computing and inspired generations of technologists. She was a computing pioneer – the first woman to receive the A.M. Turing Award (2006) and the first woman to be named an IBM Fellow in 1989. Fran served as a speaker for CRA-W’s Discipline-Specific Mentoring program in 2008 and Career Mentoring Workshop in 2005.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: Join CMD-IT for Standing Against Racial Injustices – Sharing Our Stories
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources /Join the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT) this Friday, August 7 (1:30 – 2:30 pm CT) for a panel discussion examining racial injustice from the perspective of Black professionals in computing. Panelists will provide their stories of overcoming racial injustices to get to where they are today. They will also share advice and insights about systemic changes needed for equity and inclusion. Register here.
Eve Riskin Recognized with Presidential Award
/In: Awards /Eve Riskin from the University of Washington, recently received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM). Riskin is Associate Dean of Diversity and Access in the College of Engineering, Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Faculty Director of the ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change.
CRA and CERP Welcome Colin Karnes
/In: People /CRA has recently hired Colin Karnes as a research assistant for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). In this role, Colin supports CERP activities, as they relate to CERP’s research and administrative tasks.
Prior to joining CRA, Colin worked as a graduate research assistant at the Department of Public and Nonprofit Studies at Georgia Southern University. Colin holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Georgia Southern University (2019) and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences from the University at Buffalo (2014). He has experience in public education, nonprofit administration, and corporate governance. In his free time, Colin enjoys reading, volunteering, and exploring Washington, DC.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: CS Teachers, It’s (Past) Time To Learn About Race
/In: Diversity /CRA is dedicated to creating an environment that is more welcoming, just, and equitable to all. In the Communications of the ACM article, “CS Teachers, It’s (Past) Time To Learn About Race,” Mark Guzdial encourages CS teachers to make changes to CS education that ensure everyone is welcome and supported.
Apply for the Departmental BPC Plans Workshop on August 6-7th!
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /The Computing Research Association (CRA) is hosting the second workshop in its series of Departmental BPC Plan workshops on August 6-7, 2020.
In this workshop, academic departments will learn about the NSF CISE requirements and expectations for BPC Plans. The workshop will also cover in-depth discussions on BPC Plan components, have BPC experts available for Q&A, and provide time for departments to discuss ideas and make future plans. Following the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to receive additional feedback as they continue to develop and refine their plans.
Investigating Compounding Impacts of Racism & COVID-19 on Learning & Employment in Computing & Technology (CIRCLE-CT)
/In: Research /AnitaB.org, The National Center for Women & Technology (NCWIT) and the STARS Computing Corps (STARS) are conducting a survey to understand the impact of the global pandemic on the conditions of work and educational environments related to computing and technical degree programs and professions. Through the Investigating Compounding Impacts of Racism & COVID-19 on Learning & Employment in Computing & Technology (CIRCLE-CT) Study, we are gathering responses from individuals across the computing and technical ecosystem including K-12 teachers; post-secondary program leaders, educators and students; and individuals in the computing and technical workforce and tech startup communities.
We invite you to participate in the 10-minute survey by clicking below. There will be no compensation for participating in this research study. However, with your consent, we will enter you in a drawing for one of four $50 Amazon gift cards or one of 45 $10 Amazon gift cards. For more information about this study, please contact the Principal Investigator, Dr. Quincy K. Brown, at QuincyB@AnitaB.org. The survey will be open until July 31.
Quick link to survey: bit.ly/NSFRAPIDsurvey
CRA Board Member Vivek Sarkar Named Georgia Tech School of Computer Science Chair
/In: People /Today, the Georgia Tech College of Computing announced CRA Board Member Vivek Sarkar is the new chair of its School of Computer Science (SCS).
Nominations Open for 2021 Microsoft Research Fellowships
/In: Funding, For Students, Opportunities /Nominations are now open for the 2021 Microsoft Research Ada Lovelace Fellowship and Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship. Doctoral students must be nominated by the department chair’s office in their field of study by August 14, 2020. Students will then be contacted to submit their proposals by September 21, 2020.
AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships: Impact Policy with a Life-changing Fellowship in Washington
/In: Policy, For Researchers /Experts including computing researchers are prized by the federal government. With assignments in federal agencies, on Capitol Hill and in the judicial branch, AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellows (STPF) are on the front line of vital issues that impact society. The STPF fellowship program is the premier opportunity for outstanding scientists and engineers to learn first-hand about policymaking and contribute their STEM-informed perspective to American government.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: What Can CS Departments Do?
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /CRA is dedicated to creating an environment that is more welcoming, just, and equitable to all. Many want to take action in this area but are not sure how. Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones wrote an article, “What Can CS Departments Do?” detailing a set of recommendations for computing departments to improve inclusiveness: Some of my recommendations […]
CRA Joins Science and Higher-Ed Community in Working to Reverse ICE Rule on Student Visa Holders That Could Force Hundreds of Thousands to Leave U.S.
/In: Featured Announcements /On Monday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) disclosed its intent to remove its current, temporary exemptions on F-1 and M-1 visas. The exemptions allowed students on visas to remain in the USA during the spring and summer even if they were taking all their classes online because of the pandemic. The removal of the exemptions would mean that any students on student visas who are not taking at least some classes in person will cease to be in compliance. Thus, if they are enrolled in colleges or universities that will move their fall classes online for safety of their community, those students would be forced to either (a) transfer to another institution where they must take classes in person, despite any health risk, or (b) leave the country. It also means that foreign students accepted for fall at those institutions will not be granted visas to enter the USA.
Amplifying Resources for Inclusiveness in Computing: Black in Computing Open Letter
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Diversity /CRA is dedicated to creating an environment that is more welcoming, just, and equitable to all. Last month, the Black in Computing group and Allies put out “An Open Letter & Call to Action to the Computing Community” with a curated list of actionable items.
CRA Welcomes New Board Members
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. We welcome four new members to our board of directors: Alex Aiken, Cindy Bethel, Liz Bradley and Fatma Özcan. Aiken, Bethel, and Özcan were elected earlier this year, and their terms run from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023. Also beginning July 1, Bradley replaces Mark Hill as the CCC Chair and representative on the board. Hill continues on the CRA board in an elected position.
Retiring from the board as of June 30, are Susan Davidson, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, and Barbara Ryder. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
Announcing CRA Workshop Series on Departmental Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plans
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Researchers /To support departments developing a Departmental BPC Plan, the Computing Research Association (CRA) will host a series of workshops funded by NSF. The first two workshops in this series will be held virtually on July 13-14, 2020 and August 6-7, 2020.
These two workshops will present the same content on BPC plans, and include hands-on activities and real-time feedback for writing these plans. At the end of the workshop, the participants will have their own draft Departmental BPC Plan. Following the workshops, the participants will also have the opportunity to receive additional feedback as they continue to refine their BPC plans.
Request for Community Feedback on BPCnet.org
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources /With this particularly challenging academic year coming to an end, and the upcoming NSF CISE program submissions, it is a good time to update everyone on the NSF CISE Pilot Program for Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plans. All Medium and Large CISE Core Programs, Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC), and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) project proposals require an approved BPC Plan by the time of award. CRA and NCWIT have led an effort to develop the BPCnet.org portal as a resource for the community to assist in developing Departmental BPC Plans and Individual BPC Plans.
Upcoming NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Proposal Writing Workshop for the CISE Community
/In: Research /You are invited to participate in the NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Proposal Writing Workshop, to be held as an interactive online meeting on Friday, September 18th from 1pm – 5pm EST. This event is intended for PIs working in CISE-relevant research areas planning on submitting an NRT proposal for the fiscal year 2021 competition.
CRA’s Position
/In: Featured Announcements /The amount of pain and suffering we are witnessing and feeling is only a snapshot of a broader social reality. We, and everyone before us, have had a role in arriving at where we are today. As such, it is of paramount importance to step up and take a stance. It is our responsibility and a moral imperative to not stand by and simply witness the events around us. We must collectively find our voice and reject racism and inequality. Silence perpetuates, doubt reinforces, and rationalization of incident after incident only compounds the pain so many in our society continue to endure.
CI Fellows 2020 – Application Deadline Extended to June 17
/In: Featured Announcements, People /Important notice to all applicants: the application deadline has been extended by 5 days to Wednesday, June 17, 2020 at 11:59 pm EDT in recognition of the unrest and protests across the nation. If possible, please try to begin your application through Task 2, Academic Information, by the initial deadline of June 12, 2020 at 11:59 pm EDT.
CRA-WP Announces Recipients of the Inaugural Skip Ellis Early Career Award and the 2020 Anita Borg Early Career Award
/In: CRA, People, Diversity, Awards /CRA-WP is honored to present the recipients of the inaugural Skip Ellis Early Career Award and the 2020 Anita Borg Early Career Award. Tawanna Dillahunt of the University of Michigan and Michel A. Kinsy of Boston University have been selected as the Skip Ellis Early Career Award recipients. Olga Russakovsky of Princeton University has been selected as the Anita Borg Early Career Award recipient.
CI Fellows 2020 – Applications Open Now
/In: Featured Announcements, Computing Innovation Fellows /Applications are now open for the Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Program for 2020.
CRA Vice Chair Nancy Amato Elected ACM Member-at-Large
/In: People, ACM /The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) recently announced the election of new officers and members at large. CRA Board Member and Vice Chair Nancy M. Amato has been elected for a four-year Member-at-Large term. She will serve from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2024. Additionally, CCC Council Member Elisa Bertino has been elected Secretary/Treasurer of ACM for a two-year term from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020. Bertino is the Samuel D. Conte Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University.
2019 Taulbee Survey: Total Undergrad CS Enrollment Rises Again, but with Fewer New Majors; Doctoral Degree Production Recovers from Last Year’s Dip
/In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee /After twelve years of sustained growth in undergraduate enrollment, there may be signs of a slowdown in that there are, on average, fewer new undergraduate majors in 2019-20 than there were in 2018-19. Nevertheless, the average number of CS majors continued its rise in 2018-19, both in U.S. CS departments and overall.
NSF DCL: Announcing the CIFellows 2020 Postdocs Project
/In: Featured Announcements, Computing Innovation Fellows /The following is a letter to the community from Margaret Martonosi (Assistant Director) and Erwin Gianchandani (Deputy Assistant Director) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE). The CCC announced the CIFellows 2020 project last week and highlighted the upcoming 5/26 webinar earlier this week.
CIFellows 2020 Application Guidelines Updated and May 26th Webinar
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements /We will be hosting a one-hour CIFellow 2020 Informational Webinar on Tuesday, May 26th at 3:00PM ET. There will be a brief 10-minute presentation on the program, followed by a Q&A. Presenters will be CCC Chair Mark D. Hill and CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura. Please register for the webinar here. Please note that the webinar will be recorded and posted on the CIFellow 2020 webpageafter the event.
CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura Named Regents’ Professor
/In: People /Congratulations to CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura (Georgia Tech) for being appointed a Regents’ Professor by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. Regents’ Professorships are granted to outstanding tenured, full professors, based on excellence in research and contributions to their profession and to Georgia Tech.
Vijay Kumar Receives the 2020 IEEE Robotics and Automation Technical Field Award
/In: People /Vijay Kumar from the University of Pennsylvania has been selected as the recipient of the prestigious 2020 IEEE Robotics and Automation Technical Field Award. He was honored for “Contributions to cooperative robotics; networked mobile manipulation systems, particularly unmanned aerial vehicles; and leadership in robotics research, policy, and education.” CRA provided funding support to Kumar when he spent a year at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Obama administration.
Computing Innovation Fellows Program 2020
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Computing Innovation Fellows /The Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium (CCC) are pleased to announce a new Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Program for 2020. This program recognizes the significant disruption to the academic job search caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic uncertainty and aims to provide a career-enhancing bridge experience for recent and soon-to-be PhD graduates in computing.
ACM Gordon Bell Special Prize for HPC-Based COVID-19 Research: Call for Nominations
/In: For Researchers, ACM /ACM has announced a special category of the ACM Gordon Bell Prize to recognize outstanding research achievements that use high performance computing applications to understand and combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the ACM Gordon Bell Special Prize for High Performance Computing-Based COVID-19 Research. Financial support of the $10,000 cash prize that accompanies the award is provided by Gordon Bell, a pioneer in high performance computing and parallel computing.
2019 Taulbee Report Sneak Preview
/In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee, Taulbee Announcements /In advance of the 2019 CRA Taulbee Report, which will be published in the May 2020 issue of CRN next week, we’d like to share a preview of the degree, enrollment, faculty and diversity numbers for bachelor’s and doctoral level programs in the departments responding to the survey.
ACM-IMS Foundations of Data Science Conference: Call for Papers
/In: For Researchers /The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) have come together to launch a conference series on the Foundations of Data Science. The inaugural event, the ACM-IMS Interdisciplinary Summit on the Foundations of Data Science, took place in San Francisco in 2019. Starting in 2020, they will have an annual […]
Former CRA Board Member and CRA-W Co-Chair Leah H. Jamieson Receives the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal
/In: Featured Announcements, People /The Computing Research Association extends a heartfelt congratulations to former board member and CRA-W Co-Chair Leah H. Jamieson for receiving the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal to honor her “contributions to the promotion, innovation, and inclusivity of engineering education.”
National Academy of Sciences Announces Elected Members
/In: People /Recently, the National Academy of Sciences announced the election of 120 members and 26 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. One of the newly elected members is Jennifer Rexford, who is a Computing Community Consortium Council member and former CRA board member.
CRA Survey on NSF CISE Departmental BPC Plans
/In: Featured Announcements, Research /The Computing Research Association (CRA) invites the academic computing community to complete a brief survey about the broadening participation in computing (BPC) plans required for proposals submitted to some programs of the NSF CISE Directorate.
Update on 2020 CRA Conference at Snowbird
/In: Featured Announcements /After careful consideration of the current and projected situation surrounding the pandemic, CRA’s 2020 Conference at Snowbird planning committee has unfortunately decided to cancel the in-person conference scheduled to take place at Snowbird, Utah, July 21-23, 2020.
CISE REU Supplemental Funding
/In: Featured Announcements /The National Science Foundation (NSF) is aware of the disruption to undergraduate employment and education opportunities caused by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. We understand that many internships are being canceled, leaving students without expected opportunities this Summer. The Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) previously issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL; NSF 20-016) expressing interest in funding supplements to active CISE awards for Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), consistent with NSF’s REU Sites and Supplements solicitation (NSF 19-582). In light of COVID-19, and to enable the CISE research community to provide additional opportunities to engage undergraduates who are US citizens and permanent residents in research pathways, CISE reiterates this interest via this DCL.
American Academy of Arts & Sciences Announces New Elected Members
/In: People /The American Academy of Arts& Sciences recently announced that more than 250 outstanding individuals have been elected to the Academy in 2020. Three former CRA board members and a council member were among those honored.
Former CCC Council Member Daniela Rus Appointed to White House Science Council
/In: People /Daniela Rus, a former Computing Community Consortium Council member, has been appointed to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Message from the CRA Board Chair Ellen Zegura
/In: Featured Announcements /To the computing research community –
From my calendar, March 4, 2020: Working on a Mobicom submission, meeting a faculty candidate one-on-one, meeting with two students for an ongoing research project, meeting with the undergraduate lead for the Bits of Good student organization, talking by phone to a department chair about a two-body opportunity. Anticipating my younger daughter coming home for spring break. Going to yoga.
4 weeks later: BlueJeans presentations by three project participants, BlueJeans faculty candidate talk, Skype research meeting with two students on same ongoing research project, Zoom call about CRA strategic planning, BlueJeans student presentation for Bits of Good organization, one more BlueJeans meeting. Daughter is home for good. Yoga by YouTube.
Much is the same. Surprisingly much is the same. But also everything is different.
2020 CRA-WP GHC Research Scholars Program – 2020 Application Closed
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Mentoring, CRA-W /CRA-WP is excited to announce that the deadline for the 2020 CRA-WP GHC Research Scholars has been extended to May 15, 2020.
Encourage an undergraduate student to apply for an opportunity to attend the 2020 Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC 20)!
Program Description: This CRA-WP program provides guidance to research-interested undergraduate women to navigate the vast offerings at the Grace Hopper Celebration Conference (GHC) and opportunities to meet and interact with students and mentors with similar interests in small-group settings. The program will include gatherings on the first and last days of GHC, as well as research-focused activities that all Research Scholars will be required to attend.
Learn More & Apply Today: http://bit.ly/2020GHCRS
2020 Board Election Results and New Appointed Board Members
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /CRA members have elected three new members to its Board of Directors: Alex Aiken, Cindy Bethel and Fatma Özcan. Nancy Amato, Carla Brodley, Dan Grossman and Kim Hazelwood were re-elected to the CRA board. Mary Hall and Mark Hill, who held non-elected positions on the board, have also been elected. All of their terms run from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2023. CRA would like to thank everyone who agreed to run this year.
There have also been changes to the appointed members to the board. Kathleen Fisher has been appointed the new ACM representative, replacing Mary Hall and joining Alexander Wolf. Beginning July 1, Liz Bradley will replace Mark Hill as the CCC Chair and representative on the board.
Retiring from the board as of June 30, are Susan Davidson, Brent Hailpern, Susanne Hambrusch, and Barbara Ryder. CRA thanks them all for contributions during their service on the board.
ACM SIGHPC Computational & Data Science Fellowships Accepting Nominations
/In: Research /Submissions are now open for an international program of graduate fellowships in computational and data science. The ACM SIGHPC Computational and Data Science Fellowships were created to increase the diversity of students pursuing graduate degrees in data science and computational science, including women as well as students from racial/ethnic backgrounds that have not traditionally participated in the computing field. The program will support students pursuing degrees at institutions anywhere in the world.
Open Access to ACM Digital Library During Coronavirus Pandemic
/In: Research /ACM has opened the ACM Digital Library to all. For the next three months, there will be no fees assessed for accessing or downloading work published by ACM.
CRA and CCC Welcome Maddy Hunter
/In: Featured Announcements, People /CRA has recently hired Maddy Hunter as a program associate for the Computing Community Consortium (CCC). In this role, she supports CCC staff and council members by handling administrative and logistical matters surrounding meetings, conferences and workshops.
CRA’s Conference at Snowbird
/In: Featured Announcements /CRA continues to monitor the situation concerning COVID-19 and its potential impact on our upcoming CRA’s Conference at Snowbird, July 21-23, 2020. At the moment, the circumstances remain too uncertain for us to make any decisions about whether the conference will take place as planned.
CARES Movement Receives the 2020 CRA Distinguished Service Award
/In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards, Distinguished Service /The Computing Research Association today announced it has selected the CARES movement – the Committee to Aid Reporting on Discrimination and Harassment Policy Violations – as the recipient of the 2020 CRA Distinguished Service Award for positively transforming the computing research community rapidly and fundamentally. CARES provides a resource for helping people experiencing issues related to discrimination, harassment, or bullying.
ACM Names 2019 Turing Award Recipients
/In: Research, People, Awards /Today ACM named Patrick M. (Pat) Hanrahan and Edwin E. (Ed) Catmull recipients of the 2019 ACM A.M. Turing Award. They are recognized for fundamental contributions to 3-D computer graphics, and the revolutionary impact of these techniques on computer-generated imagery (CGI) in filmmaking and other applications.
CRA Taulbee Survey Receives 2020 Service to CRA Award
/In: Featured Announcements, Awards /The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor the CRA Taulbee Survey with the 2020 Service to CRA Award in recognition of 50 years of providing an invaluable resource to CRA as well as to the computing community.
Carla Ellis Receives the 2020 CRA A. Nico Habermann Award
/In: Featured Announcements, Awards, A. Nico Habermann /The Computing Research Association today announced Carla Ellis as the recipient of the 2020 CRA A. Nico Habermann Award. For more than 30 years, Ellis has worked tirelessly to address diversity at all stages of the computing education pipeline. She has contributed significantly to initiatives and organizations dedicated to increasing participation of women and under-represented groups in computing research, including Systers, the CRA Committee on Widening Participation (CRA-WP), and the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT).
CRA Education Committee Selects Two New Graduate Fellows
/In: Featured Announcements, People, Education /CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected two 2020 CRA-E Graduate Fellows – Ian Ludden from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Jean Salac from the University of Chicago.
NSF CISE CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop
/In: Featured Announcements /The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 6, 2020. This workshop will be held at the new headquarters of the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, VA. The goal of this workshop is to introduce junior CAREER-eligible faculty to the NSF CAREER program and help them to prepare their CAREER proposals to target CISE programs. Attendees will have the opportunity to improve their skills in proposal writing, as well as to interact with NSF program directors from different CISE divisions (CCF, CNS, IIS and OAC) and recent NSF CAREER awardees. The workshop is also open to multidisciplinary researchers with a CISE-specific focus, including cyber-infrastructure. The workshop includes presentations and discussions on proposal preparation, experience sharing, a mock panel, and meetings with Program Directors from various research programs within CISE. In order to attend this event, registration is required on or before March 2, 2020. For more information and to register, please visit: https://cisecareerworkshop.web.unc.edu/
2020 Board of Directors Election Slate; Nominees By Petition Sought
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements /CRA is pleased to announce the 2020 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition. Petition nominations must be signed by the Designated Voting Representatives of at least five Constituent Member Organizations that are current in dues payment.
2020 Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant Accepting Proposals
/In: Research /By Meredith Ringel Morris, Sr. Principal Researcher & MSR Dissertation Grant Chair We are currently accepting proposals for the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant through March 30, 2020. You can read more about the grant and find instructions to submit a proposal at http://aka.ms/Dissertation-Grant. We encourage you to share this announcement within your communities either directly with your […]
National Academy of Engineering Announces New Members
/In: Featured Announcements, People /Recently, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced it has elected 87 new members and 18 international members. Among those elected were two former CRA board members: Joel Emer from NVIDIA and former NSF CISE AD Jim Kurose. Congratulations to all members of the computing community who were recognized.
Lenore Cowen and Samir Khuller Receive the 2020 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
/In: Featured Announcements, People, Mentoring, Awards, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2020 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Lenore Cowen from Tufts University and Samir Khuller from Northwestern University.
These outstanding individuals are being recognized for providing exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of their students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
Leila De Floriani Appointed to the CRA Board of Directors
/In: Featured Announcements /Leila De Floriani has been appointed to serve as one of the two IEEE-CS representatives on the CRA board of directors. De Floriani joins Greg Byrd and replaces David Ebert on the board. CRA would like to thank Ebert for his contributions during his term of service on the board.
CRA Director of Programs Erik Russell Receives AccessComputing’s 2019 Capacity Building Award
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People /CRA Director of Programs Erik Russell was recently announced the winner of the AccessComputing 2019 Capacity Building Award. The award recognizes individuals whose work and accomplishments have changed the way the world views people with disabilities and their potential to succeed in challenging computing careers and activities.
CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program Accepting Nominations
/In: Featured Announcements, Education /The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting nominations for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in a computing field to contribute to CRA-E projects, to network with computer science education advocates on the committee, and to engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.
Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2020
/In: Featured Announcements /This work uses the same methodology as previous work to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised faculty searches for the current hiring season. While the number of and areas for faculty searches does not necessarily translate into the same for faculty hires, we believe that they provide insight into current and future needs within the discipline.
Alexander Wolf Appointed to the CRA Board of Directors
/In: People /Alexander Wolf has been appointed to serve as one of the two ACM representatives on the CRA board of directors. Wolf joins Mary Hall and replaces Andrew Sears on the board. CRA would like to thank Sears for his contributions during his term of service on the board.
2020 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Recipients
/In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers /Congratulations to the recipients of the 2020 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. This year’s nominees are a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several are authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others have made presentations at major conferences, and some have produced software artifacts that were in widespread use.
Nominations Open for the Skip Ellis Early Career Award
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards /The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce its newest award, the Skip Ellis Early Career Award, which will recognize outstanding scientists and engineers with exceptional potential for leadership in computing. The award joins the Anita Borg Early Career Award for Women in advancing excellence and equal opportunity in computing research. Nominations for the inaugural Skip Ellis Early Career Award are now open and will close on February 15.
Congratulations to the 2019 ACM Fellows
/In: CRA /The ACM recently named 58 of its members as ACM Fellows for wide-ranging and fundamental contributions in areas including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, combating cybercrime, quantum computing and wireless networking. CCC Council and CRA-WP Board Member Maria L. Gini, former CRA Board Member Lise Getoor, and former CCC Council Members Elizabeth F. Churchill and Robin R. Murphy were among those honored.
Congratulations to Newly Elevated IEEE Fellows
/In: People /CCC Council Member Ian Foster and CRA Board Members Mary Hall and Vivek Sarkar have recently been named IEEE Fellows.
AAAS Honors 2019 Elected Fellows
/In: Featured Announcements, People /The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2019 elected Fellows. The Fellows are recognized with this lifetime honor for their extraordinary achievements in advancing science. Fellows are elected annually by the AAAS Council from the list of approved nominations from the Section Steering Groups. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows to the Section on Information, Computing & Communication.
CRA-E 2020 SIGCSE Pre‐Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty
/In: Featured Announcements, Education /The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Pre‐Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2020. The event will be held on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 from 8:30 AM- 4:00 PM. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.
CRA Welcomes Nicole Beck
/In: People /CRA has recently hired Nicole Beck as a part-time reimbursement specialist, working closely with CRA’s Grant Specialist Jill Hallden to ensure the organization’s bills get paid on time and reimbursements for participants in CRA-sponsored events are processed expeditiously. Prior to joining CRA, Nicole was a stay at home mom while also attending college at George Mason University and Arizona State University. She graduated from Arizona State with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in geography with a specialization in geographic information systems. In her free time, Nicole enjoys all things geography and cartography, spending as much time as possible with her two daughters, as well as discovering new music to listen to.
Save the Date: 2020 CRA Conference at Snowbird
/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /The biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird is the flagship invitation-only conference for the leadership of the North American computing research community. The upcoming conference will be held July 21-23, 2020 in Snowbird, Utah. The New Chairs Workshop will take place on July 21, 2020.
2019 Computer Science Tenure-Track Faculty Hiring Outcomes
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources, For Researchers /This work directly follows previous work that analyzed current and future Computer Science needs via advertised tenure-track faculty searches for 2019. This follow-on work looked to understand the relative success of institutions in hiring the tenured/tenure-track faculty in the areas of Computer Science that were being sought.
CRA Board Member Andrea Danyluk Named Distinguished Member of ACM
/In: CRA, People /Recently, ACM named 62 Distinguished Members for outstanding contributions to the field. Several from the CRA community were recognized for outstanding educational contributions to computing, including CRA Board Member and CRA-WP Co-Chair Andrea Danyluk. Congratulations to all!
Computing Researchers Fly-in to D.C. to Make the Case for Computing
/In: People /On September 11, 21 computing researchers from across the country visited Washington, D.C. to make the case for federally funded computing research. The volunteers, traveling from as near as Virginia and Maryland, and as far away as Wyoming and Montana, participated in over 50 House and Senate meetings. 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 reinforced with additional information from CRA, they made the “Federal case” for computing to Members of Congress and their staff. Those Members of Congress now know more about the expertise and interesting (and important) computing work that occurs in their districts and states, and our participants have a sense of just who represents them in Congress. And they’ve hopefully started a lasting dialogue on both sides.
CUE.NEXT: Envisioning the Future of Computing in Undergraduate Education
/In: Research, Education /The goal of the upcoming CUE.NEXT workshops — organized by Larry Birnbaum (Northwestern), Susanne Hambrusch (Purdue), and Clayton Lewis (UC Boulder) — is to initiate a national dialog on the role of computing in undergraduate education. Computing educators and CS departments, as well as colleagues and academic units representing other stakeholder disciplines, will work together to define and address the challenges. Three NSF funded workshops are scheduled to take place in Chicago (November 18 and 19), DC (December 5 and 6) and Denver (January 2020).
Nominate Outstanding Mid-Career Colleagues for the ACM Prize in Computing
/In: CRA, Awards /The ACM Prize in Computing recognizes an early to mid-career fundamental, innovative contribution in computing that exemplifies the greatest achievements in the discipline. The award is given for achievements during the early years of an individual’s career – candidates are typically within 8-16 years of the terminal degree. The award is presented each June at the ACM Awards Banquet and is accompanied by a prize of $250,000.
CRA’s Career Mentoring Workshop Application is Now Open
/In: Featured Announcements /The eleventh biennial Career Mentoring Workshop will be offered by the Computing Research Association on February 27 and 28, 2020 in Washington, DC. This exciting workshop provides advice and mentoring activities for those starting an academic computing research career. Most attendees are in their first or second year as assistant professors. The workshop, consisting of a series of panels, is interspersed with opportunities to network with senior researchers and representatives from government agencies.
Candidates Sought for CRA Board of Directors
/In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /The Computing Research Association seeks your help in recruiting candidates for its Board of Directors. We want individuals who have time, energy, initiative, and resources to work on CRA issues on behalf of the entire CRA community. We have a working Board, and all members are expected to work on community issues.
CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program Accepting Nominations
/In: For Students, Education /The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting nominations for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in a computing field to contribute to CRA-E projects, to network with computer science education advocates on the committee, and to engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.
Nominations Open for 2020 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
/In: Mentoring, Awards, Education /The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. It recognizes those who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
Expanding the Pipeline: Supporting Computer Science Growth Through Community
/In: CRA /Teaching is hard — and teaching computer science can be even harder. With the growing need for computer science teachers in the classroom and an increased focus on access to computer science education, the role of the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) is more important than ever. With the mission of supporting K–12 teachers in the field, CSTA provides educators with the professional development events and community they need to improve their craft.
Check out the Latest Videos on the Grad Cohort Experience: Applications Open October 1
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, CRA-W /At the 2019 Grad Cohort for Women Workshop, more than 400 graduate students spent two days building both professional and support networks, while also attending sessions on how to succeed in graduate school. In three new videos, students, speakers, and sponsor representatives share their thoughts on the program’s impact. Check out these three 2019 Grad […]
Workshop on Departmental Plans for Broadening Participation in Computing: Applications Open
/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /Since 2017, the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) has been asking CISE Principal Investigators to include meaningful BPC plans in proposals submitted to a subset of CISE’s research programs. To support departments in preparing for this new effort, teams of 2-3 administrators and faculty members from computing institutions are invited to apply to participate in a workshop focused on Department Plans for Broadening Participation in Computing.
2020 NSF Alan T. Waterman Award Nominations Open
/In: Awards, NSF /Each year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) recognizes an outstanding young researcher in a field of science or engineering with the Alan T. Waterman Award. Nominations for the 2020 Waterman Award are now being accepted and are due, via https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/honawards/index.jsp, by October 21, 2019.
Former CRA Board Member Margaret Martonosi Selected to Run NSF CISE
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, NSF, CRA-W /National Science Foundation Director France Córdova today named former CRA board member, current CRA-WP co-Chair, and current Princeton Computer Science professor Margaret Martonosi as the next head of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate at NSF. Martonosi will assume the role of Assistant Director, CISE on February 1, 2020.
Former CRA Board Member Margaret Martonosi Receives SRC Aristotle Award
/In: CRA, People /Recently, CRA Board Member and CRA-WP Co-Chair Margaret Martonosi was selected to receive the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) Aristotle Award.
CRA Taulbee Survey Announcement
/In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee Announcements /The 2019 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As has been our recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.
Save the Date: 2020 CRA Career Mentoring Workshop
/In: Featured Announcements, Career Mentoring Workshop /CRA’s biennial Career Mentoring Workshop will be offered on February 27-28, 2020 at the Conrad Hotel in Washington, DC.
A Broader Case for Diversity and Inclusion: CRA-Women Transitioning to CRA-Widening Participation
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, CRA-W /It is with great excitement that we share with our friends, colleagues, and broader computing community that CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is now officially CRA Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP).
Former CRA Board Member Jim Kurose Ends Term as NSF CISE AD
/In: CRA, People, Policy /Last Friday, September 6 was the last day for former CRA Board Member Jim Kurose in his role as Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). CRA was thrilled was when Kurose was appointed to the position, and we appreciate his dedication and service to the community over the years.
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program
/In: Research, Funding, NSF, For Researchers /As we noted an year ago at this time, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is an important but, from our experience, often overlooked funding opportunity for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) community. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported areas who are pursing full-time, research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. As the deadline of October 22, 2019, approaches for applicants who fall within CISE fields of study, we want to be sure you all – as members of our community – are aware of this opportunity for your undergraduate seniors and first-year graduate students.
CRA’s CV Database Initiative Turns One
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources /As a first step to address recent recruiting challenges in the computing research community, the Computing Research Association (CRA) launched the CV Database initiative in Fall 2018. This initiative provides a database of candidates for academic and industrial/government laboratory research positions. Recruiting continues to be one of the top computing research community challenges. Thus, CRA plans to strengthen the CV Database initiative and take additional actions in 2019-20. The CRA has reviewed usage data from the first year application cycle and made adjustments to improve the user experience and process. The CV Database will re-open for the 2019-20 recruiting season in mid-September 2019. In mid-October 2019, recruiter access to the CV Database will be made available to all CRA academic members. Additionally, industrial and government laboratory CRA member institutions that sponsor Grad Cohort 2020 at the silver level and above will receive access.
Nominations Open for CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards
/In: Featured Announcements, Awards /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2020 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
Nominations Open for 2020 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers
/In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
Expanding the Pipeline: Gender and Ethnic Differences in PhD Specialty Areas
/In: Featured Announcements /This article examines gender and residency/ethnicity differences in PhD specialty areas as reported to the CRA Taulbee Survey from 2012-2018. The Taulbee Survey is conducted each fall and, among other questions, asks doctoral departments of Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Information for data about each PhD they awarded in the previous academic year. The data on each new PhD includes gender, residency/race/ethnicity, and PhD specialty area. A total of 12,968 PhDs were awarded by Taulbee respondents during the 7 year period from 2012-2018. Of those, the specialty area was listed as Other or Unknown for 3,328. Those individuals are omitted from the analyses described here; individuals where gender was not provided or where residency/ethnicity was listed as Unknown are not included in the analysis by that category.
CRA and CERP Welcome Evelyn Yarzebinski
/In: People /CRA has recently hired Evelyn Yarzebinski as a research associate for CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). In this role, Evelyn supports CERP activities through administrative and research efforts, such as contributing to the CERP website and blog, data management, and analysis.
Volunteer for the Annual Data Buddies Survey!
/In: CRA /The annual CRA Data Buddies Survey will open October 2019. If your department is not yet a member, sign up here to learn more about your students and how your department compares to other similar departments.
Generation CS, Three Years Later
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources /In 2017, CRA published the Generation CS report on the surge in undergraduate computer science enrollments, based on data gathered through an Enrollments Survey of doctoral and non-doctoral academic units of computer science in fall 2015.Since then, enrollments have continued to grow. In fall 2018, as part of the Taulbee Survey of doctoral departments, CRA included some questions to assess the current impact. Are academic units still struggling, or has the increase become the new normal? What changes have occurred in department resources or policies? What is the observed impact on students and faculty, including student diversity?
Seven Tips for Advertising Your Graduate Program to Undergraduate Programs
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources /Four years ago, I left a tenured faculty position at Grinnell, a selective liberal arts college, to found a brand new computer science program at Whitman, another selective liberal arts college. Since establishing this program, I’ve started to receive mailings not only from my own Ph.D. program, but from a range of graduate programs in computer science and related fields.
If you’re reading this, you probably care about attracting graduate student applicants from institutions like mine. If you don’t, you should: Baccalaureate colleges are second only to “very high research activity universities” in their institutional-yield ratios for graduates who go on to receive a doctorate in science or engineering.
Message from the Board Chair: CRA Launches Strategic Planning Process
/In: Featured Announcements /I am writing to share the timeline and process for the strategic planning effort that CRA is undertaking, as well as to highlight some of the opportunities for you to be involved. The ultimate goal of strategic planning is to determine how CRA can best serve its members and the computing research community. Given the many challenges and opportunities, it is imperative that we clearly understand the needs of our members and focus our activities to address those needs.
CRA Hosts 2019 Tisdale Fellows
/In: People /On Tuesday June 25th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2019 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows to the CRA office. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. At the CRA office, the fellows attended a presentation by Brian Mosley, policy analyst in CRA’s Office of Government Affairs, covering the policy concerns and issues that the association works on and attempts to influence at the federal level.
NSF Sources of Support for Undergraduate and Graduate Student Education
/In: Research, Funding, NSF /As many of you know, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has a long history of investing in education and workforce development across all areas of science and engineering, including CISE areas.
Encourage Early-Career Computing Professionals to Apply to Join the ACM Future of Computing Academy
/In: People /The ACM Future of Computing Academy is a new initiative enabling early-career researchers, practitioners, educators, and entrepreneurs to develop a strong and influential collective voice to help shape the future of computing. It consists of talented professionals who are committed to making a positive and lasting impact on ACM and the global computing profession. ACM is now accepting applications for membership. The application deadline is 23 August 2019.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Call for Proposals in A.I.
/In: CRA /Proposals for Cycle 20 of the U.S.-Egypt S&T Joint Fund will be accepted until September 5. This year there is a new research focus on artificial intelligence/machine learning applications in the areas of health, energy, water, and agriculture. Collaborative Research Grants provide up to $400,000 USD for a joint U.S. and Egyptian research team. Junior Scientist Grants provide up to $30,000 for training visits to U.S. institutions.
2019 CRA Grad Cohort URMD Videos Released on Updated CRA YouTube Channel
/In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, For Researchers, CRA-W /CRA recently published two videos on the 2019 Grad Cohort for URMD – one targeted at sponsors and the other targeted at potential attendees. In both videos, students, speakers, sponsor representatives, and CRA Director of Programs Erik Russell share their experiences, the impact it has and the benefits it delivers to sponsors.
Annual Reports Now Available
/In: Featured Announcements, People /We are pleased to announce CRA’s annual reports for the fiscal years 2016-17 and 2017-18 are now available for download as a PDF file. The CRA fiscal year runs from July 1 – June 30 of each year. These reports highlight the activities of CRA and its committees.
NJIT to Establish New Institute for Data Science
/In: People /Former CRA Board Member David Bader will direct the new institute for data science at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The institute will focus on cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and development in all areas pertinent to digital data. It will bring existing research centers in big data, medical informatics and cybersecurity together with new research centers in data analytics and artificial intelligence, cutting across all NJIT colleges and schools, and conduct both basic and applied research.
CRA Welcomes 2019 Tisdale Fellow
/In: People /My name is Jesse Anderson, and I am thrilled to be CRA’s Tisdale Fellow this summer. I am a rising sophomore double-majoring in computer science and journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a minor in math. Within my university, I am heavily involved in the Maryland Lead Program, the Girl Up Club, and the Association for Women in Computing. I am the president of the Girls Who Code club.
New CRA Board Leadership, Board Members and CCC Council Members
/In: Featured Announcements /July 1 marks a new fiscal year for CRA. In February, the CRA board of directors elected new board officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2019. Ellen Zegura is chair; Nancy Amato is vice-chair; Ran Libeskind-Hadas is secretary; and James Allan is treasurer.
We welcome three new members to our board of directors: Lorrie Cranor, Divesh Srivastava and Marvin Theimer. Their terms run from July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2022. Retiring from the board as of June 30, 2019 are Ron Brachman, Chris Johnson, Josep Torrellas, and Min Wang. CRA would like to thank all retiring board members for contributions during their service on the board.
The CCC welcomed new council members, and Khari Douglas was promoted to CCC senior program associate focusing on engagement.
NSF International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) Program Now Accepting Applications
/In: NSF /The NSF International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program is now accepting applications – this is a program where CISE communities have not leveraged very well in the past, having only 7 of the 158 active IRES awards. The program supports international research and research-related activities for U.S. science and engineering students. If you have (or are considering reaching out to) international research partners who would be willing to host and train undergraduate and graduate students in research, this is a fantastic opportunity to advance science through such collaborations. See list of active IRES awards to explore the rich set of topics that has been supported thus far, and to help identify appropriate IRES collaborations – communicate this information to your students as well.
CRA Board Secretary Greg Morrisett Named Dean of Cornell Tech
/In: Featured Announcements, People /Today, Cornell University announced that CRA Board Secretary Greg Morrisett has been named the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech, effective August 1. Morrisett is currently the dean of Computing and Information Sciences at Cornell University and an international expert in software security. He joined the CRA board of directors in 2012 and has served two year terms on the executive committee as board secretary. Morrisett has also been a member of the CCC Council since 2017.
CRA Board Member Mark D. Hill Receives Top Computer Architecture Award
/In: Featured Announcements, People /The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society recently announced that CRA Board Member and CCC Chair Mark D. Hill of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the recipient of the 2019 Eckert-Mauchly Award. Hill was cited for contributions to the design and evaluation of memory systems and parallel computers. The Eckert-Mauchly Award is known as the computer architecture community’s most prestigious award.
CISE CRII Program Solicitation and Webinar Announcement
/In: NSF /The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a 1 hour webinar on June 12th, 2019 to provide the CISE community with information and answer questions about the revised Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research Initiation Initiative (CRII) solicitation that seeks to help early-career PIs. The solicitation may be found on the NSF website here. A revised FAQ for program will also be posted on the solicitation website shortly. To Join the Webinar, please register before June 11th by visiting https://nsf.gov/events/event_summ.jsp?cntn_id=298656.
Apply for the 2019 National Science Foundation Computer Systems Research (NSF/CISE/CSR) Aspiring PIs Workshop
/In: Research, NSF /The 2019 CISE/Computer Systems Research (CSR) Aspiring Investigators Workshop, will be held at the National Science Foundation on June 20-21, 2019. The goal of the workshop is to familiarize aspiring investigators with the scope of activities supported by CSR, various funding opportunities within the program, and crosscutting programs in which CSR plays a significant role. Aspiring investigators will hear from NSF personnel, as well as other senior investigators on best practices in putting proposals together, developing strong education and outreach programs, maximizing broader impact, and intellectual property and commercialization opportunities. The workshop is open to investigators from institutions eligible to receive NSF funding, who have not received prior regular research grants (excluding CRII and SGER grants) from CSR.
Application Open for Rising Stars Workshop Academic Career Workshop for Women
/In: Diversity /This November, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will host Rising Stars, an academic career workshop for women in EECS. At this workshop, female graduate students and postdocs who are interested in faculty careers will learn how to navigate academic life while meeting new mentors and peers. This year’s event, to be held in Urbana, IL during Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 2019, will bring together more than 60 top young women in EECS for two days of research presentations, poster sessions, and candid discussions about navigating academic life.
Former CRA Board Chair Dan Reed Appointed to the National Science Board
/In: People /Today, President Trump announced his intent to appoint former CRA Board Chair Daniel A. Reed to the National Science Board (NSB). Reed will serve as a member of the NSB for the remainder of a six-year term, expiring May 10, 2024. He is currently senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah. Reed served on the CRA board of directors from 1999-2009.
CRA-E Workshop at FCRC – Academic Careers: The Landscape is Broader than You Think
/In: Featured Announcements, Education /The CRA Education Committee, with support from Google, is organizing an Academic Careers Workshop at FCRC 2019. The workshop will be held on Tuesday, June 25 from 12:30-6:30 PM. Please register for the workshop through the FCRC registration page. We are now accepting applications for financial support to attend the workshop! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.
Stage I Winners of the Responsible Computer Science Challenge Announced
/In: Research, Funding /Omidyar Network, Mozilla, Schmidt Futures, and Craig Newmark Philanthropies recently announced the Stage I winners of the Responsible Computer Science Challenge. They are awarding $2.4 million to 17 initiatives that integrate ethics into undergraduate computer science courses.
Former Board Member Lance Fortnow Designated Dean of Illinois Tech College of Science
/In: CRA, People /Former CRA Board Member Lance Fortnow will take over as dean of the College of Science at Illinois Institute of Technology on August 15. Fortnow is currently professor and chair of the School of Computer Science of the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also a former member of the CCC Council.
CRA Education Committee Selects New Graduate Fellow
/In: Featured Announcements, Education /CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2019 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Joslenne (Joss) Peña. Joss is a Ph.D. candidate and Sloan MPHD Scholar in Informatics at Penn State University (PSU) under the direction of Mary Beth Rosson. She earned her M.S. in Information Sciences and Technology in 2015 (also at PSU). Joss completed a 14-month internship as a research intern in the Human-Centered Systems group at Honeywell Aerospace. Broadly, her research interests are in human-computer interaction, design, computer science education, and human factors psychology. Specifically, her dissertation work is investigating non-programmers’ behaviors and attitudes in higher education through small exposures to coding and how their trajectories relate to a reexamined view of computational thinking.
Forbes Article on Inclusivity in Higher Education Highlights CERP Project
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, NSF, CERP /A recent Forbes article written by Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and a former CRA board member, addresses “Why We Need Inclusive Teaching In Every Classroom.” In the article, Klawe interviews Colleen Lewis, a computer science professor at Harvey Mudd, about Lewis’ work to develop, incorporate, and disseminate inclusive teaching practices. Lewis researches […]
Former CRA Board Chair James Foley Inducted into Georgia Tech College of Computing Hall of Fame
/In: People /Recently, former CRA Board Chair James Foley was inducted into the 2019 Georgia Tech College of Computing Hall of Fame. He was one of six luminaries from the Georgia Tech computing community inducted this year.
CCC’s Catalyzing Computing Podcast Included on NSF’s Science360 Radio Stream
/In: Featured Announcements, NSF /The Computing Community Consortium (CCC)’s recently launched Catalyzing Computing podcast is now included on the NSF’s Science360 Radio stream. Science360 Radio showcases shows from radio and podcast series, and also includes webcasts, events, in-depth interviews, and documentaries from NSF and other contributors. Catalyzing Computing focuses on topics of interest within the computing research community and is hosted by CCC […]
Expanding the Pipeline: The Second Annual CRA Grad Cohort for URMD Supports a Diverse Computing Research Community
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students /On March 22-23, CRA hosted the second annual Graduate Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD Grad Cohort) in picturesque Waikoloa Village, Hawaii. The location provided beautiful scenery as students spent two days learning how to succeed in graduate school and networked with a diverse group of peers and senior researchers.
Thank you, Data Buddies!
/In: CRA /The Data Buddies Survey came to a close at the end of February 2019. CERP wishes to thank all the departments who made data collection possible, with special appreciation extended to departments with at least a 20% response rate.
Creating Institutional Homes for Computing: Transforming a Department into a School or College
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources /The Computing Research Association has released its latest white paper, “Creating Institutional Homes for Computing: Transforming a Department into a School or College.” This white paper addresses the growing interest and trend in transforming a department of computer science, usually housed within a college of engineering or science, into a school or college of computing. It follows up on a successful panel at the 2016 CRA Conference at Snowbird on Schools and Colleges of Computing and a second panel on transitioning to Colleges of Computing at the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird.
CCC Council Member Shwetak Patel Receives ACM Prize in Computing
/In: Awards, ACM /The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has announced it’s 2018 Prize in Computing award to Shwetak Patel, of the University of Washington and Google and a Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council Member. The ACM Prize in Computing is their second most prestigious award in all of computing (after the Turing Award – known as the Nobel Prize in Computing). Patel is the recipient of the 2018 ACM Prize in Computing for contributions to creative and practical sensing systems for sustainability and health. In just a decade, he has had incredible impact in the applications of AI and sensing in two broad areas – developing methods for disaggregating energy and water usage in the home and developing new methods of health sensing and advancing clinical science through the use of commodity sensors.
CRA Board Member Charles Isbell Named Dean of College of Computing at Georgia Tech
/In: Featured Announcements, People /CRA Board Member Charles Isbell has been named the next dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, effective July 1. Isbell serves as the AAAI representative to the CRA Board.
Graduate Diversity Fellowships in Computational and Data Science
/In: Funding /Submissions opened March 15 for the ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational & Data Science Fellowships. The fellowships were created to increase the diversity of students pursuing graduate degrees in data science and computational science, including women as well as students from racial/ethnic backgrounds that have not traditionally participated in the computing field. The program will support students pursuing degrees at institutions anywhere in the world.
Expanding the Pipeline: CERP Data Buddies Survey Finishes Strong with More Insights About Students’ Experiences
/In: Featured Announcements /The CRA Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline concluded its fall 2018 Data Buddies Survey. The survey was modified to provide additional insight on student experiences in computing degree programs. These new data will be used in annual reporting and program evaluation.
Board Member Highlight: CRA Board Member Ran Libeskind-Hadas
/In: Research, People, CRA Board of Directors, Education, Board Member Profiles /My research explores algorithmic methods for determining whether a pair of species are likely to have coevolved and, if so, finding the “best” scenarios that explain their evolutionary histories. This work explores the computational complexity of these reconciliation problems, seeks to develop efficient reconciliation algorithms where possible, and, ultimately, to implement these algorithms in practical tools for biologists and educators.
Expanding the Pipeline: The Participation and Challenges of Community College Students in Undergraduate Research
/In: CRA /Convention tells us that research involves a selection of topic, literature review, framework development, refining/defining your research question, developing a design, collecting data, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions, but at a community college the formality cannot always be used as a rule, but as a guideline for developing a realistic, learning opportunity. Community college participation in undergraduate research is an important part of education, but can be easily fall by the wayside to address life challenges often faced by community college students. However, given the opportunity to participate, research can be a rewarding and valuable skill that should be afforded to more students.
Highlights of the 2019 CRA Computing Leadership Summit
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements /On February 25, CRA hosted its annual Computing Research Leadership Summit for the senior leadership of CRA member societies (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Association for Computing Machinery, CS-Can/Info-Can, IEEE Computer Society, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and USENIX). Several engaging talks at the Leadership Summit provided useful information on current issues important to the organizations.
CRA Launches BPCnet.org: A Resource Portal for Broadening Participation in Computing Efforts
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /In partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT), CRA announces an initial launch of BPCnet.org, a resource portal designed to amplify the NSF CISE Directorate’s efforts in broadening participation in computing (BPC). CRA anticipates that BPCnet.org will provide a much-needed clearinghouse for the community to learn about and engage with ongoing projects to diversify computing.
Re-envisioning Computing in Undergraduate Education
/In: NSF /Colleges and universities across the country are experiencing a significant influx of students in their undergraduate computer science (CS) courses. Many of these students are seeking the “traditional,” CS-centric undergraduate degrees that have evolved over decades, along with changes in our field. But many other students are quite different from the students whom we have found in our undergraduate majors. While they are interested in computing, they are more interested in creatively applying sophisticated computational skills and methods to a range of disciplines from biology to linguistics to art. They understand that CS knowledge is critical to helping them succeed in nearly any job, that “every field is becoming an information field.”
2019 CRA Board Election Results and FY20 Executive Committee
/In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA members have elected three new members to its board of directors: Lorrie Cranor, Divesh Srivastava and Marvin Theimer. The CRA board of directors has elected new board officers to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2019. At the February board meeting, Ellen Zegura was elected chair; Nancy Amato was elected vice-chair; Ran Libeskind-Hadas was elected secretary; and James Allan was elected treasurer.
2019 CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awardees Announced
/In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, Mentoring, Awards, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /The CRA board of directors is pleased to announce its selections for the 2019 CRA Awards.
Edward Felten – Distinguished Service Award Winner
Maria Gini – A. Nico Habermann Award Winner
Applications Open for the 2019 CRA-W Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) Research Scholars Program
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, CRA-W /This CRA-W program provides guidance to research-interested students on how to navigate the vast offerings at the GHC conference and opportunities to meet and interact with students and mentors with similar interests in small-group settings
2019 Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant Accepting Proposals
/In: Funding, For Researchers /By Meredith Ringel Morris, Principal Researcher & MSR Dissertation Grant Chair Broadening participation in computing is a core part of Microsoft‘s values; accordingly, we are excited to continue the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant that aims to recognize, support, and mentor diverse doctoral students as they complete their dissertation research in computing-related fields. This grant is open to doctoral students in their fourth […]
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: NSF Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
/In: Featured Announcements, People, NSF /The National Science Foundation is initiating a national search for the Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).
Former Board Member Margo Seltzer Elected to National Academy of Engineering
/In: Featured Announcements, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /Recently, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) elected 86 new members and 18 foreign members. This brings the total U.S. membership to 2,297 and the number of foreign members to 272. Former CRA Board Member Margo Seltzer was among those elected.
2018 Grad Cohort for Women Attendees Share Reflections in Short Video
/In: Featured Announcements, CRA-W /Find out what participants thought about the 2018 CRA-W Grad Cohort for Women in this recently released video. In testimonials collected at the end of the workshop, a resounding theme was the participants’ renewed motivation to complete their Ph.D.
2019 NSF CISE CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop
/In: Funding, NSF /The goal of this workshop is to introduce junior CAREER-eligible faculty to the NSF CAREER program and help them to prepare their CAREER proposals to target CISE programs.
Jennifer Rexford and Westley Weimer Receive the 2019 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
/In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, Awards, Education, CRA-E Faculty Mentoring Award /The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2019 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Jennifer Rexford from Princeton University and Westley Weimer from the University of Michigan. These outstanding individuals are being recognized for providing exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of their students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
CCC Launches the “Catalyzing Computing” Podcast
/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers /The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is launching the “Catalyzing Computing” podcast, which will focus on topics of interests within the computing research community. The podcast is hosted by CCC Program Associate Khari Douglas and will feature interviews with researchers and policy makers about their background and experiences in the computing community. You can stream or download the podcast on Soundcloud now.
CRA Board Member Highlight: James Allan
/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /My current work focuses on support for critical literacy and efforts to foster new paths for equity in the sciences.
New York Times Article on High Demand for Computer Science Professors
/In: Featured Announcements, People /Today’s New York Times features an article “The Hard Part of Computer Science? Getting Into Class.” The story explores how the increasing student demand for computer science courses is outstripping the supply of professors. The article cites CRA Taulbee data and quotes several current and former CRA board members.
2019 Nominees for CRA Board; Petition Nominees Sought
/In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /CRA is pleased to announce the 2019 Election Committee’s slate of nominees for the CRA Board. CRA also encourages nominations by petition.
CRA Board Member Highlight: Barbara G. Ryder
/In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /My computer science research career started during my college internship at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, during the early 1970s in the center that later produced UNIX and the portable C compiler. This experience taught me that computing was broader than the introduction to scientific programming in my undergraduate studies in applied math. (There was no computer science undergraduate major at the time.) For most of my career, I was interested in deriving descriptions of program execution behaviors from code in order, for example, to optimize program time and/or memory performance, to validate desirable properties such as correctness or data security, or to refactor code for ease of maintenance.
CRA Board Member Highlight: Rachel Pottinger
/In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /Increasingly, jobs rely on the ability to use computers to interpret, understand, and trust data. For example, my students and I have worked with ornithologists who cannot understand the representations of their bird sightings, civil engineers who cannot easily use their own building data, finance experts who cannot trace money between companies and their subsidiaries, and an XML document company whose clients cannot understand data that appears outside of their reports. In each case, the data users have been hampered because their data is exceedingly difficult to understand and trust, even though the users are experts in their fields. One reason for this difficulty is that the organization of the data is often designed for computers, not for people (i.e., for storage, not accessibility). Another reason is that data often come from different sources, leaving users with the challenge of integrating data that they neither understand nor trust.
2019 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Winners
/In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /Congratulations to the recipients of the 2019 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. This year’s nominees are a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several are authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others have made presentations at major conferences, and some have produced software artifacts that were in widespread use.
CACM Blog Post on Broadening Participation in Computing Based on 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird Session
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity /The organizers of the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird session, “Increasing Diversity in Computing is Easier Than You Think: Some Small Steps that Make a Big Difference,” recently published a list of 10 small steps departments can take to increase diversity at their institutions.
Professional Development Workshop for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2019
/In: Featured Announcements, Education /The CRA Education Committee, with support from Google, is organizing a Professional Development Workshop for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2019. The workshop will be held on Wednesday, February 27, 2019 from 8:30 AM- 4:00 PM. We are now accepting applications to the workshop! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.
Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2019
/In: Resources /This work uses the same methodology as work over the past five years to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions by examining data obtained from advertised faculty searches for the current hiring season. While the number of and areas for faculty searches does not necessarily translate into the same for faculty hires, we believe that they provide insight into current and future needs within the discipline.
We analyzed ads from 409 institutions seeking to fill hundreds of tenure-track faculty positions in Computer Science. There was a small one-year increase in the number of institutions searching but there has been a 83% increase over the five years of our studies. The number of tenure-track positions sought shows a one-year increase of 5% and a 118% increase over the five years.
Congratulations to the 2018 ACM Fellows
/In: CRA /The ACM recently named 56 of its members as ACM Fellows for transformative contributions and advancing technology in the digital age. The Fellows were honored for significant contributions in areas including computer architecture, mobile networks, robotics, and systems security. From the ACM Press Release: The accomplishments of the 2018 ACM Fellows underpin the technologies that define the digital age […]
Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in Tech List
/In: Featured Announcements /Three CRA contributors were recently recognized on Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in Tech List. From Forbes: “The Top 50 Women In Tech is an unranked assessment of technologists in five categories: Moguls, Founders, Innovators, Engineers and Warriors. The list showcases the breadth and depth of entrepreneurial women who are changing the world.” CRA and […]
Applications Open for the Heidelberg Laureate Forum
/In: For Students /The young researcher application process has opened for the 2019 Heidelberg Laureate Forum, http://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/.
AAAS Honors 2018 Elected Fellows
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements /The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently announced its 2018 Elected Fellows. The Fellows are recognized with this lifetime honor for their extraordinary achievements in advancing science. Several individuals involved with CRA have been elected Fellows to the Section on Information, Computing & Communication.
NSF Research Traineeships: Supporting Effective Training of CISE Graduate Students
/In: NSF /New solicitation opportunity in National Research Traineeships.
Announcements
/In: Featured Announcements, Awards /Upcoming Nomination Deadlines and Taulbee deadlines.
Expanding the Pipeline: 2018 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference
/In: CRA /The 2018 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference, presented by CMD-IT, was held September 19-22 in Orlando, Florida. The Tapia conferences bring together undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, researchers, and professionals in computing from all backgrounds and ethnicities.
CRA Board Member Highlight: Jaime Teevan
/In: Featured Announcements, People, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /Research shows that it takes 25 minutes to reach full productivity after an interruption, yet we are interrupted every 3 minutes. And even without external interruptions, our focus is fragmented. We look at any given desktop window for an average of only 40 seconds, constantly self-interrupting to check email or Facebook. We also try to complete multiple tasks at once, even though we all know that multitasking typically fails. Our tendency to be easily distracted kept our hunter-and-gatherer ancestors alive when they needed to attend to potential predators, but now, in the safety of our offices, it is amazing we manage to get anything done. Chances are you won’t even read this entire article in one go.
Serve as a Rotator at the National Science Foundation to Influence Computer and Information Science Research and Funding
/In: CRA /It is an exciting, impactful, and important time to be in computer science, not only as a researcher or educator, but also as an expert serving the community – and we want to invite you to consider opportunities for service at the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Former Board Member Sarita Adve Named Recipient of the ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award
/In: Featured Announcements, People, Awards, ACM /Former CRA Board Member Sarita Adve (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) was recently named the 2018 recipient of the ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. She is being recognized “for research contributions and leadership in the development of memory consistency models for C++ and Java, for service to numerous computer science organizations, and for exceptional mentoring.” […]
New from CRA: Database of Candidates for Academic and Industrial/Government Laboratory Positions
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources /The number of faculty openings in computing has increased significantly in recent years, which has placed stress on the faculty recruiting process. Both academic departments and faculty candidates go through an arduous process. CRA has started a new service intended to improve the recruiting process for academic and industrial/government laboratory research positions. Candidates for these positions […]
New NSF Faculty Fellowship Opportunities in Quantum Computing & Information Science
/In: NSF /The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) has just announced a new program, NSF 19-507, NSF Quantum Computing & Information Science Faculty Fellows (QCIS-FF). This program aims to grow academic research capacity in the computing and information science fields to support advances in quantum computing and/or communication over the long term.
Omidyar Network launches #ResponsibleCS Challenge
/In: Awards, Opportunities /A new initiative, backed by the foundations of Pierre Omidyar, Eric Schmidt, Craig Newmark and Mozilla aims to convince the nation’s computer science departments to spend more time teaching the ethics of the profession alongside the basics of coding.
Applications Open for 2019 Graduate Cohort Workshops
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, CRA-W, Opportunities /We will again host two Graduate Cohort Workshops in 2019. The CRA URMD Grad Cohort Workshop is designed specifically for underrepresented minorities in computing and persons with disabilities in graduate school in computing fields. The CRA-W Grad Cohort Workshop is designed for women students in their first, second, or third year of graduate school in computing fields. The workshops will include a mix of formal presentations, informal discussions and social events. By attending Grad Cohort, participants will be able to build mentoring relationships and develop peer networks that are intended to form the basis for ongoing activities during their graduate career and beyond. Both applications are open now and will close on November 15.
CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program Accepting Nominations
/In: Featured Announcements, For Students, Mentoring, Education /The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting applications for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in a computing field to contribute to CRA-E projects, to network with computer science education advocates on the committee, and to engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.
Nominations Open for 2019 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award
/In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, For Researchers, Education /The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. It recognizes those who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.
VMware Systems Research Award
/In: Research, Funding, For Researchers /The VMware academic team is pleased to announce the third annual award in support of the computer science research community. The objective of this award is to call attention to a valuable and promising body of emerging computer science systems research and provide support for continued advances by an emerging research leader.
CRA Taulbee Survey Announcement
/In: Featured Announcements, Taulbee, Taulbee Announcements /The 2018 CRA Taulbee Survey will be starting soon. As has been our recent practice, the survey will be split into two parts, salary and main (everything else). This allows us to set an earlier deadline for the salary section in order to produce a preliminary salary report in December, while giving departments more time to collect and enter the information in the rest of the survey if needed.
Candidates Sought for CRA Board of Directors
/In: Featured Announcements, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors /The Computing Research Association seeks your help in recruiting candidates for its Board of Directors. We want individuals who have time, energy, initiative, and resources to work on CRA issues on behalf of the entire CRA community. We have a working Board, and all members are expected to work on community issues.
CRA is hiring a Deputy Director for the Computing Community Consortium
/In: Featured Announcements /The Computing Research Association seeks a highly motivated individual to serve as a Deputy Director for the Computing Community Consortium. The Deputy Director works with the CCC Director, Council Members, and the CRA staff to ensure that the CCC succeeds in its mission: to serve as a catalyst and enabler for the computing research community, to provide mechanisms for the community to identify compelling research visions for the future of the field and to articulate those visions to key stakeholders.
NSF Announces New Measures to Protect Research Community from Harassment
/In: Research, NSF /New policy requires awardee institutions to report sexual harassment findings.
iAAMCS Releases Guidelines for Successfully Mentoring Black/African-American Computing Sciences Doctoral Students
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Diversity, Mentoring /These guidelines were established to articulate successful strategies for mentoring African-American doctoral students in Computing Sciences (CS). iAAMCS defines “student mentoring” as the process of supporting, encouraging and guiding students’ academic and social progress with the goal of facilitating career and personal development. Grounded in project-based results and similar empirical research, the following guidelines emerged: (1) recruit strategically, (2) establish community, (3) foster a research culture, (4) provide holistic advising, (5) provide funding and (6) promote professional development. iAAMCS hopes that institutions, departments and faculty use these guidelines to bolster the participation of African-American students pursuing doctoral degrees in CS.
Although the iAAMCS Guidelines serve as best practices for mentoring African-American students in computing, these strategies are useful for optimal mentoring all students.
Participants Reflect on the 2018 CRA URMD Grad Cohort in Short Video
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, CRA-W /Listen to what participants have to say about the inaugural CRA Graduate Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD Grad Cohort) in this recently released video.
Nominations Open for CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards
/In: Featured Announcements, Awards, A. Nico Habermann, Distinguished Service /The Computing Research Association invites nominations for the 2018 CRA Distinguished Service Award and A. Nico Habermann Award.
The CRA Distinguished Service Award is presented to a person or multiple people who have made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. The CRA A. Nico Habermann Award is presented to a person or multiple people who have made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented groups in the computing research community.
Nominations Open for 2019 CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers
/In: Featured Announcements, Awards, Outstanding Undergrad Researchers, Education /The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.
CRA Taulbee Survey Correction to Tables by Specialty Area
/In: Taulbee /In the report of the CRA Taulbee Survey published in the May 2018 CRN, there is an error in specialty area labeling in Tables D4 (Employment of New PhD Recipients by Specialty) and D4a (Detail of Industry Employment). In both D4 and D4a, the column labels for High Performance Computing and Human Computer Interaction were swapped. In addition, in D4a the column labels in alphabetical sequence between Informatics: Biomedical/Other Science and Social Computing/Social Informatics were incorrect.
Eben Tisdale Fellows Attend Policy Presentation at CRA Government Affairs Office
/In: Policy /On Friday, June 29th, the CRA Government Affairs Office welcomed the 2018 class of Eben Tisdale Science Policy Fellows to the CRA office in Washington, D.C. These fellows, undergraduates at universities and colleges from across the United States, spent the summer at high-tech companies, firms, or trade associations in Washington, learning the intricacies of technology policy. Additionally, they took two class credits at George Mason University, and attended briefings at institutions such as the U.S. Capitol, Department of State, World Bank, and Federal Reserve. The fellows were in the office to attend a presentation by Brian Mosley, policy analyst in CRA’s Office of Government Affairs, covering the policy concerns and issues that the association works on and attempts to influence legislation and other concerns at the federal level.
My Parallel Careers in Industry and Academia
/In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /As a researcher, I am fascinated by the challenge of advancing the high-level foundations of computer software (programming models, compilers, and runtimes) to productively exploit the latest advances in computing systems. While there has been a long tradition of research in this area since the dawn of computing, the rapid evolution of hardware has continuously fueled a need for new software technologies as old approaches quickly become obsolete. Current explorations of new hardware directions that go beyond Moore’s law have further amplified the motivation for this research direction.
Highlights from the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird
/In: Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /From July 16-18, the Computing Research Association (CRA) held its biennial Conference at Snowbird with more than 300 people in attendance. Every two years, the chairs of computing and information departments, as well as the leaders of government and industrial laboratories from across the country and the world, gather in Snowbird, Utah, to network and discuss common issues concerning the future of the field.
National Academies Webinar: Preventing Sexual Harassment in Academia and Beyond – August 30
/In: Misc. /The National Academies’ Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine recently released a study on the sexual harassment of women in academic sciences, engineering, and medicine, specifically looking at how it affects the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in these fields. The report examines the factors that predict high rates of sexual harassment and includes recommendations for addressing and preventing sexual harassment. Evidence reviewed in the study shows that organizational climate is the strongest predictor of sexual harassment in an environment and that it can either encourage or discourage sexually harassing behavior. Please join GUIRR for a webinar with two members of the authoring committee—Gilda Barabino, dean of the Grove School of Engineering at the City College of New York, and Vicki Magley, professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut—to discuss why addressing organizational climate is important to preventing sexual harassment and how certain policies and strategies recommended in the report can be applied in academia and industry to prevent sexual harassment.
Why Women (and Everyone Else) Should Code
/In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, Mentoring, CRA-W /Stuart Reges’ recent article entitled “Why Women Don’t Code” elicited strong reactions. I am a colleague of Reges’ in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington (UW). Like a number of my colleagues, I found myself surprised and troubled by his article.
CRA and CRA-W Welcome Alejandra Guzman
/In: Featured Announcements, CRA-W /CRA has recently hired Alejandra Guzman as a program associate. In this role, Alejandra supports CRA and CRA-W program activities with meeting planning, workshops, outreach activities, and committee support.
Congratulations to Ayanna Howard – 2018 Richard Tapia Award Winner
/In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, CRA Board of Directors /CRA and CRA-W Board Member Ayanna Howard was recently named the recipient of the 2018 Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing from the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Information Technology (CMD-IT). “The Richard A. Tapia Award is awarded annually to an individual who demonstrates significant research leadership and strong commitment and contributions to diversifying computing.
Applications Open for Upcoming CRA-W Career Mentoring Workshop: Deadline September 1
/In: Featured Announcements, Mentoring, CRA-W /CRA-W will hold early and mid career mentoring workshops for women on November 3-4 in Phoenix, AZ. The goal of these workshops is to provide an environment for mentoring, practical information, advice, and support among computing researchers.
Laying a Foundation: Best Practices for Engaging Teaching Faculty in Research Computing Departments
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Resources, Best Practices, CRA Board of Directors /To achieve their educational mission, computing departments at research universities increasingly depend on full-time teaching faculty who choose teaching as a long-term career. This memo discusses the need for teaching faculty, explores the impact of teaching faculty, and recommends best practices.
CRA Board Member Highlight: Carla Brodley
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, CRA Board of Directors, Board Member Profiles /For the past 30 years I have had two passions – machine learning (ML) that makes a difference in the real world and increasing diversity in computer science (CS). For the first 26 years, I focused on my first passion and developed new approaches to ML though applications to remote sensing, neuroscience, digital libraries, astrophysics, content-based image retrieval of medical images, computational biology, chemistry, evidence-based medicine, detecting lesions in the MRIs of epilepsy patients, and predicting disease progression for MS patients. For the last four years, my focus has been on my second passion: increasing diversity in CS.
Removal of Deadlines for the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace Program
/In: Featured Announcements, Research, Funding, NSF /In April, NSF requested input from the research community on a policy change to eliminate/reduce deadlines for core programs in the CISE Directorate, and we passed along your feedback. This month, NSF announced a change to remove deadlines for all proposals to the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program.
CRA Board Member Nancy Amato to Head University of Illinois Department of Computer Science
/In: People, Diversity, CRA Board of Directors /Recently, Nancy Amato, a robotics expert and CRA board member, was selected to lead the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science. She will be the first woman to hold this position at the University.
Dear Colleague Letter: NSF CISE, Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) – Employment Opportunity for Multiple Program Director Positions
/In: NSF /NSF CISE/IIS has several open program director positions. We encourage you consider serving in this role and sharing the opportunity with your colleagues.
2018 Computer Science Tenure-Track Faculty Hiring Outcomes
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources /This work directly follows previous work that analyzed current and future Computer Science needs via advertised tenure-track faculty searches for 2018. This follow-on work looks to understand the relative success of institutions in hiring the tenured/tenure-track faculty in the areas of Computer Science that were being sought.
2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird is Almost Here!
/In: Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /We are less than two weeks away from the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird. CRA is excited to welcome the computing research leadership to this invitation-only biennial conference in Snowbird, Utah July 16-18.
CRA Welcomes New FY 2018 Board Members
/In: Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /July 1 marked a new fiscal year for CRA. We welcome seven new members to our board of directors: James Allan, Mark Hill, Ayanna Howard, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Margaret Martonosi, Rachel Pottinger, and Chris Ramming. Retiring from the board as of June 30 are Sarita Adve, Joel Emer, Greg Hager, Julia Hirschberg, H.V. Jagadish, Farnam Jahanian, and Elizabeth Mynatt. CRA would like to thank each of them for contributions during their service on the board.
Expanding the Pipeline: The Computer Science Outreach Program Evaluation Network – Increasing Quality and Capacity
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Mentoring /The National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) brings together organizations throughout the United States that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, computer science, and mathematics. NGCP serves more than 35,000 programs in 41 states and uses a collective impact model that builds the capacity of educational programs.
CRA Welcomes Amita Shukla as its 2018 Eben Tisdale Fellow
/In: CRA /I’m Amita, a rising junior at Columbia University in New York City where I’m majoring in computer engineering and minoring in political science. I’m also really interested in data science and just joined the WuLab at Columbia’s Data Science Institute.
Meet the 2018 BECA Winners – Yejin Choi and Reetuparna Das
/In: Featured Announcements, Awards, CRA-W /CRA-W recently announced two recipients of the 2018 Borg Early Career Award (BECA) – Reetuparna Das and Yejin Choi.
New Computing Faculty Workshops in Summer 2018
/In: Featured Announcements, NSF, For Researchers, Education /The fourth (and last NSF-funded) New Computing Faculty Workshops will be held August 5-10, 2018 in San Diego. The goal of the workshops is to help new computing faculty to be better and more efficient teachers. By learning a little about teaching, we will help new faculty (a) make their teaching more efficient and effective and (b) make their teaching more enjoyable. We want students to learn more and teachers to have fun teaching them.
Expanding the Pipeline: 2018 CRA-W Grad Cohort for Women Inspires Attendees to Persist in Computing
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring, CRA-W /On April 13-14, more than 400 women graduate students in computing from more than 150 institutions converged on San Francisco, CA, for the 2018 CRA-W Graduate Cohort for Women (CRA-W Grad Cohort). Throughout the two-day workshop, professional connections were made, new friendships were formed, and mentoring relationships with senior researchers were established.
CRA-E Selects 2018 Graduate Fellow
/In: Featured Announcements, Education /CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2018 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Robert (“Rob”) Bowden. Rob is a Ph.D. student in computer science at Harvard University. After earning his undergraduate degree at Harvard in 2013, he spent a year working as the course preceptor for Harvard’s CS50 course, and then returned to graduate school with Margo Seltzer as his adviser. Rob’s Ph.D. research includes work on file systems and code synthesis. His current work focuses on how to use the vast amount of CS50 solutions generated by students to not only detect errors in student programs but also propose ways to fix them. Rob’s goal is to advance automated program repair of buggy solutions to introductory programming assignments.
2017 CRA Taulbee Survey: Another Year of Record Undergrad Enrollment; Doctoral Degree Production Steady While Master’s Production Rises Again
/In: Featured Announcements, Resources, Taulbee /This article and the accompanying figures and tables present the results from the 47th annual CRA Taulbee Survey. The survey, conducted annually by the Computing Research Association, documents trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant the Ph.D. in computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), or information (I). Most of these academic units are departments, but some are colleges or schools of information or computing.
Mary Fernández Receives 2018 Service to CRA Award
/In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, Awards, CRA Board of Directors, CRA-W, Conference at Snowbird /The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to honor Mary Fernández with the 2018 Service to CRA Award for her work in transforming the visual identity and communications of the organization. Mary was a member of the CRA Board from 2009 to 2015, during which time she spearheaded several key initiatives to re-brand and revitalize communications.
Jan Cuny Receives 2017 ACM Distinguished Service Award
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People, Diversity, For Researchers, CRA Board of Directors /Recently ACM announced that former CRA and CRA-W board member Jan Cuny has been named the recipient of the 2017 ACM Distinguished Service Award. She received the award for the establishment and tireless promotion of projects that have nationally transformed computer science education by increasing and diversifying access to high-quality CS education. From the announcement: When she joined […]
SAVE THE DATE: An NSF/CISE Workshop for Department Chairs at Snowbird
/In: Featured Announcements, People, Diversity /As you prepare to attend the biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird, we invite you to join an important event that is being organized by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) on Monday, July 16, 2018, from 10:00am to 1:00pm, in Salt Lake City, UT (this event will take place just prior to the main conference, and just a short distance away from Snowbird). This three-hour workshop will be an opportunity for the CISE community – and as department chairs, you all are a key part of this community! – to gather regarding a new effort on Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC). This effort involves the NSF/CISE core research programs, as well as the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace and Cyber-Physical Systems programs. The effort therefore impacts nearly all faculty who submit proposals to NSF/CISE.
Articles Addressing Shortage of CS Professors Across Many Institutions
/In: Featured Announcements, CRA News Coverage /Two recent articles have addressed the shortage of Computer Science professors at many institutions.
Inside Higher Ed featured an article titled “System Crash” on CS student complaints that their departments can’t meet demand. The article highlights the CRA Generation CS Report, the National Academies study, and Craig Wills’ November 2017 CRN article on faculty search results. The article places the concerns of students at specific institutions within the national context.
Envisioning the Future of CERP
/In: Featured Announcements, CERP /CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) recently underwent staffing changes when former Director Jane Stout left the CRA. Burçin Tamer, Ph.D., is now the Director of CERP and Heather Wright is the Associate Director. Under their leadership, CERP will extend its reach as a resource for the computing community through its Data Buddies Project, evaluation services, and other activities. Heather and Burçin are both excited to make contributions to the computing community and drive the broader mission of CRA to facilitate the development of strong, diverse talent in the field.
CRA-W Accepting Proposals for Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates: May 18 Deadline
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, For Researchers, CRA-W /CRA-W is now accepting applications for the Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates (CREU) program. Application Deadline: May 18.
Dan Reed Named Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Utah
/In: Featured Announcements, People /Former CRA Board Chair Dan Reed has been named senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah.
Should NSF CISE Implement a No-Deadlines Approach?
/In: Featured Announcements, Research, Funding, NSF, For Researchers /Our friends at the National Science Foundation (NSF) have asked for research community input on a proposed policy change to eliminate/reduce deadlines for core programs in the CISE Directorate. Given the increased pressures on securing federal funding and, in some cases, reduced capacity for grant management at computing research institutions, do you think the Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Directorate should follow the lead of the BIO and GEO directorates and consider eliminating or reducing deadlines for proposal submissions? What positive or negative impact could such a shift have on our community?
Expanding the Pipeline: ACM-W Programs Expand to Support Students and Professional Women in Computing
/In: Diversity, Mentoring, CRA-W /Supporting, celebrating, and advocating for women in computing is the mission that lies at the heart of the activities of ACM-W. Our longstanding projects of scholarships, celebrations, and student chapters provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to increase their technical knowledge while networking and building community. Recently we have begun to expand our activity to include projects that support populations of women in computing beyond students. This article provides an overview of all of our projects, old and new.
Expanding the Pipeline: CRA URMD Grad Cohort Fosters a Diverse and Inclusive Generation of Computing Researchers
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, For Students, Mentoring /Approximately 100 graduate students in computing and more than 20 speakers assembled on March 16-17 in San Diego, CA, to convene the inaugural CRA Graduate Cohort for Underrepresented Minorities and Persons with Disabilities (URMD Grad Cohort). It was the first gathering of its kind hosted by CRA. This new iteration of the Grad Cohort Workshop focused on the following underrepresented groups in computing: Alaska Native, Black/African American, Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, and persons with disabilities. The workshop aimed to increase representation from these groups in computing research by building and mentoring nationwide communities through their graduate studies, and is modeled on the highly successful CRA-W Grad Cohort Workshop for Women.
CRA and CERP Bid Farewell to Jane Stout
/In: Featured Announcements, CERP /After serving for more than five years as CERP director, Jane Stout has left CRA to pursue a senior project director position for YOUGOV. During Jane’s tenure at CRA, she oversaw the Data Buddies Project; led CERP in evaluation work for the CRA-W, CCC, and CRA-E; and obtained an NSF grant to conduct computing education research focusing on diversity. Jane also gave numerous talks and interviews on the importance of diversity in computing and shared CERP’s research findings with the computing community.
While she will be missed by her colleagues at CRA, CERP, and the CRA-W community, we wish all the best for her as she embarks on this next stage of her career.
Teaching Computer Science: Capacity Building and Scaling
/In: Education /Last fall, the CRA Education Committee added a new resource to its website for “Teaching Computer Science: Capacity Building and Scaling.” Across the United States and Canada, universities and colleges are facing significant increases in undergraduate computer science (CS) enrollments. This surge has exceeded all previous CS program booms and there is a general sense that the current enrollment growth is substantially different than that of the mid-1980s and late 1990s. CRA’s Generation CS Study provides excellent insight into enrollment trends and their impact on computer science units, diversity, enrollment management strategies, and more.
Expanding the Pipeline: CAHSI Broadens Hispanics’ Participation in Computing
/In: Featured Announcements, Research, Diversity, CRA-W /The Computing Alliance for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) is a consortium of Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) committed to consolidating the strengths, resources, and efforts of public, private, federal, state, and local organizations that share the core value of increasing the number of Hispanics who pursue and complete baccalaureate and advanced degrees in computing areas. CAHSI plays a critical role in evaluating, documenting, and disseminating effective practices that support students in computing disciplines at the critical junctures in the academic pipeline.
2018 NSF Workshop for Aspiring Principal Investigators in Computer Systems Research
/In: NSF /The 2018 NSF Workshop for Aspiring Principal Investigators (PIs) in Computer Systems Research (CSR) will help aspiring PIs gain a better understanding of the CSR program and prepare them for developing competitive CSR proposals in the future.
CRA-E Showcases Stories of Undergraduate Researchers on its Conquer Website
/In: Featured Announcements, People, For Students, Education /CRA-E’s new “Undergraduate Research Highlights” series showcases outstanding research done by undergraduate students at universities and colleges across North America. Each article features the story of a successful undergraduate researcher and offers personal insights into their experiences with finding an advisor, undertaking new research projects, and discovering how research can impact their personal and professional futures.
John Hennessy and David Patterson Receive 2017 Turing Award
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /ACM has named John L. Hennessy, former president of Stanford University, and David A. Patterson, professor emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley, recipients of the 2017 ACM A.M. Turing Award for pioneering a systematic, quantitative approach to the design and evaluation of computer architectures with enduring impact on the microprocessor industry. Patterson is a former CRA Board Chair and will be a plenary speaker at the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird, and Hennessy was the keynote speaker at the 2012 CRA Conference at Snowbird.
Graduate Diversity Fellowships in Computational and Data Science
/In: Funding /Submissions opened March 15 for the ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational & Data Science Fellowships. The fellowships were created to increase the diversity of students pursuing graduate degrees in data science and computational science, including women as well as students from racial/ethnic backgrounds that have not traditionally participated in the computing field. The program will support students pursuing degrees at institutions anywhere in the world.
2018 Board Election Results and New Appointed Board Members
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors /CRA members have elected five new members to its board of directors: James Allan, Maria Ebling, Ayanna Howard, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, and Rachel Pottinger. Current board members Michael Franklin, Stephanie Forrest, Kathryn McKinley, Greg Morrisett, and Vivek Sarkar were re-elected to the CRA board. Their terms run from July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2021. CRA […]
Call for Nominations: 2018 National Medal of Science
/In: CRA, Awards, NSF, For Researchers /Please nominate colleagues and peers who have extraordinarily advanced the scientific enterprise for this prestigious honor. Nominations and three letters of support must be submitted to NSF by April 16, 2018.
CRA Board Member Farnam Jahanian Named President of Carnegie Mellon University
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Research, People, CRA Board of Directors /CRA Board Member Farnam Jahanian has been named President of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). From 2011 to 2014, Jahanian served as Assistant Director (AD) for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation (NSF). In 2015, he was elected to the CRA Board of Directors and also received the CRA Distinguished Service Award. Jahanian is currently […]
2018 CRA Computing Leadership Summit
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, CRA Board of Directors, Career Mentoring Workshop /On Monday, February 26, in Arlington, VA, the CRA hosted its annual Computing Research Leadership Summit for the senior leadership of CRA member societies (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Association for Computing Machinery, CS-Can/Info-Can, IEEE Computer Society, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and USENIX Association) and the CSTB.
Juan E. Gilbert and Manuel Pérez Quiñones Receive the 2018 A. Nico Habermann Award
/In: Featured Announcements, Diversity, Awards, A. Nico Habermann /This year, the CRA Board of Directors selected two recipients of the 2018 A. Nico Habermann Award: Juan E. Gilbert from the University of Florida and Manuel A. Pérez Quiñones from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Both individuals are being recognized for their contributions aimed at increasing the number and success of members of underrepresented groups in the computing research community. Gilbert has had an incredible impact on diversifying the field of computer science, especially on increasing the number of African-American Ph.D. recipients and faculty members in all of the institutions in which he has worked. Pérez Quiñones has tirelessly and passionately worked throughout his career for diversity and inclusion in computing at all levels, spanning from high school to Ph.D., especially for Latino/as.
Paul Messina Receives 2018 CRA Distinguished Service Award
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Awards, Distinguished Service /Paul Messina was selected as the 2018 recipient of the CRA Distinguished Service Award for his significant contributions to the advancement of high performance computing and decades of service to the field. Messina has an incredible record of building and managing large-scale, diverse research activities. Over the course of his career, he has designed, directed, and otherwise executed numerous initiatives that have influenced U.S. policy and programs resulting in the U.S. leadership position in high-performance computing.
Nominations Open for the George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship
/In: Research /The ACM/IEEE Computer Society George Michael Memorial HPC (GMM) Fellowship is endowed in memory of George Michael, one of the founding fathers of the SC Conference series. The fellowship honors exceptional PhD students throughout the world whose research focus is on high performance computing applications, networking, storage or large-scale data analytics using the most powerful computers that are currently available. The Fellowship includes a $5,000 honorarium and travel expenses to attend SC18 in Dallas on November 15, where the GMM Fellowships will be formally presented.
CRA Welcomes Daniela Cárdenas
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, People, CRA-W /CRA has recently hired Daniela Cárdenas as a program assistant. In her new role, Daniela supports CRA and CRA-W program activities with administrative and logistical matters such as planning meetings, workshops, outreach activities, and committee support.
2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird Program Update
/In: CRA, Featured Announcements, Conference at Snowbird /The program for the 2018 CRA Conference at Snowbird has recently been updated. A third plenary session will consist of a panel on “Diversity in Computing Leadership” chaired by Carla Brodley. The confirmed participants include Shinder Dhillon, Head of Global Diversity & Inclusion – Engineering & Corporate Functions, Microsoft, Brian Reaves, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Dell, Inc., and Ayanna Howard, Chair, School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech.
Thank You, Data Buddies!
/In: Featured Announcements, CERP /CRA wishes to thank the computing departments who distributed CERP’s Data Buddies survey during the fall of 2017. These departments’ collective effort provided vital data for CERP’s research and evaluation assessing students’ varied experiences in computing degree programs.
Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant Accepting Applications
/In: Research, Funding, Diversity /The Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant aims to recognize, support, and mentor diverse doctoral students as they complete their dissertat