The Computing Research Association

^{∫ archives ∫}A. Nico Habermann Award

CRA makes this award, usually annually, to a person who has made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented groups in the computing research community. This award recognizes work in areas of government affairs, educational programs, professional societies, public awareness, and leadership that has a major impact on advancing these groups in the computing research community. Recognized contributions can be focused directly at the research level or at its immediate precursors, namely students at the undergraduate or graduate levels.

²⁰⁰⁰Roscoe Giles

2000 Habermann Award Awardee Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boston University

For the past 25 years, Dr. Giles has worked at MIT and Boston University to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities in the computing disciplines. He has served as a faculty advisor and mentor for the Minority Engineers Society at Boston University, an affiliate of the National Society of Black Engineers. Dr. Giles has mentored high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in New England for the New England Board of Higher Education.

Because of his strong commitment to education, combined with his energy and dedication to diversifying the population of CSE students and faculty nationwide, Dr. Giles was named one of three co-chairs of the Education, Outreach, and Training (EOT) program for the NSF Partnerships in Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI). This program focuses on improving the computational component of K-12 education, developing K-12 computing curricula that appeal to girls and underrepresented minorities, and increasing the involvement of institutions that serve minorities in PACI.

Roscoe Giles helped to organize an NSF workshop on “Increasing Participation of Minorities in the Computing Disciplines” that led to the formation of the Coalition to Diversify Computing. He also works actively with the NSF EDUCAUSE/EOT-PACI project, Advanced Networking with Minority Serving Institutions. This project assists colleges and universities that traditionally serve African-American, Hispanic, and Tribal communities in the development of the infrastructure and skills needed to take advantage of advanced computational tools and resources, such as the technology Grid being prototyped by the PACI program. The Grid will connect people, supercomputers, virtual environments, scientific instruments, educational tools, and large data sets through a seamless, integrated, persistent environment operating over high-speed networks.

Dr. Giles co-chaired the Education Program for the SC97 conference, benefiting a large group of diverse teachers and exposing thousands of SC97 conference attendees to the K-12 use of technology. He will serve as general chair for SC2002.

More biographical information can be found at Roscoe Giles’s homepage at Boston University.