The Computing Research Association

^{∫ archive ∫}Distinguished Service Award

CRA makes an award, usually annually, to a person who has made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. This award recognizes service in the areas of government affairs, professional societies, publications or conferences, and leadership that has a major impact on computing research.

²⁰¹⁰Moshe Y. Vardi

2010 Moshe Y. Vardi Awardee Karen Ostrum George Professor in Computational Engineering and Director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice University

The CRA Board of Directors has selected Moshe Y. Vardi, the Karen Ostrum George Professor in Computational Engineering and Director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice University, to receive the 2010 Distinguished Service Award.

Moshe was nominated for the award for two fundamental contributions to the computing research community. The first was leading the effort to produce a definitive report on offshoring that has contributed significantly to debunking myths about the future health of the computing field and, in the process, helped ensure a steady flow of the best and brightest students into computer science.

The ACM report, Globalization and Offshoring of Software, remains a core reference underpinning the arguments many of us continue to make that the study of computer science is a viable endeavor and one that leads to fulfilling and rewarding careers. Doing this study was not only a great service to the research community at the time, but - as it has turned out - something that is serving the community long beyond the time frame initially envisioned.

Moshe’s second contribution was leading the effort to redefine Communications of the ACM with the Goal of engaging the computing research community to create a compelling magazine for computing. Today, eighteen months into the new CACM, the evidence is overwhelming that Moshe has been successful with the revitalization of CACM. Whether it is the hundreds of blog posts praising the new CACM - or the fact that cover stories like October’s “The Status of the P Versus NP Problem” are being picked up by the New York Times - Moshe has indeed created a Science for computing which serves the computing research community well. And as was pointed out in the nomination, “He [Moshe] has done this not because of any allegiance to ACM, but because of his deep commitment to serving our field.”