²⁰¹²Susan L. Graham

Pehong Chen Distinguished Professor Emerita at UC Berkeley

The CRA Board of Directors has selected Susan L. Graham, Pehong Chen Distinguished Professor Emerita at UC Berkeley, for the Computing Research Association Distinguished Service Award 2012. Graham was selected in recognition of the extraordinary contributions that she has made over more than three decades of dedicated and selfless service and leadership.

Graham has served on countless departmental review committees, editorial committees, award selection committees, advisory committees, program committees, and search committees for both the NSF Assistant Directorship for CISE and the Harvard Presidency. She served on the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) from 1997-2003; on the Working Group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to assess the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program in 2010; and has been Vice Chair of the Computing Community Consortium from 2006-present.

As a member of PITAC, in addition to providing important guidance on the “mainstream” work of the committee, Susan served as Co-Chair of the Subcommittee on Open Source Software for High-End Computing, and as Co-Chair of the Subcommittee on Learning and Education. These activities helped to establish the foundation for today’s view of computer science as an expansive discipline whose advancements are essential to all aspects of our lives.

As a member of a Working Group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) to assess the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program, Susan was instrumental in creating the outline of the report, assigning the sections, editing the member contributions into a coherent whole, writing the crucial Executive Summary, dealing with the politics of comments and revisions, and marketing the report in Washington. While many others made important contributions, the co-chair of the working group stated, “I can say with utter certainty that there would have been no PCAST report without Susan.”