2010 Class of Computing Innovation Fellows Announced; Program, in its Second Year, Seeks to Retain Recent PhDs in Computing Research
WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 14, 2011
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) a standing committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA) today announced the 2010 class of Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows; http://cifellows.org). These 47 recent Ph.D. graduates have been competitively awarded one- to two-year postdoctoral positions at U.S. academic institutions and industrial organizations with basic computing research and teaching programs. Made possible by a $15 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to the CRA the second such grant in as many years the 2010 CIFellowships are a continuation of an effort begun in 2009 to forestall a permanent loss of research talent likely to occur as a consequence of the financial crisis.
The new cohort of CIFellows is comprised of 47 individuals from 34 different Ph.D-granting colleges and universities within the U.S., and collectively the CIFellows are assigned to mentors at 36 unique host organizations. They were selected from a pool of 218 applicants, spanning 78 different Ph.D.-granting colleges and universities and 105 possible host organizations. Like the 2009 CIFellows that came before them, the 2010 CIFellows will have uniquely independent research experiences that will help them sharpen their skills and enhance their credentials over the next one to two years.
To ensure broad participation and to build bridges between diverse institutions via the CIFellows, no more than two awardees earned their Ph.D.s from the same university, and no more than two awardees were assigned to the same host organization. Diversity of other forms including research areas and individuals, etc. were also encouraged. About 36 percent of the 2010 CIFellows are women.
The awarding of a second cohort of CIFellows follows overwhelmingly positive and beneficial experiences for the 2009 CIFellows and their mentors. Of the 60 CIFellows who started in the fall of 2009, 18 have now found other opportunities including tenure-track faculty positions as well as permanent jobs at industrial research labs and are not continuing in the Project for a second year. (All the rest are continuing in the CIFellows Project following successful mid-year evaluations.) For the 18 with other opportunities, the postdoctoral experiences were clearly beneficial, markedly enhancing their skills, credentials, and already stellar resumes. For example, one CIFellow demonstrated his capabilities through the development of a novel algorithm later featured in The Los Angeles Times (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/02/business/la-fi-ct-twitter3-2010apr03); the algorithm uses Twitter to gauge real-time interest in movies and accurately predict how they will perform at the box office on opening weekend. In another case, the chair of a faculty search committee wrote, "As the hiring officer for this [tenure-track] position, I can attest that [the CIFellow's] postdoctoral experience ... enhanced [the candidate's] attractiveness to us." In three cases, the CIFellows were offered positions by their host organizations.
As one CIFellow wrote on a recent evaluation, "I view my [CIFellowship] as a bridge between graduate school and an academic career," wrote one CIFellow mid-way through his first year in the program. "With respect to this, I believe my experience so far has been extremely successful. I started working on several exciting projects... I have already submitted three papers to conferences and workshops... and perhaps most importantly, I met and began collaborating with top researchers in my area."
Like the inaugural class, the 2010 CIFellows were selected through an intensive process that considered applicants' research backgrounds and proposed research projects. A Selection Committee reviewed and evaluated each application and recommended a slate of finalists to a Steering Committee. The latter comprising co-principal investigators (PIs) of the two NSF grants provided administrative, financial, and technical oversight, and was ultimately responsible for all award decisions. The PI of the 2010 NSF grant, Greg Andrews (University of Arizona), chaired both committees.
Selection Committee members were:
Gregory Abowd, Georgia Institute of Technology
Al Aho, Columbia University
Greg Andrews, University of Arizona (chair)
David Bader, Georgia Institute of Technology
Martin Berzins, University of Utah
Erik Demaine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Bill Feiereisen, Intel Corporation
Jim Foley, Georgia Institute of Technology
Stephanie Forrest, University of New Mexico
Chad Jenkins, Brown University
M. Frans Kaashoek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (co-chair)
Henry Kautz, University of Rochester
Hank Korth, Lehigh University
Jim Kurose, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
James Larus, Microsoft Research
Rob Miller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Hector Munoz-Avila, Lehigh University
Robin Murphy, Texas A&M University
Timothy Pinkston, University of Southern California
Sumeet Sandhu, Intel Research
Matthew Taylor, Lafayette College
Valerie Taylor, Texas A&M University
Josep Torrellas, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Jim Waldo, VMware
Steering Committee members were:
Greg Andrews, University of Arizona (chair)
Andrew Bernat, Computing Research Association
Susan Graham, University of California at Berkeley
Anita Jones, University of Virginia
M. Frans Kaashoek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ed Lazowska, University of Washington
Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Harvey Mudd College
Bobby Schnabel, Indiana University
Bob Sproull, Oracle
The 2010 class of CIFellows and their mentors includes:
CIFellow | Ph.D.-granting university | Research area | Mentor | Host organization |
Jae-wook Ahn | University of Pittsburgh | Information systems/information science | Ben Shneiderman | University of Maryland-College Park |
Alvin AuYoung | University of California-San Diego | Networks/operating systems | Niraj Tolia | HP Labs |
Aruna Balasubramanian | University of Massachusetts-Amherst | Mobile/ubiquitous/embedded computing | David Wetherall | University of Washington |
Robert Bocchino | University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign | Programming languages/compilers | Jonathan Aldrich | Carnegie Mellon University |
Lillian Chang | Carnegie Mellon University | AI/machine learning/robotics/vision | Joshua Smith | Intel Corp. |
Yanhua Chen | Wayne State University | Scientific/medical informatics | Peter Song | University of Michigan |
Marc Chiarini | Tufts University | Networks/operating systems | Margo Seltzer | Harvard University |
David Choffnes | Northwestern University | Networks/operating systems | Tom Anderson | University of Washington |
Tamara Clegg | Georgia Institute of Technology | CS education/educational technology | Allison Druin | University of Maryland-College Park |
Jyotirmoy Deshmukh | University of Texas-Austin | Software engineering | Rajeev Alur | University of Pennsylvania |
Xiaoning Ding | Ohio State University-Main Campus | Networks/operating systems | Phillip Gibbons | Intel Corp. |
David Doty | Iowa State University | Theory/algorithms | Erik Winfree | California Institute of Technology |
Jenny Finkel | Stanford University | AI/machine learning/robotics/vision | Michael Collins | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Samuel Gordon | University of Maryland-College Park | Theoretical Cryptography and Security | Tal Malkin | Columbia University |
Elena Grigorescu | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Theory/algorithms | Chris Peikert | Georgia Institute of Technology |
Haryadi Gunawi | University of Wisconsin-Madison | Networks/operating systems | Joseph Hellerstein | University of California-Berkeley |
David Harmon | Columbia University | Graphics/visualization | Denis Zorin | New York University |
Timothy Havens | University of Missouri-Columbia | Databases/information retrieval/data mining | Anil Jain | Michigan State University |
Michael Hay | University of Massachusetts-Amherst | Databases/information retrieval/data mining | Johannes Gehrke | Cornell University |
Houman Homayoun | University of California-Irvine | Hardware/architecture | Dean Tullsen | University of California-San Diego |
Shaili Jain | Harvard University | Social computing/social informatics | Joan Feigenbaum | Yale University |
Saket Joshi | Tufts University | AI/machine learning/robotics/vision | Prasad Tadepalli | Oregon State University |
Thomas Kiehl | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | Other -- systems biology, evolutionary computing | Matthew Hynd | University of Albany |
Samantha Kleinberg | New York University | Scientific/medical informatics | George Hripcsak | Columbia University |
J. Zico Kolter | Stanford University | AI/machine learning/robotics/vision | Russ Tedrake | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Lukas Kroc | Cornell University | AI/machine learning/robotics/vision | Allon Percus | Claremont Graduate University |
Vijay Kumar | Ohio State University-Main Campus | Numerical computing/HPC/data-intensive scalable computing | Jay Wylie | HP Labs |
Homin Lee | Columbia University | Theory/algorithms | Adam Klivans | University of Texas-Austin |
Yuliya Lierler | University of Texas-Austin | AI/machine learning/robotics/vision | Miroslaw Truszczynski | University of Kentucky |
Xiaojuan Ma | Princeton University | HCI/CSCW | Jodi Forlizzi | Carnegie Mellon University |
Amon Millner | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | CS education/educational technology | Lynn Stein | Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering |
Arifa Nisar | Northwestern University | Numerical computing/HPC/data-intensive scalable computing | Ethan Miller | University of California-Santa Cruz |
Amit Pande | Iowa State University | Mobile/ubiquitous/embedded computing | Prasant Mohapatra | University of California-Davis |
Sharoda Paul | Pennsylvania State University | HCI/CSCW | Ed Chi | Palo Alto Research Center |
Brian Price | Brigham Young University | AI/machine learning/robotics/vision | Scott Cohen | Adobe Systems, Inc. |
Dustin Reishus | University of Southern California | Other - self-assembly/self-organization | Nikolaus Correll | University of Colorado-Boulder |
Thomas Schmid | University of California-Los Angeles | Mobile/ubiquitous/embedded computing | Prabal Dutta | University of Michigan |
Ricky Sethi | University of California-Riverside | AI/machine learning/robotics/vision | Jenn Vaughan | University of California-Los Angeles |
Saurabh Srivastava | University of Maryland-College Park | Programming languages/compilers | Rastislav Bodik | University of California-Berkeley |
Muthuramakrishnan Venkitasubramaniam | Cornell University | Information assurance/security/privacy/cryptography | Yevgeniy Dodis | New York University |
Erin Walker | Carnegie Mellon University | CS education/educational technology | Winslow Burleson | Arizona State University |
Susan Wyche | Georgia Institute of Technology | Hardware/architecture | Steve Harrison | Virginia Polytechnic Institute |
Yinglong Xia | University of Southern California | Numerical computing/HPC/data-intensive scalable computing | Anshul Gupta | IBM Research |
Yang Xiang | Kent State University | Scientific/medical informatics | Kun Huang | Ohio State University |
Cem Yuksel | Texas A&M University | Graphics/visualization | Doug James | Cornell University |
Ting Zhu | University of Minnesota-Twin Cities | Networks/operating systems | Don Towsley | University of Massachusetts-Amherst |
Caroline Ziemkiewicz | University of North Carolina-Charlotte | Graphics/visualization | David Laidlaw | Brown University |
And the 2009 CIFellows who are continuing for a second year include:
CIFellow | PhD Institution | Field of Research | Mentor | Host Institution |
Zlatan Aksamija | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Quantum Computing, Synthetic Biology, Computational Neuroscience, etc. | Irena Knezevic | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
Cindy Bethel | University of South Florida | AI / Machine Learning / Robotics / Vision | Brian Scassellati | Yale |
Carleton Bosley | New York University | Information Assurance / Security / Privacy / Cryptography | Antonio Nicolosi | Stevens Institute of Technology |
Yuriy Brun | University of Southern California | Software Engineering | David Notkin | University of Washington |
Nicholas Diakopoulos | Georgia Tech | HCI/CSCW | Mor Naaman | Rutgers University |
Jeremy Fineman | MIT | Theory / Algorithms | Guy Blelloch | Carnegie Mellon University |
Ronald Garcia | Indiana University-Bloomington | Programming Languages/Compilers | Frank Pfenning | Carnegie Mellon University |
Ragib Hasan | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Information Assurance / Security / Privacy / Cryptography | Randal Burns | Johns Hopkins University |
Daniel Howe | New York University | Quantum Computing, Synthetic Biology, Computational Neuroscience, etc. | Andy van Dam | Brown University |
Yuho Jin | Texas A&M | Hardware / Architecture | Timothy Pinkston | University of Southern California |
Jeffrey Johns | University of Massachusetts-Amherst | AI / Machine Learning / Robotics / Vision | Ronald Parr | Duke University |
Yong Kil | UC Davis | Graphics/Visualization | Marshall Bern | Xerox PARC |
Dara Kusic | Drexel | Networks/Operating Systems | Daniel Mosse | University of Pittsburgh |
Edgar Lobaton | University of California-Berkeley | AI / Machine Learning / Robotics / Vision | Ron Alterovitz | University of North Carolina |
Cristian Lumezanu | University of Maryland-College Park | Networks/Operating Systems | Nick Feamster | Georgia Tech |
Niti Madan | University of Utah | Hardware / Architecture | Pradip Bose | IBM |
Victoria Manfredi | University of Massachusetts-Amherst | Networks/Operating Systems | Mark Crovella | Boston University |
Damon McCoy | University of Colorado at Boulder | Information Assurance / Security / Privacy / Cryptography | Stefan Savage | University of California-San Diego |
Andrew McPherson | University of Pennsylvania | HCI/CSCW | Youngmoo Kim | Drexel |
Miriah Meyer | University of Utah | Graphics/Visualization | Hanspeter Pfister | Harvard |
Lilyana Mihalkova | University of Texas at Austin | AI / Machine Learning / Robotics / Vision | Lise Getoor | University of Maryland |
Antonina Mitrofanova | New York University | Scientific/Medical Informatics2 | Andrea Califano | Columbia University |
Deidra Morrison | Northwestern University | Social Computing / Social Informatics | Juan Gilbert | Clemson University |
Ifeoma Nwogu | SUNY Buffalo | AI / Machine Learning / Robotics / Vision | Christopher Brown | University of Rochester |
Iris Oved | Rutgers University-New Brunswick | AI / Machine Learning / Robotics / Vision | Paul Cohen | University of Arizona |
Jeff Phillips | Duke University | Theory / Algorithms | Suresh Venkatasubramanian | University of Utah |
Sally Pias | New Mexico State University | Scientific/Medical Informatics2 | Carlos Simmerling | SUNY Stony Brook |
Anna Pyayt | University of Washington-Seattle Campus | Hardware / Architecture | Olav Solgaard | Stanford University |
Leena Razzaq | Worcester Polytechnic Institute | Computer Science Education / Educational Technology | Beverly Woolf | University of Massachussetts-Amherst |
Guy Rothblum | MIT | Theory / Algorithms | Boaz Barak | Princeton University |
Sushmita Roy | University of New Mexico | Scientific/Medical Informatics2 | Aviv Regev | Broad Institute |
Linda Sellie | University of Chicago | AI / Machine Learning / Robotics / Vision | Lisa Hellerstein | New York University |
Stelios Sidiroglou | Columbia University | Information Assurance / Security / Privacy / Cryptography | Martin Rinard | MIT |
David Soloveichik | California Institute of Technology | Quantum Computing, Synthetic Biology, Computational Neuroscience, etc. | Georg Seelig | University of Washington |
Veselin Stoyanov | Cornell University | AI / Machine Learning / Robotics / Vision | Jason Eisner | Johns Hopkins University |
Julia Stoyanovich | Columbia University | Databases / Information Retrieval / Data Mining | Susan Davidson | University of Pennsylvania |
Cui Tao | Brigham Young University | Scientific/Medical Informatics2 | Christopher Chute | Mayo Clinic |
Lydia Tapia | Texas A&M | Scientific/Medical Informatics2 | Ron Elber | University of Texas at Austin |
David Van Horn | Brandeis University | Programming Languages/Compilers | Matthias Felleisen | Northeastern University |
Virginia Vassilevska Williams | Carnegie Mellon University | Theory / Algorithms | Satish Rao | University of California-Berkeley |
Stephen Voida | Georgia Tech | HCI/CSCW | Gloria Mark | UC Irvine |
Weijun Xiao | University of Rhode Island | Hardware / Architecture | David Lilja | University of Minnesota |
Liangjun Zhang | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Quantum Computing, Synthetic Biology, Computational Neuroscience, etc. | Jean-Claude Latombe | Stanford University |
To learn more about any of the CIFellows: Visit http://cifellows.org/network and view their curriculum vita and research abstracts.
About the CCC: The CCC (http://cra.org/ccc) was established in 2007 under a cooperative agreement between the CRA and the NSF. A standing committee of the CRA, the CCC seeks to mobilize the computing research community to debate long-range challenges and build consensus around specific research visions. The CCC specifically pursues the next big computing ideas that will define the future of the field, attract the very best talent, and catalyze research investment and public support in the long term.
For more information: Contact Dr. Erwin Gianchandani, Director of the Computing Community Consortium & Computing Innovation Fellows Project: erwin [@] cra.org; 202-266-2936.