The Computing Research Association

Computing Research News

August 2014 Vol. 26/No.7 ∫ Download PDF Version - 1.4MB ∫

New Look for CRA Unveiled at the 2014 CRA Conference at Snowbird

We are proud to announce the launch of a new brand for CRA and its committees. As the impact of CRA’s activities are becoming more widely recognized and valued across our industry, we decided to develop a new brand identity that reinforces and amplifies our mission, objectives and programs. Our new brand is part of our larger effort to create a comprehensive communications strategy for CRA and its many activities. After updating our mission statement, last fall we began developing a brand that positions CRA as dynamic and collaborative, while preserving the unique identities of CRA’s distinct committees.

CRA-W BECA Awards: Recognizing Junior Researcher Achievements

By Sandhya Dwarkadas Full Article

The CRA-W Borg Early Career Award (BECA) is named in honor of the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W and an inspiration for her commitment to increasing the participation of women in computing research. BECA targets women who are relatively early in their careers (at most 8 years post-PhD) with the goal of encouraging active contributions to helping increase the number of women in the computer science and engineering research community. The annual award is given to a woman in computer science and/or engineering who has made significant research contributions and who has contributed to her profession, especially in outreach to women. The award recognizes researchers in both academic and industrial/government research lab settings who have had a positive and significant impact on advancing women in the computing research community while serving as exemplary role models.

Announcements

By CRA Staff Full Article

Conquer: A new website on undergraduate research and graduate school for students, mentors, and advisers; CRA Hosts 2014 Tisdale Fellows Luncheon; Taulbee Heads-up: Changes to the CRA Taulbee Survey for Fall 2014, Anne Condon Receives Technical Leadership ABIE Award

What’s Going on at the Computing Community Consortium (CCC)

By CCC Staff Full Article

Details on New Council Members, Aging in Place Workshop, Uncertainty in Computation Workshop

Recent ISAT/DARPA Workshop Targeted Approximate Computing

By CCC Blog Full Article

The following is a special contribution to this blog by CCC Executive Council Member Mark Hill and workshop organizers Luis Ceze, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, and James Larus, Full Professor and Head of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne.

2014 CRA Conference at Snowbird

By CRA Staff Full Article

The leadership of North American computing research community convened July 20-22, in Snowbird, UT. The biennial CRA Conference at Snowbird is our flagship conference where the leadership of the computing research community gathers to network and discuss common issues concerning the future of the field.

Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline Infographic August 2014

By Ama Nyame-Mensah, CERP Research Associate Full Article

CERP recently compared critical outcomes of 187 undergraduate computing students who had participated in a formal research experience (REU) during the 2012 academic year. Students of racial minority who had participated in a REU reported greater gains in (a) knowledge about the graduate admission process, (b) academic and career self-efficacy, and (c) intentions to persist in computing compared to students of racial majority. These findings suggest that REUs in computing provide students of racial minority with an opportunity to be better prepared to apply for graduate study and develop self-efficacy. Further, formal REUs may be a particularly effective strategy for facilitating the matriculation of racial minority students through the computing pipeline.

New Leadership at CCC

By Gregory D. Hager, CCC Chair Full Article

The Computing Community Consortium (the “CCC”) was created to catalyze and enable computing research, to promote “audacious thinking”, and to align the interests of the computer science community with problems of national interest. Since its beginnings in 2006, the CCC, under the leadership of its founding chair, Ed Lazowska, and founding vice-chair, Susan Graham, has unquestionably had a transformative impact through its Visioning workshops, Visions and Challenges conference tracks (now Blue Sky Ideas Tracks), the Leadership in Science Policy Institute, the Computing Innovation Fellows program, and more. Major multi-agency funding programs, including Big Data, the National Robotics Initiative, and Smart and Connected Health, have all been influenced by the CCC in one way or another.