Last month, PopTech — a nonprofit network of innovation experts based in Camden, Maine — announced its Science and Public Leadership Fellows, a small number of high-potential, early- and mid-career scientists working in areas of critical importance to the nation and the planet. The Fellows are chosen for their strong innate communications skills and interest in public leadership — and in the coming year they will receive training and skills development from world-class communications, media training, public engagement, and leadership faculty, including our very own Peter Lee. The ultimate goal: to develop a corps of visible and trusted scientific leaders who can provide leadership, explore new collaborative approaches, and engage with […]

As we’ve previously reported in this space, the National Science Foundation (NSF) recently issued a series of solicitations as part of its multi-year Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) initiative. Today the NSF’s CISE Directorate announced that it will be holding a pair of webinars later this month and early next month to provide an overview of these solicitations for researchers — with a particular focus on details that are likely to be of interest to the CISE community: The main purpose of [these webinars] is to help the CISE community to take advantage of the interdisciplinary research funding opportunities for FY 12 in [this] emerging area… Details about the webinars — including instructions for […]

Attendees of the 37th International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB 2011) — a premier annual international forum for data management and database researchers, vendors, practitioners, application developers, and users — stretched into the hallway outside the meeting room during the first of two Challenges and Visions sessions held in Seattle, WA, in late August. According to Hank Korth, CCC Council member and liaison to the VLDB program committee, “The talks were fantastic [and the follow-on] questions [were] great.” In keeping with tradition for these CCC-funded sessions, the VLDB Challenges and Visions Track emphasized visionary ideas, long-term challenges, and opportunities in data-centric research outside of the current mainstream topics of the field. […]

As we noted in this space yesterday, the National Science Foundation (NSF) published a special report on disaster research last week, as part of National Preparedness Month and the events surrounding the tenth anniversary of 9/11. The report highlights the fundamental research impacting and enabling policymakers and disaster responders to better predict, prepare for, and respond to significant hazards affecting life, property, societal infrastructure, and natural assets. What’s noteworthy is the critical role for computing research in this space — to include communications systems, rescue robotics, predictive modeling, game theory, etc. For example, at a related showcase of 30 research projects on Capitol Hill last week — attended by members of Congress, Federal agencies, and the media […]

As our nation pauses today to remember and reflect upon this tenth anniversary of 9/11, we recall the heroic efforts of ordinary citizens in the aftermath of that horrific day — as well as the lessons that were learned as a result. From a research standpoint, the National Science Foundation noted in a special report on disaster research published last week: …[Scientists] and engineers quickly joined the response.  Those who were experienced with earthquakes, floods and other natural devastation converged on the World Trade Center site to help.  Some searched for victims or studied how buildings collapsed. Others digitally mapped the disaster site. Still others monitored the coordination of responders from across the […]

The Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) Foundation’s 2011 Conference (NIPS 2011) has announced a special two-day workshop on parallel and large-scale machine learning called Big Learning: Algorithms, Systems, and Tools for Learning at Scale. The workshop, collocated with NIPS 2011 in Granada, Spain, aims “to bring together parallel system builders in industry and academia, machine learning algorithms experts, and end users to identify the key challenges, opportunities, and myths of Big Learning.” There will be a focus on practical case studies, demos, benchmarks, and lessons-learned papers. From the official call for papers: