Dear Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Community, 

Happy New Year! 

2020 certainly brought its share of challenges, and our sympathies are with all of you most directly affected by them.  Along the way, 2020 also brought many exciting opportunities and successes for the CISE community.  

AP CS Principles: For example, the College Board recently reported that the workforce—especially among young women, students of color, and first-generation students—setting them on a path to declaring a CS or STEM major in college. Specifically, the report found that AP CSP students are more likely to declare a major in STEM and more than THREE times as likely (an 11.7 percentage point increase) to declare a major in computer science than similar students who attended high school before AP CSP became available. CISE is proud to have collaborated with the College Board (as well as our colleagues in the NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources) since the inception of the AP-CSP framework and continues to support efforts that provide young women, students of color, and students with disabilities across the nation the opportunity to pursue careers in computing and information science. This is an extraordinary NSF story of truly moving the needle on broadening participation in our field, and in diversity, equity, and inclusion in the broader STEM workforce more generally. 

COVID-19 Responses: The COVID-19 pandemic continues to shape our jobs, schools, and lives; however, the new year brings promise of new advances in controlling the disease. In April 2020, NSF issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) inviting non-medical, non-clinical-care research proposals that could be used immediately to develop a range of processes and actions addressing this global challenge. In addition to a suite of such projects, CISE also funded Project PREPARE, a virtual organization to facilitate communication and collaboration among the CISE faculty and students who are conducting pandemic research, including those funded pursuant to the DCL. In December, project teams from across the country convened virtually to share updates, best practices, and challenges in their research. You can read more about their findings here.  

As we embark on a new year with hope and optimism, we look forward to continuing to work with all of you to help shape the frontiers of our field. As one sees vividly in the newly updated “tire tracks” diagram recently released by the National Academies, CISE research and education, and research cyberinfrastructure, has played a central role in advancing science and society. We look forward to expanding those advances for generations to come.