The CCC is charged with catalyzing and empowering the U.S. computing research community to articulate and advance major research directions for the field. To do so, the CCC needs truly visionary leaders — people with great ideas, sound judgment, and the willingness to work hard to see things to completion. Please help the computing community by nominating such people for the Council. For more information about the CCC, please visit http://cra.org/ccc and https://cccblog.org. The CCC is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under a cooperative agreement with the Computing Research Association (CRA). The work of the CCC is carried out by an active and engaged Council, currently led by Susan Graham (University of California- Berkeley) as chair and Greg […]

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced the launch of the Big Mechanism program to develop automated technologies that will help explain the causes and effects that drive complicated systems. Paul Cohen, DARPA Program Manager says, Having big data about complicated economic, biological, neural and climate systems isn’t the same as understanding the dense webs of causes and effects—what we call the big mechanisms—in these systems. Unfortunately, what we know about big mechanisms is contained in enormous, fragmentary and sometimes contradictory literatures and databases, so no single human can understand a really complicated system in its entirety. Computers must help us. … Indeed, the Big Mechanism program might herald new ways to understand complicated […]

On February 20 at 12:00pm EST, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will host it’s next Washington Area Trustworthy Computing Hour (WATCH) talk.  Deanna Caputo of the MITRE Corporation will give a talk titled Going Spear Phishing: Exploring Embedded Training and Awareness.  Caputo is currently a Principal Behavioral Psychologist supporting the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities.  Previously, she worked for the Department of Defense as a senior human factors intelligence analyst.  She holds a Ph.D. in Social and Personality Psychology from Cornell University, with specialization in Judgment and Decision-making and Psychology and Law.   Abstract To explore the effectiveness of embedded training, we conducted a large-scale experiment that tracked workers’ reactions […]

The following is a special contribution to this blog by Ran Libeskind-Hadas, R. Michael Shanahan Professor and Department Chair of Computer Science at Harvey Mudd College, currently on sabbatical at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  Ran is a member of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council and Co-Chair of the Computing Research Association’s Education Committee (CRA-E).  I’m on sabbatical this year and have been visiting computer science departments at colleges and universities, small and large.  One of the recurring stories that I hear is that a growing number of non-majors are choosing to take introductory CS courses.  And, some of these students get so excited that they choose to take a second CS course.  […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) invites nominations for members to serve on its 20-person Council. We are looking for individuals who have ideas, energy, initiative, and time to work with the community and on its behalf towards fulfilling the mission of the CCC. The CCC is charged with catalyzing and empowering the U.S. computing research community to articulate and advance major research directions for the field.   For example, How can computing accelerate progress in health care? How can computing advance the next decade of scientific research? How can we make the best of the abundance of data available in digital form and our increasing ability to analyze it? How can the […]

Farnam Jahanian, Assistant Director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate has sent the following Letter to the Computing Community: Dear Colleagues,   The National Science Foundation CISE Directorate is pleased to announce the formation of a search committee for the Director of the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS).  Dr. Howard Wactlar will finish his term as IIS Director at the beginning of Summer 2014. We greatly appreciate his expertise and leadership during his tenure!   Announcements for the search for his replacement can be found at http://www.nsf.gov/cise/iis/news/staff-iis.jsp and on USAJOBS at https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/360852200?org+NSF.   Please send your nominations to committee co-chairs or any of the following committee members. Self-nominations are also […]