On April 2, 2013, President Obama launched the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative as a bold new research effort to revolutionize our understanding of the human mind and uncover new ways to treat, prevent, and cure brain disorders.  The Initiative is a joint program with funding through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). In mid-November, DARPA announced two programs as a part of this Initiative: SUBNETS (Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies) and RAM (Restoring Active Memory). The SUBNETS program asks researchers to develop novel, wireless devices, such as deep brain stimulators, that can cure neurological disorders.  From […]

On November, 26, 2013, Michael Farrell writes in The Boston Globe about the great change which is occurring on Harvard University’s campus, with regard to Computer Science in an article titled, “Computer science course fills seats, needs at Harvard.”  From the article: In just a few short years CS50 has rocketed from being a middling course to one of the biggest on campus, with nearly 700 students and an astounding 102-member staff that includes teaching fellows, graders, and multimedia producers. Classes are so big lectures are held in Sanders Theatre and office hours so crowded it looks like a tech start-up. David Malan has created a course that makes computer science come alive […]

On November 11, 2013, The Chronicle for Higher Education published an article titled “The STEM Crisis: Reality or Myth?” which stated that many researchers do in fact consider the crisis a myth.  Computer science is most certainly a STEM field, but when you unpack the data, you find that there really is a crisis for computer science.  Ed Lazowska, Past Chair of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, and David Patterson, Professor in Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley, have written a Letter to the Editor of The Chronicle explaining the data.  From their Letter: Let us introduce […]

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Policy (PCAST) met on November 12, 2013 and highlighted computing throughout the meeting.  The first agenda item was an overview of a soon-to-be-released letter report on Education Information Technology (EdIT).  There will eventually be three letter reports on this topic, with the first focusing on Higher Education, particularly Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs).  A variety of items were addressed during this session, with the highlights being that in this new era of Big Data, high bandwidth, and software innovation, opportunities to evolve pedagogical systems and personalize education are near.  You can view the discussion here.  Future EdIT letter reports will focus on […]

The Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) in the Education and Human Resources (EHR) Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF) has released a new funding program called Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE).  It is a broader funding opportunity to support projects that address immediate challenges and opportunities facing undergraduate STEM (including Computing) education, as well as those that anticipate new structures and functions of the undergraduate STEM learning and teaching enterprise. From the solicitation: Recognizing that the preparation of a globally-competitive workforce, including future teachers, and a scientifically literate populace requires excellent STEM education, DUE supports the improvement of the undergraduate STEM education enterprise through funding research on design, development, and […]

In September, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) put out a call for visioning proposals for workshops that will create exciting visions and agendas for research at the frontiers of computing.  Proposals are due December 1, 2013. From the solicitation: Successful workshops will articulate new research visions, galvanize community interest in those visions, and mobilize support for those visions from the computing research community, government leaders, and funding agencies…Proposals are encouraged across the full spectrum of theoretical and applied work related to the creation and application of information technologies as well as their use in addressing important scientific or societal challenges…Budgets can range in size from $10,000 to as much as $200,000, depending […]