The Department of Education’s National Center for Education Research (NCER) is seeking applications responsive to 14 long-term research programs under its Education Research Grant Programs. Some of these programs are particularly relevant for computing researchers. For example, the RFA for NCER’s Education Technology program (RFA CDFA 84.305a) states: To support research on education technology tools that are designed to provide or support instruction in reading, writing, mathematics, or science (including pre-reading, pre-writing, early mathematics, and early science) or to provide professional development for teachers related to instruction in reading, writing, mathematics, or science. The Institute intends to contribute to improvement of reading, writing, mathematics, and science learning by (1) developing […]

The Computing Community Consortium is interested in stimulating the development of new research visions and challenges in computing research. Recently, the CCC has begun collaborating with conferences in computer science and sponsoring “crazy-idea” sessions with travel awards for the most exciting submissions. One such example is the Fun Ideas and Thoughts (FIT) session at the PLDI (Programming Languages Design and Implementation) conference, held on June 8, 2010 in Toronto, Canada. In collaboration with the PLDI organizing commitee, the CCC is happy to announce the winners of the FIT session: 1) Outfoxing the Mammoths, by Marek Olszewski and Saman Amarasinghe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 2) Resource-Based Programming in Plaid, by Jonathan […]

Dr. Ken Gabriel, the deputy director of DARPA, delivered a plenary address at CRA’s biannual Snowbird Conference on Monday morning — one day short of the one-year anniversary of the arrival of DARPA’s new leadership, including new DARPA director Dr. Regina Dugan. Gabriel spoke about DARPA’s incredible transformation over the past 12 months, including its renewed commitment to academic research. Specifically, Gabriel started by highlighting five key changes that have occurred at DARPA in the past year: – “Go/no-go” is gone. – Contracting has been simplified. The process is as clear, simple, and fast as the law allows. – More realistic conflict of interest rules have been applied to people […]

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) held its July 2010 meeting at the National Academies in Washington, DC, on Friday. The hearing began with a session on “Science, Technology, and Diplomacy” that featured the three founding members of the Science Envoys program – Bruce Alberts, Elias Zerhouni, and Ahmed Zewail – speaking candidly about their experiences as part of this new diplomatic effort, which places U.S. scientists in foreign nations to promote international relations. The three envoys shared insights they had gleaned while trying to improve diplomatic relations with Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, Qatar, Turkey, and the U.A.E. A prevailing sentiment was the urgent need for a […]

Last Saturday, the New York Times Magazine published the fourth installment in its “Smarter Than You Think” series, this one titled “Students, Meet your New Teacher, Mr. Robot.” The article highlights the use of robots as teachers of young students. Imbued with boundless patience and ability to recall facts, robots hold promise as effective teachers in high-repetition scenarios such as language class autism therapy. Teams from UCSD, MIT, UConn, etc., are field-testing teaching robots for a variety of uses. The results of these tests have been positive and the future use of robots in the classroom seems likely. The article also discusses the Holy Grail of artificial intelligence — teaching […]

Peter Lee, a past member of the CCC Council and the PI of the first CIFellows Project, today was named the Managing Director of Microsoft Research Redmond, effective this fall. In joining Microsoft Research, Peter departs DARPA, where he has been the Director of the agency’s Transformational Convergence Technology Office (TCTO) for the past year. There Peter has challenged conventional Department of Defense (DoD) approaches to computer science research by infusing new energy into [DARPA]’s relationships with academia and industry and reinforcing the agency’s unique role at the intersection of research and application. Today, TCTO is re-establishing basic research programs in a broad range of rapidly emerging computing-enabled technology areas […]