Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council member William “Bill” Gropp has been voted IEEE Computer Society 2021 president-elect and will serve as president in 2022! The IEEE Computer Society is the world’s home for computer science, engineering, and technology. A global leader in providing access to computer science research, analysis, and information, the IEEE Computer Society offers a comprehensive array of unmatched products, services, and opportunities for individuals at all stages of their professional career. Gropp is the director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Read the full news release from the society. Congrats, Bill!

This article has been adapted from one that appeared in Aeon, aeon.co. Our society is a complex system, “a system with many interacting agents, whose collective behavior is usually hard to predict.“ This makes things challenging. When the pandemic hit last March, for example, no one would have guessed that toilet paper would have been the most coveted item. As a computer scientist when you are designing a system, knowing the population you are designing for is critical. That is why systems that are cognizant of complex systems and encourage robustness and adaptability are key.  Recently, Computing Community Consortium (CCC) council member Melanie Mitchell (Santa Fe Institute and Portland State […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to announce the release of the Assured Autonomy report, titled Assured Autonomy: Path Toward Living With Autonomous Systems We Can Trust.   The report is the result of a year-long effort by the CCC and over 100 members of the research community, led by Ufuk Topcu (The University of Texas at Austin). Workshop organizers included Nadya Bliss (Arizona State University and CCC), Nancy Cooke (Arizona State University), Missy Cummings (Duke University), Ashley Llorens (Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory), Howard Shrobe (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Lenore Zuck (University of Illinois at Chicago).  Given the immense interest and investment in autonomy, a series of […]

The following is a guest blog from BPCnet.org Resource Portal. The Computing Research Association (CRA) and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) are calling upon the academic community to create and submit Departmental BPC Plans to BPCnet.org. Departmental BPC Plans are important because they help departments: reaffirm their commitment to equity and inclusion, identify and organize their BPC related goals and activities, and support PIs in their department who are submitting CISE proposals requiring a Project BPC Plan at the time of award. Haven’t started a Departmental BPC Plan? If you haven’t started your Departmental BPC Plan, there are a few things you can […]

The following is an announcement from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF Convergence Accelerator issued a Dear Colleague Letter (NSF-21-012): Request for Information (RFI) on Future Topics for the NSF Convergence Accelerator program to capture national-scale societal impact ideas from the global community for fiscal year 2022. The RFI is the kickoff of the Convergence Accelerator’s ideation process. Selected ideas will be asked to submit a conference proposal to further develop the proposed idea and to gather insights into a final report to assist NSF in determining convergence research topics for 2022.   RFI DETAILS Participants from academia, industry, government, non-profit, and other sectors are encouraged to submit their ideas here. Responses […]

The following is a guest blog from BPCnet.org Resource Portal.  The Computing Research Association (CRA) is hosting the third workshop in its series of Departmental BPC Plan workshops starting on October 29, 2020. All departments with faculty submitting CISE proposals are welcome to attend this workshop. The structure for this workshop is as follows: Presentation Day – October 29, 2020 Writing Day #1 – November 12, 2020 (optional) Writing Day #2 – December 3, 2020 (optional) On the presentation day, academic departments will learn about the NSF CISE requirements and expectations for BPC Plans. The workshop will also cover in-depth discussions on BPC Plan components and have BPC experts available for […]