This month marks the 35th anniversary of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate. CISE was founded on May 1, 1986, and it continues to support “investigator-initiated research and education in all areas of computer and information science and engineering,” including the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), which CISE funds through a cooperative agreement with the Computing Research Association.  Highlighted in their May newsletter, “One of CISE’s key early investments in information technology was the Digital Libraries Initiative (DLI). This initiative provided global, multilingual repositories of data, knowledge, sound, and images. Through the DLI, NSF supported a project that would ultimately result in the creation of Google.”    The National […]

Recently, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — a media organization that “equips the public, policymakers, and scientists with the information needed to reduce man-made threats to our existence” and is famous for their Doomsday Clock — held a virtual program titled, “The Artificial Intelligence Era: What will the future look like.”  Nadya Bliss, a Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Executive Council member and the Executive Director of the Global Security Initiative at Arizona State University, moderated the program. The speakers were Eric Horvitz, Chief Scientific Officer at Microsoft and a former CCC Council member, and Mary (Missy) Cummings, the director of Duke’s Humans and Autonomy Laboratory and a co-organizer of […]

A recent CNN article titled “Black or ‘Other’? Doctors may be relying on race to make decisions about your health,” discusses how race has both historically affected and currently impacts the medical decisions that doctor’s make and the subsequent care that patients receive. Among the examples it covers is the controversial eGFR (Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate), which is used to measure kidney function. eGFR is calculated through a formula that includes your blood creatinine level (creatinine is a waste product that is filtered from your blood by your kidneys) as well as other variables such as age, sex, and race. However, as CNN states, “When it comes to race, doctors […]

A new episode of Catalyzing Computing, the Computing Community Consortium‘s (CCC) official podcast, is now available. This episode is part two of Khari Douglas‘ (CCC Senior Program Associate) interview with Dr. Katie Siek, a professor in Informatics and the Chair of Informatics at Indiana University – Bloomington. Dr. Siek is interested in integrating pervasive technologies in health and wellness environments to study how technology affects interventions. Her research interests include human computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, and health informatics. In this episode, Katie discusses health disparities and how computing technologies can play a role in their reduction, as well as the challenges to doing health informatics research in the field. Listen to […]

A new episode of the Computing Community Consortium‘s (CCC) official podcast, Catalyzing Computing, is now available. In this episode, Khari Douglas (CCC Senior Program Associate) interviews Dr. Katie Siek, a professor in Informatics and the Chair of Informatics at Indiana University – Bloomington. Dr. Siek is interested in integrating pervasive technologies in health and wellness environments to study how technology affects interventions. Her research interests include human computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, and health informatics. In this episode, Katie discusses health informatics, fitness trackers, data ownership, and aging in place. Listen to the episode here. Below is a transcription from part of the discussion about aging in place. It is lightly edited for […]

A new episode of the Computing Community Consortium‘s (CCC) official podcast, Catalyzing Computing, is now available. In this episode, Khari Douglas (CCC Senior Program Associate) interviews Dr. Behçet Açikmeşe. Behçet was a technologist and a senior member of the Guidance and Control (G&C) Analysis Group at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from 2003 to 2012 where he developed guidance, control, and estimation algorithms for formation-flying spacecraft and distributed networked systems, proximity operations around asteroids and comets, and planetary landing. He is currently a Professor in Aeronautics & Astronautics, as well as Electrical & Computer Engineering, at the University of Washington and a member of their Autonomous Controls Lab. In this episode, […]