There are many reasons for research funding agencies (DARPA, NSF, etc.) to invest in the education of students. Producing the next generation of innovators is the most obvious one. In addition, though, there are an impressive number of instances in our field in which undergraduate and graduate students have made truly game-changing contributions in the course of their studies. The inspiring list in the attached PDF was compiled by the following individuals and their colleagues: Bill Bonvillian (MIT), Susan Graham (Berkeley), Anita Jones (University of Virginia), Ed Lazowska (University of Washington), Pat Lincoln (SRI), Fred Schneider (Cornell), and Victor Zue (MIT). We solicit your suggestions for additional student contributions of […]

Today, the first sub-award in the Computing Innovation Fellows project was completed! Under the CIFellows project – conceived of and implemented by CCC and CRA, and funded by a $15 million award from NSF – 60 extraordinary new Ph.D. graduates have been paired with 60 outstanding mentors for postdoctoral opportunities that advance the computing field. The CIFellows project was conceived in February as a response to the current economic climate.  The goal is to keep outstanding Ph.D. graduates “in the research and education game” until the climate improves.  It is a huge tribute to NSF, CCC, CRA, the computing research community, and Peter Lee (who directs the project) that we […]

A GENI Engineering Conference presentation by CCC Chair Ed Lazowska describing major activities since the last GEC in October 2008, including: Transition Team white papers (see them here) Library of Congress symposium (transparencies and videos here) Computing Innovation Fellows project (blog post here) NetSE Research Agenda (blog post here) See the presentation here (pdf).

At this week’s GENI Engineering Conference in Seattle, Ellen Zegura rolled out the Network Science & Engineering (NetSE) Research Agenda, an extensive effort of CCC’s NetSE Council, which Ellen chaired. Over the past forty years, computer networks, and especially the Internet, have gone from research curiosity to fundamental infrastructure. However, this is no time to rest on the successes of the past. To meet society’s future requirements and expectations the Internet will need to be better: more secure, more accessible, more predictable and more reliable. In 2008, the Computing Community Consortium charged the NetSE Council with developing a comprehensive research agenda that would support the development of a better Internet. […]

On March 25th, the Computing Community Consortium organized a spectacular daylong symposium at the Library of Congress:  “Computing Research that Changed the World:  Reflections and Perspectives.” Videos of the presentations (as well as slides) are now available on the symposium website.  See http://www.cra.org/ccc/locsymposium_slides.php for the complete agenda with individual links, or see our YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/computingresearch. Talks at the Symposium included: Introductory Session Ed Lazowska (University of Washington), “Changing the World” Session 1: The Internet and the World Wide Web Alfred Spector (Google), “Why We’re Able to Google” Eric Brewer (UC Berkeley), “The Magic of the ‘Cloud’: Supercomputers for Everybody, Everywhere” Luis von Ahn (Carnegie Mellon University), “Human Computation” Session […]

The NSF Alan T. Waterman Award recognizes one extraordinary young scientist or engineer annually.   Candidates must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and must be 35 years of age or younger or not more than 7 years beyond receipt of the Ph.D. degree by December 31 of the year in which they are nominated.  Nominations are due in early December. In the 30+ year history of this award, fewer than a half dozen computer scientists have been recognized.  A principal reason is we don’t nominate many people.  Let’s change that!  It’s too early to submit nominations, but it’s not too early to start thinking about who you’d be willing […]