Mary Lou Maher, CRA’s Director of Research Community Initiatives and leader of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), will be concluding her tenure at CRA at the end of August. We thank Mary Lou for her leadership and contributions to the computing research community during her time at CRA. As the Director of CCC, Mary Lou provided strategic, administrative, and programmatic leadership. During her time in the role, CCC organized more than 20 community events, including two symposia and five visioning workshops, with two additional workshops currently in development. She also oversaw the publication of six visioning workshop reports, three Best Practices for Interdisciplinary Computing Research documents, and eight Quadrennial Papers. […]

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) recently released a memorandum to federal agencies to offer guidance on implementing the recent executive order on “Restoring Gold Standard Science”. The memo, authored by OSTP Director Michael Kratsios, offered nine key tenets for conducting scientific research, one of which was focused on “Collaborative and Interdisciplinary” research. Interdisciplinary research, the memo says, is “vital for generating new knowledge, as it fosters synergy, leverages complementary skills, and promotes the synthesis of ideas to raise new questions and tackle multifaceted problems that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries.” The memo directed agencies to prioritize this type of interdisciplinary research, through improved collaboration between agencies […]

A recent New York Times article by Steve Lohr, “How Do You Teach Computer Science in the A.I. Era?”, powerfully highlights the profound impact of generative AI on computer science education. As an organization dedicated to catalyzing and enabling the computing research community, CCC recognizes the urgency and criticality of this transformation. The article outlines the current landscape, noting that universities nationwide are grappling with how to adapt their curricula. The traditional emphasis on mastering programming languages is indeed being challenged by AI assistants that can generate increasingly sophisticated code. Jeannette Wing, Columbia University professor and former Computing Research Association (CRA) board member, aptly captures the current sentiment in the […]

Conversations around the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the job market have intensified in recent months. With high-profile announcements of layoffs and the increasing visibility of large language models (LLMs) that can generate and explain code, it’s natural that students, parents, and recent graduates are questioning the long-term value of a computer science (CS) degree.  One recent contribution to this conversation comes from Boise State University Associate Professor Casey Kennington and Clinical Instructor Andre Keys, whose recent article draws directly from The Future of Programming in the Age of Large Language Models, a joint whitepaper from the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) and CRA-Industry (CRA-I). Their piece positions the CS […]

  Today marks the end of the following CCC Council member’s terms. We would like to thank each of them for their exceptional dedication and service to CCC and to the broader computing research community, and to highlight some of their most notable accomplishments below:   David Danks, University of California San Diego   David joined the council in 2021 and served on CCC’s Executive Committee. During his time with CCC, David engaged in CCC’s responses to Requests for Information (RFIs) from various government agencies, in total assisting with 26 responses. David also helped organize the Future of Pandemic Prevention and Response workshop and engaged with several CCC-sponsored AAAS sessions. […]

  At the CCC’s Computing Futures Symposium in May, we had the privilege of hearing from Bill Dally, Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President of Research at NVIDIA, who delivered a compelling keynote address on the powerful synergy between government, academia, and industry. Dally captivated the audience with his personal journey through the technological revolutions that have shaped our world, driven by this collaborative model. Dally’s central message was clear and resounding: government research, combined with private sector ingenuity, has had a significant impact on America. This investment yields two critical outcomes: it cultivates a deep pool of talent essential to U.S. industry, and it generates the breakthrough technologies that […]