Recently, the Computing Research Association’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC) released a white paper called Pandemic Informatics: Preparation, Robustness, and Resilience, by Elizabeth Bradley (University of Colorado Boulder), Madhav Marathe (University of Virginia), Melanie Moses (The University of New Mexico), William D Gropp (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and Daniel Lopresti (Lehigh University). It is part of the series of white papers called Quadrennial Papers that explore areas and issues around computing research with potential to address national priorities.  The Pandemic Informatics paper outlines an effective strategy to reduce the national and global burden of pandemics. It includes (i) detect timing and location of occurrence, taking into account the many interdependent driving […]

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 […]

In an effort to prepare for the next pandemic and perhaps aid in the current one, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), along with the National Academy of Engineering, hosted a virtual workshop entitled Role of Robotics in Infectious Disease Crises on July 9-10, 2020. Organized by Gregory Hager (The Johns Hopkins University), Vijay Kumar (The University of Pennsylvania), Robin Murphy (Texas A&M University), Daniela Rus (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Russell Taylor (The Johns Hopkins University), the workshop consisted of over forty participants including representatives from the engineering/robotics community, clinicians, critical care workers, public health and safety experts, and emergency responders. Today we are pleased to release the resulting report […]

How can computing technology impact global health, particularly with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic? Shwetak Patel, 2018 ACM Prize in Computing winner and Computing Community Consortium (CCC) council member, addressed this question on the second day of the Virtual Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF) 2020. Patel, an entrepreneur and professor of computer science at the University of Washington, won the 2018 Prize for “contributions to creative and practical sensing systems for sustainability and health.” During his presentation, Patel highlighted a few of the use cases of computing technology on healthcare: for instance, AI has improved screening and diagnostic capabilities by reading X-rays and radiology scans and the ubiquity of mobile phones makes them a great […]

The Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF) is virtual this year! Like many things in 2020, it might not be the same experience, but the positive is that it can now be viewed by everyone here on the Livestream from 10AM- 4PM ET Monday (September 21st) through Thursday (September 24th).  Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Senior Program Associate Khari Douglas will be attending the virtual HLF to podcast and blog about the various talks and panels. Additionally, CCC Council member Shwetak Patel from the Univeristy of Washington will be talking on Tuesday, September 22nd at 10:30AM ET on Learning From Global Health Research to Address the Current Pandemic and then leading and participating […]

Former CRA Board Member, Moshe Vardi from Rice University will present “Lessons from COVID-19: Efficiency vs Resilience,” as part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Distinguished Lecture series on September 17, 2020 from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM ET. Moshe Y. Vardi is a University Professor, and the George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering and Director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice University.  He is the author and co-author of over 600 papers, as well as two books.  He is the recipient of several scientific awards, including the CRA’s Distinguished Service Award in 2010, is a fellow of several societies and a […]