The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently released a new multi-directorate program called Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NSF-NCS), which describes the first phase of NSF’s broader aim to foster innovation in cognitive science and neuroscience as part of the President’s BRAIN Initiative. NSF-NCS will support transformative and integrative research that will accelerate understanding of neural and cognitive systems. In December, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) held a related workshop titled Research Interfaces between Brain Science and Computer Science. Over 70 computer scientists and neuroscientists from academia, industry, and government were in attendance and between 160-300 participants viewed each panel and plenary on the live-stream. All panels and plenary talks from the […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) issued a new solicitation for the Exploiting Parallelism and Scalability (XPS) program.  The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) 2012 White Paper “21st Century Computer Architecture” was a key driver for the development of this program. The Exploiting Parallelism and Scalability (XPS) program aims to support groundbreaking research leading to a new era of parallel computing. Achieving the needed breakthroughs will require a collaborative effort among researchers representing all areas — from services and applications down to the micro-architecture — and will be built on new concepts, theories, and foundational principles. New approaches to achieve scalable performance and usability need new abstract models and algorithms, new programming models and […]

The following is a letter to the community from National Science Foundation (NSF) Acting Assistant Director for the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE), Suzi Iacono.  Dear CISE Colleagues, As we mark the end of Computer Science Education Week for 2014, it is my pleasure to inform you that the National Science Foundation (NSF) engaged in a number of important activities this past week, seeking to inspire and build a globally competitive 21st century workforce. One of our most important goals is to ensure that all students in schools across the country have access to the most advanced learning environments and can take advantage of new approaches to computational and […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) announced in October a new solicitation, entitled US Ignite, that is a big step forward in the US Ignite Administration initiative. From the solicitation: The primary goal of US Ignite is to break a fundamental deadlock: there is insufficient investment in gigabit applications that can take advantage of advanced network infrastructure because such infrastructure is rare and dispersed. And conversely, there is a lack of broad availability of advanced broadband infrastructure for open experimentation and innovation because there are few advanced applications and services to justify it. US Ignite aims to break this deadlock by providing incentives for […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer Science and Engineering (CISE) in partnership with Intel announced a joint funding opportunity called Visual and Experiential Computing (VEC), aimed at fostering novel, transformative, and multidisciplinary approaches that promote research in VEC technologies. The advancement of sensing technology, multi-camera and light field imaging systems, networks of sensors, advanced visual analytics and cloud computing will challenge the longstanding paradigms of capturing, creating, analyzing and utilizing visual information. Advances in VEC will enable capability, adaptability, scalability, and usability that will far exceed the simple information systems of today. VEC technology will transform the way people interact with visual information through, for example, the realization of new mobile and […]

Recently, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) posted an article about Algorithms in the Field (AitF) a new program in the Directorate for Computer Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation (NSF). AitF aims to promote collaboration between theory researchers and those in more applied areas. The program synopsis reads as follows: Algorithms in the Field encourages closer collaboration between two groups of researchers: (i) theoretical computer science researchers, who focus on the design and analysis of provably efficient and provably accurate algorithms for various computational models; and (ii) applied researchers including a combination of systems and domain experts (very broadly construed – including but not limited to researchers in computer architecture, […]