Last year, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) & CRA’s Government Affairs Committee held it’s first Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI) to help nurture the next generation of computing research leaders. A total of 35 participants attended the institute, which featured a series of presentations from science policy experts, current and former Hill staff, and relevant agency and Administration officials. Topics covered included the mechanics of the legislative process, serving on advisory committees, and interfacing with Federal agencies. Today we are pleased to announce the second Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI), which will be held April 11-12, 2013 in Washington, DC. Please discuss this opportunity with your colleagues, identify those you believe would […]

The Bay Area Council Economic Institute (BACEI) is out with a new report that integrates data from multiple sources, including the biennial Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) numbers we featured here several months ago, and presents a revealing county-by-county portrait illustrating where within the U.S. high-tech jobs are found. And the result is quite striking: it’s not just in Silicon Valley, but rather in communities all across the country where there have recently been increases of more than 10 percent in high-tech employment. Here are some of the takeaways the BACEI highlighted in its report:

The following is a special contribution to this blog by Jenny Korn, a Ph.D. student in communications at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Korn was one of the participants of last week’s 2012 Summer Social Webshop on Technology-Mediated Social Participation, co-organized by Alan Neustadtl, Jennifer Preece, and Ben Shneiderman, faculty at the University of Maryland at College Park, as well as Marc Smith of the Social Media Research Foundation. Chosen from more than 100 applications, 50 doctoral students gathered at the University of Maryland last week for the Summer Social Webshop (the website includes videos of presentations!). The well-crafted presentations triggered lively discussions at the intersection of social media and network analysis. We represented many disciplines, including communications, sociology, information science, […]

(This post has been updated; please scroll down for the latest.) Last December, we blogged about changes in the number of new Ph.D.s in computer science — a slight increase between 2009 and 2010, but the “fastest growth” of all science and engineering disciplines during the 10-year period ending in 2010, according to data from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) annual Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED). Well, NSF is now out with more data, this time describing trends among graduate students and postdoctoral fellows — and the numbers are quite striking for computing (details after the jump).

Harvard computer scientist and CCC Council member Margo Seltzer was interviewed last week about her thoughts on women in computer science: Txchnologist: Although women make up nearly half of the workforce in the U.S., the Department of Commerce reports that only one out of four employed computer scientists is female. Does this fit with what you see?   Margo Seltzer: It’s stunning. The numbers are bad, and they’re not particularly getting better globally. The only place that I’ve encountered worse numbers is actually finance and entrepreneurism. Those are the only events that I’ve ever gone to where I’ve felt that I was even more outnumbered.   Txch: What do you think accounts for the disparity? [more following […]

Last week, the National Academies released a report chartered by Congress — “Research Universities and the Future of America: Ten Breakthrough Actions Vital to Our Nation’s Prosperity and Security” — assessing the competitive position of the nation’s research universities, and responding to the following question: What are the top 10 actions that Congress, the Federal government, state governments, research universities, and others can take to assure the ability of the American research university to maintain the excellence in research and doctoral education needed to help the United States compete, prosper, and achieve national goals for health, energy, the environment, and security in the global community of the 21st century? The report […]