Farnam Jahanian, Professor and Chair of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Michigan, today was named the next Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) at NSF, effective February 1, 2011. Jahanian will assume the position that Jeannette Wing successfully held for three years before returning to CMU in early July. For Jahanian’s complete bio, see http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~farnam/bio.htm. The official NSF announcement is available here.

Five years ago, the National Academies published a landmark study calling for U.S. investment in science, technology, and education, warning the nation could no longer afford inaction in these areas. Yesterday, 17 of the 20 original committee members issued an updated version of that report: Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category Five. The new report notes that, “in spite of the efforts of both those in government and the private sector, the outlook for America to compete for quality jobs has further deteriorated over the past five years” and “the ‘Gathering Storm’ increasingly appears to be a Category 5.” At the official unveiling of the report on […]

Today’s New York Times Sunday magazine is devoted to  the role of computing and technology in education.  The lead article is entitled Learning by Playing:  Video Games in the Classroom.  Other articles and essays includes Hacks into Hackers:  Can Journalism and Computer Science Mix?, The Eight-Year-Old Programmer, among others.

The Simons Foundation will provide up to $6 million/year in funding for a new Institute for the Theory of Computing. The call for applications recognizes the deep importance of the study of computation to society. Computation (and its abstract form, the algorithm) has not only revolutionized science, technology, and society, but also is among the most important scientific concepts discovered and developed in the 20th century. This scientific discipline has enabled numerous technological advances and has forged many connections to mathematics and other sciences, providing fruitful insights and new problems. It has impacted not only computer science and technology, but also parts of mathematics, physics, biology, economics and sociology. Meanwhile, […]

Every 10 years, U.S. astronomers come together to generate what has become a highly influential report recommending which astronomy and astrophysics projects should be funded by Federal agencies in the following decade. This year’s “decadal survey” – assimilated from 9 appointed panels, 17 town hall meetings, and 324 white papers – was released by the National Research Council (NRC) on Aug. 13. Unlike previous decadal surveys that have been defined by lengthy “wish lists,” the 2010 report unveiled just 8 projects, all focused on the study of dark matter and dark energy. And for the first time, the survey included independently vetted estimates of project costs. (See http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/329/5995/1002 and http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100818/full/466910a.html […]

The internet is abuzz with stories about a purported proof that the class P is not equal to the class NP.  The author of the proof is Dr. Vinay Deolalikar, a Principal Research Scientist at HP Lab.  Professor Richard Lipton’s blog provides some interesting comments and reflections on this manuscript.