Computing Community Consortium Blog

The goal of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer range, more audacious research challenges; to build consensus around research visions; to evolve the most promising visions toward clearly defined initiatives; and to work with the funding organizations to move challenges and visions toward funding initiatives. The purpose of this blog is to provide a more immediate, online mechanism for dissemination of visioning concepts and community discussion/debate about them.


A Workshop on Sustainability & IT

February 10th, 2011 / in research horizons, workshop reports / by Erwin Gianchandani

About 60 leading researchers, program managers, and others gathered in Washington, DC, last Thursday and Friday to discuss new fundamental CSE research opportunities that will meet important enabling needs as the nation and world seek long-term sustainable technologies and behaviors. This two-day meeting, co-sponsored by NSF’s CISE Directorate and the Computing Community Consortium, sought to go beyond routine uses of information technology to identify high-risk, high-reward research directions in sustainability that may not yet have received adequate attention or funding. The workshop comprised three sessions with plenary talks followed by breakout discussions and report-backs, as well as a fourth session that served as an integration/wrap-up period.  The NSF’s Tim Killeen […]

Computer Scientist Maja Mataric Receives Presidential Mentoring Award

February 10th, 2011 / in awards / by Ran Libeskind-Hadas

Professor Maja J. Matarić, a computer scientist at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering, has been awarded the the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM). Professor Mataric was recognized for her outstanding efforts in mentoring at all levels — K-12 students, students at USC, and young faculty colleagues. It is exciting to see mentoring acknowledged and rewarded at this level! Congratulations Maja! Read the White House announcement here.

NAE Announces Class of 2011

February 8th, 2011 / in awards / by Ed Lazowska

The National Academy of Engineering has announced the newly-elected Members of the Class of 2011.  The nine new Members of Section 5 (Computer Science & Engineering) are: Susan Dumais, Microsoft Research Daphne Koller, Stanford University Hank Levy, University of Washington Jitendra Malik, UC Berkeley Nick McKeown, Stanford University Don Norman, Northwestern University Ari Requischa, University of Southern California Fred Schneider, Cornell University Mihalis Yannakakis, Columbia University In addition, Jonathan Rose (University of Toronto) was elected as a Foreign Associate. Quoting from the NAE:  “Members are elected to NAE by their peers (current NAE members). Election to membership is one of the highest professional honors accorded an engineer.  Members have distinguished […]

CRA Launches Effort to Understand Opinions About Recent PostDoc Surge

February 2nd, 2011 / in pipeline, policy / by Erwin Gianchandani

The Computing Research Association — the umbrella organization of the CCC — today launched an effort to engage the computing research community in a conversation about PostDocs, at a time when a growing number of recent PhDs in computer science and allied fields are pursuing postdoctoral fellowships. According to data from CRA’s annual Taulbee Survey, the numbers of new PostDocs soared from 60 in 1998 to 159 in 2009 (three-year rolling averages), while the numbers of new tenure-track faculty positions declined sharply, from 224 in 2004 to 151 in 2009 (again, three-year rolling averages).  Moreover, the numbers of recent PhDs who are hired into industry immediately out of graduate school […]

State of the Union

January 26th, 2011 / in Uncategorized / by Ed Lazowska

“Innovation” and “Internet” are on the rise.  More broadly, the President echoes recommendations of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology regarding research investments in Networking and Information Technology, Energy, and K-12 STEM education.

“Outrageous Ideas” at CIDR: Seeking to Stimulate Innovative Research Directions

January 18th, 2011 / in research horizons / by Erwin Gianchandani

Researchers frequently lament the predictable framework of published papers.  The constraints of a rigorous review process discriminate against unconventional work and ideas that are innovative but not yet fully worked out.  As part of its mission to identify major new research opportunities, the CCC is sponsoring a series of “wacky ideas” sessions at several conferences. The goal of these sessions is to break free of the shackles of the normal reviewing process while still requiring a paper.  In this way, the “wacky idea” sessions differ from a “midnight session” of informal talks, in that the paper allows the ideas presented to be more broadly accessible. The first of these sessions […]