Ian Foster, former Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council Member and Professor at the University of Chicago and Division Director at Argonne National Laboratory, was just named the 2022 Ken Kennedy award recipient. Presented by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society (IEEE-CS) the Ken Kennedy Award is an annual honor recognizing contributions to programmability and productivity in computing and community service or mentoring contributions. You can see past award winners here. Foster is recognized for his substantial contributions in accelerating scientific discovery in computational science by establishing innovative, newfangled applications of distributed computing both within supercomputers and over networks. His work […]

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many aspects of the world and the way we do things. One of those aspects was conferences, as well as the in-person visioning activities considered to be the Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) bread and butter. The community relies on these activities to forge new connections, spark collaborations and bring people together to discuss interdisciplinary problems and solutions.  Since the onset of the pandemic, the CCC held a number of virtual and hybrid workshops to provide a venue for important research discussions and enable networking and social interaction while researchers could not get together as they did in the past. The virtual hiatus, while beneficial in many […]

While many of the achievements of AI scientists, especially in the field of language dialogue application, seemed impossible 20 years ago, it isn’t unrealistic to think that AI can perform in ways only seen in movies. AI systems have or will soon have the capacity to execute human tasks like writing, driving, and analyzing data. AI systems are constantly looking and acting more human, so are they becoming human? According to the vast majority of AI scientists, the answer is no. However, Google engineer Blake Lemoine has made headlines in recent days by insisting that LaMDA, short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is sentient. Lemoine goes as far as […]

Dr. Ayanna Howard, Dean of Engineering at The Ohio State University and Monte Ahuja Endowed Dean’s Chair will speak on “Socially Interactive Robots for Equitable Healthcare Outcomes” as a part of the NSF Distinguished Lecture Series. The event, to be held May 4th at 11 AM Eastern, will focus on how robots (particularly healthcare robots) and artificial intelligence can be positively integrated into everyday life and tasks. Research and development of helper robots exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to grow as people realize positive potential and impact these technologies can have on the healthcare field. Abstract Dr. Howard’s lecture will provide insights into how robots and artificial intelligence […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) with input from CRA-Industry recently responded to the Department of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Request for Information on Incentives, Infrastructure, and Research and Development Needs to Support a Strong Domestic Semiconductor Industry. The RFI was seeking information in order to inform the planning and design of potential programs to: Incentivize investment in semiconductor manufacturing facilities and associated ecosystems; provide for shared infrastructure to accelerate semiconductor research, development, and prototyping; and support research related to advanced packaging and advanced metrology to ensure a robust domestic semiconductor industry.  This response was written by Tom Conte (Georgia Tech), Nadya Bliss (Arizona State University), […]

Originally posted on the Computing Research Policy Blog by Brian Mosley Yesterday the Director of the National Science Foundation, Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan, formally announced the establishment of the Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships, or TIP. This is the first new NSF directorate established in more than 30 years. This move came about because of the passage of the Fiscal Year 2022 Omnibus appropriations bill by Congress last week, which stipulated that NSF was authorized to establish this new directorate. TIP’s mission is to position NSF as the nation’s lead science agency for innovation and to maintain the country’s competitiveness in new research fields and technology. As Dr. Panchanathan said in […]