CRA Conference at Snowbird 2002 

July 14 - 16, 2002 
Snowbird, Utah

PROGRAM

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Slides will continue to be posted as they are made available to us.

Unless noted otherwise, all slides are in PDF format.

Sunday, July 14

CRA Board of Directors Meeting (begins Saturday at 6 pm) 
8:00 am - 2:45 pm

Registration 
2:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Workshop for New Department Chairs 
3:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Chairs: 
Randy Bryant (Carnegie Mellon University)
Kathleen McKeown (Columbia University)

Keynote Speaker: Bob Kahn (CNRI)
5:30 pm - 6:30 pm

Welcome Reception 
6:30 pm - 7:30 pm

Dinner 
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm

Monday, July 15

Breakfast Buffet 
7:00 am - 8:30 am

Registration 
7:30 am - 6:00 pm

Welcome 
8:30 am - 8:40 am

Speakers: 
Phil Bernstein (Microsoft Research; Labs/Centers Snowbird Chair)
Leah Jamieson (Purdue University; Academic Snowbird Chair)

PLENARY SESSION I 
8:40 am - 10:10 am

Bioinformatics and Computational Biology

With the rapid advances in genomics and molecular biology, new opportunities open not only for biologists but for computer scientists to apply the powerful tools of the profession to the understanding of life through knowledge of genes, proteins, and cells. The disciplines of bioinformatics and molecular biology, as defined by the National Institutes of Health, provide a plethora of interdisciplinary research opportunities that will be outlined in the keynotes of two well-established researchers and outstanding computer scientists, Eugene Myers and Richard Karp.

Chair: Oscar N. Garcia (Wright State University)

Speakers: 
Eugene Myers (VP, Informatics Research, Celera Genomics): Computational Challenges in Genomics and Molecular Biology

Richard M. Karp (University of California and International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, CA): The Role of Computer Science in Genomics and Molecular Biology

Break 
10:10 am - 10:30 am

Workshop I (parallel sessions) 
10:30 am - Noon

• Bioinformatics, Genomics, Proteomics

Bioinformatics is being touted as the hottest research area around. This session examines issues for CS&E in bioinformatics research, including funding, academic structures supporting interdisciplinary programs, and research opportunities.

Chair: Oscar Garcia (Wright State University)

Speakers: 
Jim Cassatt (National Institutes of Health)
Peter Karp (SRI)
Fernando Pereira (University of Pennsylvania)
Gary Strong (National Science Foundation)

• Trends in Research Funding

This session features expert panelists addressing aspects of Federal research funding priorities and initiatives. The President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) was instrumental in getting several years of increased NSF funding for computer science resulting, for example, in the current ITR program. What is next for PITAC and IT funding at NSF? Partly because of the ITR program, there has been more and more emphasis on multidisciplinary research. What is the proper mix? What are the trends in IT research funding in the Defense agencies and how will that affect multi-PI research teams? What effects are the September 11 terrorist attacks having on IT research funding and priorities?

Chairs: 
Dan Reed (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Jeff Vitter (Duke University)

Speakers: 
Rick Adrion (National Science Foundation)
Michael Lesk (Consultant)
Peter M. Lyster (Center for Scientific Review, NIH)

• Undergraduate Curriculum and Accreditation Advances

The past year has witnessed milestone events in computing curriculum and accreditation. New curricular guidelines for undergraduate programs in computer science have been developed and approved by ACM and IEEE-CS. CSAB now has been integrated with ABET to provide accreditation in computing (not just computer science!). In fact, new information systems criteria are now in effect and are being applied to accredit programs in the 2001-02 cycle. This session will provide the latest on these curriculum and accreditation activities.

Chair: Stu Zweben (Ohio State University)

Speakers: 
Ben Huey (Arizona State University; Chair of the Computing Accreditation Commission of ABET)
Eric Roberts (Stanford University; Co-chair and Editor of the Computing Curricula 2001 Task Force)

• Research in Corporate Labs

These are uncertain times for many industry research labs. What does the future hold? How do you conduct fundamental research while satisfying corporate demands for product payoff? What types of research are best suited to industry labs? What are strategies for success?

Chair: Richard (Dick) Waters (Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs)

Speakers: 
Jack Breese (Microsoft Research)
Anant Jhingran (IBM Almaden Research Lab)
Dave Waltz (NEC Princeton Research Lab)
Dick Waters (MERL)

PLENARY SESSION II 
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm

Diversifying Computing: Three Perspectives

P = NP        Diversity in Computing

Both have proved quite challenging. Are we as a discipline naïve in our inherent belief in the tractability of the diversity question? In this session three of our nation's leaders will offer their unique perspectives on the task before us. Each has worked in the trenches and subsequently reflected on their personal experiences. Caroline Wardle will describe some unique characteristics of the IT workforce and their implications for CISE's continuing efforts to increase diversity in IT. She will also make suggestions, in light of these characteristics, for academic CS departments to consider. Allan Fisher will address the educational and institutional origins of the computing gender gap, and he will outline some of the educational reforms that dramatically increased the number of women entering the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University over the past five years. Richard Tapia will remind us of some of the challenges and contradictions we face against a backdrop of sparse successes, while addressing some of the following questions: Does the Digital Divide contribute to the underrepresentation problem? Will solving the Digital Divide solve the underrepresentation problem? Is there a bigger divide --the Educational Divide--that has an even greater impact? As the underrepresented minority population increases, are the representation numbers keeping up? Are promoting "diversity" and "representation" equivalent? Are issues related to gender equity and minority representation equivalent? What are the ingredients for success in today's technological world?

Chair: Bryant York (Portland State University)

Speakers: 
Allan Fisher (Carnegie Mellon University)
Richard Tapia (Rice University)
Caroline Wardle (National Science Foundation)

Break 
3:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Workshop II (parallel sessions) 
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

• Computer Science and Other Disciplines: Mainframe, Client-Server, or Peer-to-Peer?

A 1992 NRC report urged computer scientists to broaden their field; a current NRC study urges the field to "examine the intellectual interplay between computer science and other disciplines." What should be the relationship between computer science and other disciplines in academia? in industry? What makes these questions so difficult?

Chair: Margaret Wright (New York University)

Speakers: 
Stuart Feldman (IBM)
Juris Hartmanis (Cornell University)
Edward Lazowska (University of Washington)
Margaret Wright (New York University)

• When IT Becomes a Profession

Information Technology is rapidly gaining recognition as a field of study and research and is evolving into a profession. Movements to found IT schools and establish and accredit BS IT degrees are gaining momentum. Computer science is one of over 40 organized groups within the IT field. What position will the CS&E disciplines hold in this field? How will CS&E reach out to the other groups? How will the broad interest in IT affect computing research? Can it enlarge the pipeline of students entering computing programs and careers? What reforms of undergraduate curricula are needed to meet the demands of industry for IT professionals?

Chair:
Susan Merritt (Pace University)

Speakers:
B.S. IT Degree Programs
Lillian 'Boots' Cassel (Villanova University)

Industry Expectations for IT Professionals
Susan Merritt (Pace University)

Research Directions and Opportunities
Maria Klawe (University of British Columbia)

• Developing a Research Environment

What are the unique issues related to fostering research in departments whose mission has not traditionally focused on research-- e.g., in colleges, MS-granting schools, or schools with relatively new Ph.D. programs?

Chairs: 
Sheila Castaneda (Clarke College)
David Novick (University of Texas, El Paso)

Speakers: 
Garrison Walters (Vice Chancellor for Academic Access Programs, The Ohio Board of Regents)
Joseph O'Rourke (Smith College)
Gary Strong (National Science Foundation)

• Issues and Models for Academic-Industry Agreements

The success of academic-industry collaborations often hinges on forging suitable agreements-- e.g., for intellectual property, internships, joint projects, funding, and commercialization oversight. This session explores issues related to academic-industry agreements, including a report on the CRA Model Agreements task force.

Chairs: 
J. Strother Moore (Postscript or PDF) (and a related paper: Postscript or PDF) (University of Texas-Austin)

Dinner and State of the CRA Address 
6:30 pm - 9:30 pm

James Foley (Georgia Institute of Technology)
William Aspray (CRA)

The CRA Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awards will be presented.

Tuesday, July 16

Breakfast Buffet 
7:00 am - 8:30 am

PLENARY SESSION III 
8:30 am - 10:00 am

The Importance of Research to Homeland Security

Our community is well acquainted with the problems and issues of cybersecurity, but we may not be as aware of the very challenging research problems that arise from the efforts to protect our nation domestically on other fronts. The chair will provide an overview of the recently released National Academies report on S&T for homeland security, and Ed Lazowska will review the IT sections of the report. The panel will then illustrate the problems that must be dealt with to protect our critical infrastructure, to improve our law enforcement and justice system, and to provide a responsive and effective public health system. In discussion with the audience, the panel will provide insight on some of the research avenues that need to be explored.

Chair: Peter Freeman (National Science Foundation)

Speakers: 
"Role of IT in Homeland Security"
Ed Lazowska (University of Washington)

"A Few Key Issues in Cybersecurity"
Gene Spafford (Purdue University)

"Research for Intelligence and Security"
Gary Strong (National Science Foundation)

"Research Needed for the Public Health System" 
William Yasnoff (CDC and Public Health Informatics Institute)

Break
10:00 am - 10:30 am

Workshop III (parallel sessions) 
10:30 am - Noon

• Law, Policy, and Research

New laws-- DMCA, PATRIOT, UCITA, the data quality act-- are affecting computing research and researchers. What is at stake for departments whose faculty are involved in research that may collide with these laws? What role should the computing community play in public policy issues?

Chairs: 
Andrew Hume (AT&T Labs)
Jon Peha (Carnegie Mellon University)

Speakers: 
Andrew Hume (AT&T Labs)
Jon Peha (Carnegie Mellon University)
Barbara Simons (ACM)

• New Academic Structures Involving Computing, Information Science, and Technology

An interesting recent development in the world of academic computing and information technology has been the emergence of a variety of new college-level units. These range from schools of computing that include computer science and some related disciplines, to schools that focus on a multidisciplinary orientation to information technology but do not include core computer science, to schools of information that in some cases have grown out of library schools. This trend is being watched carefully by many computer scientists and by CRA. This session will discuss the experiences of several recently formed academic units that address various aspects of core and multidisciplinary computing and information science and technology. It also will present and discuss the recommendations of a recent CRA task force addressing the scope of CRA's membership and programs, which was motivated in part by the new and emerging academic structures.

Chair: Bobby Schnabel (University of Colorado at Boulder)

Speakers: 
Harry Bruce (University of Washington): Experience with a recently transformed information school.

Michael Dunn (Indiana University): Experience with a recently formed multidisciplinary IT school.

Juris Hartmanis (Cornell University)

Bobby Schnabel (University of Colorado at Boulder): Recommendations of the CRA Academic Structures Task Force.

• New Pressures on CS&E Academic Units

This session will share experiences in dealing with new pressures that affect the management of CS&E academic units but are not covered in other Snowbird sessions, such as academic dishonesty given extensive web materials, managing non-academic staff, and marshaling sufficient TA support for large classes.

Chair: Frank Tompa (University of Waterloo)

Speakers: 
David Notkin (University of Washington)
Stephen Seidman (New Jersey Institute of Technology)
Debra J. Richardson (UC Irvine)

• Industry/Academic Collaboration: What Works? What's New?

This session explores some of the basic framework issues of industry-university collaboration, concentrating on specific examples of collaboration that have been tried in the past as well as new models aimed at more effective collaborations and technology transfers.

Chairs: 
Tom Henderson (University of Utah)
Dave Waltz (NEC Labs)
Dick Waters (Mitsubishi Labs)

Luncheon: CRA Board Interaction with Conference Participants 
Noon - 1:30 pm

Workshop IV (parallel sessions) 
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm

• Technology Roadmaps and Plotting Research Routes

Setting research directions in a subdiscipline of CSE must be done in light of the technology roadmap affecting that subdiscipline. This session will provide an overview of the roadmapping efforts in two subdisciplines of CSE-- the silicon roadmapping effort done by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors and the database technology roadmapping effort done by ACM/SIGMOD -- to identify technological challenges and opportunities for new research directions (and monies) to overcome the roadblocks. The goals of these presentations will be to lay out roadmapping strategies that can be adopted by other subdisciplines in CSE in plotting their own research routes. A report of the discussions at the CRA Conference on "Grand Research Challenges" in Computer Science and Engineering, to be held in June 2002, will conclude the session.

Chair: Mary Jane Irwin (The Pennsylvania State University)

Speakers: 
Hector Garcia-Molina (Stanford University): Database Technology Roadmapping

Ed Lazowska (University of Washington): Report from the recent CRA Grand Research Challenges in Computer Science and Engineering Conference

Jan Rabaey (University of California at Berkeley): Silicon Technology Roadmapping/MARCO

• The Business of Publication

• Recruiting and Retention of Faculty

There is widespread concern about the difficulties that academic departments are facing in the recruitment and retention of faculty. Continuation of the perceived trends in recruiting and retention can cause great disruption of state-of-the-art research and in the future education of students. Various facts, causes, and potential solutions will be discussed. Results from an on-going NSF-funded study will be presented.

Chair: Jack Stankovic (University of Virginia)

Speakers: 
Eric Roberts (Stanford University)
Stu Zweben (Ohio State University)

• Industry Roundtable

This session is a roundtable discussion of issues facing industry research labs, as well as a discussion of how CRA can serve its industrial members.

Chairs: 
Jim Foley (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Dave Waltz (NEC Research Institute)

Workshop for IT Deans 
3:00 pm - 9:30 pm

Chair: Bobby Schnabel (University of Colorado at Boulder)
An agenda and attendee list can be found here

CRA Conference at Snowbird 2002 Committee

Co-Chairs
Phil Bernstein (Microsoft Research)-- Labs/Centers Chair
Leah Jamieson (Purdue University)-- Academic Chair

Members
Ron Brachman (AT&T Research)
Oscar Garcia (Wright State University)
Tom Henderson (University of Utah)
Jim Horning (NAI Labs)
Jack Stankovic (University of Virginia)
Frank Tompa (University of Waterloo)
Dick Waters (Mitsubishi Labs)
Roger Webb (Georgia Tech, ECEDHA)

CRA Conference at Snowbird 2002 Sponsors

American Association for Artificial Intelligence
Association for Computing Machinery
Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs
NASA Ames Research Center
Microsoft Research
Telcordia Technologies
USENIX Association

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