CRA Board Chair Dr. Daniel Reed has been elected as a fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Section on Information, Computing, and Communication for “outstanding research in the field of high performance computing, exemplary professional leadership, and distinguished national service” said an article in the Triangle Business Journal. Reed is the director of the Renaissance Computing Institute, the vice chancellor of information technology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor. He is also a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) and a former member of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC).
Update (12/06/06) Board members Dr. Marc Snir, head of the computer scienc department at the University of Illinos Urbana-Champaign and Dr. Robert Sproull, director of Sun Microsystems Laboratories were also among those elected as AAAS Fellows.
Snir is an ACM Fellow, an IEEE Fellow and serves on the NSF CISE Advisory Committee.
Sproull is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and was formerly on the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.
They will be recognized at the AAAS annual meeting in San Francisco in February 2007. Visit AAAS for a list of the elected Fellows.
Congratulations Dan, Marc, and Bob!
Peter Freeman, head of NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate announced today that he’ll be leaving the post in January to take over a new position with the Washington Advisory Group. This isn’t a huge surprise as Peter’s term as Assistant Director of NSF was due to expire in early 2007. Hopefully this also means that the search for Peter’s replacement is nearing its completion, too.
The job of AD CISE is a pretty thankless one even in the best of times. [Updated...see below.] Peter has presided over a period in which the pressure on NSF funding for computing has probably never been greater. The field has grown significantly — both in breadth and in number of faculty — budgets have been relatively flat (on a constant dollar basis), and one historically key source of research funding for computing (DARPA) has scaled back its role significantly. For the duration of Peter’s term, NSF has essentially been the only game in town for fundamental computing research funding. Dealing with the corresponding rise in proposal pressure and decline in award rates can’t have been much fun. His reorganization of the Directorate helped provide some much needed flexibility.
Peter’s legacy as AD may be his drive to get the community to “think bigger and bolder” with projects like the proposed Global Environment for Networking Innovations (GENI) and the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) (which CRA is convening). It will also be his ardent belief in the need to increase the participation of women and minorities in computing. Under his watch, CISE established the Broadening Participation in Computing program, which is already making its mark on the field.
It’s good to know that Peter will remain here in Washington, putting to good use what he’s learned about how science policy works (or doesn’t) inside the Beltway. The community can surely use all the help it can get. We here at CRA World HQ wish him all the best in his new role!
Here’s Peter’s official announcement:
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Peter Freeman, Assistant Director of the NSF for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), announced today that he will leave NSF in January to become a Director at the prestigious Washington Advisory Group. The Washington Advisory Group provides strategic counsel and management consulting to the leaders of companies, universities, governments and non-profit organizations. It was founded in 1996 by a group of leaders in national science policy and research funding, including Erich Bloch, former Director of NSF.
Dr. Freeman has led CISE since 2002, having come from Georgia Tech, where he was Founding Dean of Computing and continues as an emeritus professor. “Dr. Freeman’s tenure at NSF was filled with many valuable achievements” stated Dr. Arden Bement. Dr. Freeman led the Information Technology Research Program, oversaw a comprehensive reorganization of CISE, helped lead the elevation of cyberinfrastructure to a major activity across NSF, initiated the GENI Internet Research project, coordinated homeland security research across NSF, and substantially expanded cybersecurity R&D. He was instrumental in starting several key CISE programs, including Broadening Participation in Computing, Science of Design, Revitalizing Computing Education, and the Computing Community Consortium. He also served as co-chair of the NSTC Subcommittee on Networking and Information Technology R&D (NITRD).
In addition to consulting, Dr. Freeman will remain active in the computing community and with Georgia Tech. He will continue living in Washington.
We’ll have word on Peter’s replacement whenever we learn who it might be.
Update: (11/30/2006) — Peter Freeman wrote to take issue with my characterization of the AD job as “thankless.” Of course he’s right. I was being a bit glib while trying to thank him for the effort he’s put forth in a challenging, but apparently very rewarding position. With his permission, here’s some of what he wrote:
I want to take exception to your comment that the AD job is “pretty thankless.” I have actually received a lot of thanks over the past 5 years in the formal sense and even more in the informal sense of it being an extremely rewarding job. In many ways, it has been absolutely the best position I have ever had because of the opportunity to make a difference for our community, science, and the entire Nation. It also has been extremely invigorating intellectually, collegially, and just on a daily basis. Perks like a trip to the South Pole, many of the big science sites in this country, attending interesting functions in official Washington, and the opportunity to play on the international stage (meaningfully) only add to the personal rewards. Finally, of course, is the sense of having been able to give back at least as much as the field has given to me.
Also, I should note that the official NSF announcement of Peter’s departure is now featured on NSF’s website.
As mentioned previously in this space, the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation held a press conference for the release of the Benchmarks II report on Thursday. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, David Abshire, President of the Center for the Study of the Presidency, and Larry Wortzel, Chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and Vice President for Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation addressed a full house of Congressional staff, reporters, and other interested members of the DC crowd. This years Benchmarks report, called Measuring the Moment: Innovation, National Security, and Economic Competitiveness, focused more on defense and homeland security related research than the previous report.
National Journals Technology Daily and GovExec.com both ran an article on the event and report. A bit from the article:
A group of high-tech leaders and national security experts is asking President Bush to include basic defense research in his American competitiveness initiative.
The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation backed the request Thursday with a new report that warns that while funding for military research and development is at a record high, recent increases have focused on applying existing ideas to new weapons and equipment.
“We have been under-investing in the basic research needed for the next-generation military technology,” the report warned. The task force was formed in 2004 to advocate for more federal support for research in the physical sciences and engineering
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the long-term goal should be not just combating terrorism but leading in science by investing in national security advances. “Otherwise we’ll have opponents that have scientific capabilities we don’t understand,” Gingrich said.
He added that his biggest mistake as House speaker in the mid-1990s was not also tripling the National Science Foundation budget when Republicans doubled the National Institutes of Health budget.
Well keep you updated on the Task Forces activities, press coverage of the report, and any impact it might have moving forward as we work with the Congress through the end of the year and into the next budget cycle.
A PDF of the Benchmarks II report can be found here.
From the CCC Blog
- NSF Searching for Assistant Director for CISE Ran Libeskind-Hadas
- MIT’s Subra Suresh reportedly to be nominated as new Director of NSF Ran Libeskind-Hadas
- Eric Brewer wins ACM – Infosys Foundation Award Ed Lazowska
- Chuck Thacker wins Turing Award Ed Lazowska