Computing Research Policy Blog

CRA's Hiring

Forgive the ad, but since we've got such a well-connected, Web 2.0-ish sort of readership here, I thought I'd use the space to announce that we're looking for someone to help update CRA's digital presence and support our office IT needs.

We're currently looking for a full-time IT Manager/Webmaster for our world headquarters here in Washington, DC. This person will be responsible for working with our staff and membership to design, develop, deploy and maintain CRA's web presence and other digital assets, in addition to helping support the office network (a mix of Mac and Windows machines). The ideal candidate is one with an eye for clear, concise design who is excited about the possibility of using innovative technologies to help communicate with our tech-savvy constituency.

Experience in designing and deploying fully-interactive websites is required. The ideal candidate also likely has four to five years experience in web-based graphic design, and a BA or BS in graphic design, art or related fields, or equivalent academic or work experience. Needed skills include the ability to work with database technologies like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Access; scripting languages like PHP and Javascript; and fluency in HTML and CSS. This position will also require supporting the CRA office network and CRA staff IT needs (including a Director of Gov't Affairs who likes to try all the latest stuff...). Being conversant in Unix is a big plus....

If interested, please send a current resume along with salary expectations and links to examples of your previous work to the CRA employment mailbox.

CRA is an equal opportunity employer and a fantastic place to work. This position features a competitive salary and benefits, great environment, and the ability to interact with one of the most interesting and cutting-edge communities around.

Announcing the Computing Research Policy TumbleLog

One of the side effects of these exciting times for science policy in Washington is that we don't get as much time to blog as we need to. Even as late as two years ago, the drumbeat for competitiveness and innovation -- the driving themes behind most of the science policy developments over the last year -- was significantly softer than it is now...almost inaudible, in fact. That gave us plenty of time to devote to lengthy coverage of just about every development in the space -- every news article, every press conference, every mention by a key (or not so key) policymaker.

Well, over the last two years, the pace of developments has quickened dramatically. Nearly every day there's some mention of innovation policy, or the importance of IT research, or the need to ramp up the federal commitment to the "physical sciences" somewhere. Our queue of potential topics for blog posts has grown considerably. Unfortunately, because we're also out in the trenches working these developments, we don't often get the time we need to really delve into the topics as we usually do with our posts.

Rather than let those topics grow stale in a queue that isn't moving any faster than it ever has, we've decided to go a little "Web 2.0" and start a Computing Research Policy TumbleLog, on which we can post quick links to articles we find noteworthy, or quotes that resonate, or events with think are interesting. There won't be much (or even any) analysis of the topics on the TumbleLog, just pointers to the original sources. All the meaty stuff -- the analysis, the details -- will still be here, with a frequency that's hopefully unchanged.

So, you might want to bookmark the Computing Research Policy TumbleLog if you're interested in some of the things we've found interesting to note, but keep an eye here for our usual content as well.

I've also attempted to set up a little widget over there on the left sidebar that shows the most recent topics on the tumblelog, but it doesn't seem to work very well in Safari on my Mac. So if anyone has a suggestion for a better approach, please let me know! This Web 2.0 stuff is tricky. :) Fixed, I think!

CRA Gov Affairs Site Down...

Update: (3/12/07, 1:17 pm) -- Fixed!

Original Post: Though the blog continues to work, a database issue has rendered the CRA Government Affairs website temporarily unavailable. Apologies to those trying to access the resources we've got on those pages, but we hope to have the site restored soon....

Lazowska Named Chair of Computing Community Consortium

The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Edward Lazowska, Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, as the inaugural Chair of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council. This appointment was made after extensive consultations with computing research leaders, the Interim CCC Council and the National Science Foundation.

"CRA is delighted that our colleague, Ed Lazowska, has accepted this important role" said Daniel A. Reed, Chair of the CRA Board and Director of the Renaissance Computing Institute at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Dr. Lazowska has a distinguished career in computing research, public service, and service to the computing research community, including time spent as co-chair of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee and the Defense Advanced Projects Agency Information Science and Technology study group. Dr. Lazowska is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In his new role, Dr. Lazowska will lead the CCC -- a consortium of experts drawn from and chosen by the computing research community -- as it seeks to stimulate scientific leadership and vision on issues related to computing research and future large-scale computing research projects. The CCC, established by CRA in partnership with NSF, will catalyze the computing research community to debate long-range research challenges, to build consensus around research visions, to articulate those visions, and to develop the most promising visions into clearly defined initiatives. The next step in its implementation is populating the CCC Council, which will facilitate the processes by which the consortium will do its work.

About CRA. The CRA was established 30 years ago and has members at more than 250 research entities in academia, industry and government. Its mission is to strengthen research and advance education in the computing fields, expand opportunities for women and minorities, and improve public and policymaker understanding of the importance of computing and computing research in society.

For more on the CCC: http://www.cra.org/ccc

Previous posts on the CCC.

Computing Community Weighs in on Continuing Resolution

As we've previously noted, the potential adoption of a "continuing resolution" to freeze funding at federal agencies at FY 2006 (or lower) levels through FY 2007 has the potential to cause major disruptions at federal science agencies and imperil the increases for science called for in the American Competitiveness Initiative.

In response, the leading organizations of the computing community have joined together to call on the Democratic leadership to preserve in any continuing resolution the hard-won increases for science already approved by the full House and the Senate Appropriations committee:

January 12, 2007

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Madam Speaker:

As leaders and supporters of the computing research community responsible for providing the research base that has propelled the new economy and enabled our nation's dominant position in information technology, we are greatly concerned to learn that difficulties in the appropriations process might endanger proposed increases to three key federal science agencies in FY 2007. We urge you to protect the increases for FY 2007 already approved by the full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee for the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy Office of Science in the FY 2007 appropriations Continuing Resolution or final appropriations.

As you know, NSF, NIST and DOE Office of Science are key participants in the federal Networking and Information Technology R&D initiative, the multi-agency effort that comprises the federal role in supporting long-term, fundamental IT research. The importance of this research in enabling the new economy is well documented. Nearly every aspect of information technology research upon which we rely today traces its roots to federally sponsored university-based research. The resulting advances in information technology have led to significant improvements in product design, development and distribution for American industry, provided instant communications for people worldwide, and enabled new scientific disciplines like bioinformatics and nanotechnology that show great promise in improving a whole range of health, security, and communications technologies. Leaving basic federal science funding at FY 2006 (or lower) levels threatens to disrupt that chain of innovation, placing our nation at risk of not having the necessary resources - the people, the ideas and the infrastructure - we need to maintain our global economic leadership and ensure our continued security.

You and your colleagues in the Democratic Caucus earned high praise from our community in recognizing in your Innovation Agenda the need to increase support for fundamental research in the physical sciences, mathematics, computing and engineering in order to ensure the Nation's continued leadership in an increasingly competitive world. The President's American Competitiveness Initiative shared that commitment and the full House and the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee endorsed the need for those increases on a bipartisan basis in the appropriations bills they approved.

We commend you for your continued leadership in helping ensure the U.S. has the resources it needs to remain innovative and competitive, especially in information technology. Preserving the proposed increases for NSF, NIST and DOE Office of Science in a limited adjustment to the FY 2007 Continuing Resolution would be a simple and necessary step to ensure U.S. competitiveness. While the payoffs of past research have been dramatic, the field of information technology remains in relative infancy. Tremendous opportunities remain - far more can happen in the next ten years than has happened in the last thirty, and it is crucial that America lead the way.

Sincerely,

American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Computing Research Association (CRA)
Coaltion for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC)
EDUCAUSE
Insitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-USA)
Internet2
Microsoft Corporation
Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
TechNet

As an aside, regardless of the success of this effort (we understand there's not a whole lot of wiggle-room in the CR for anything beyond providing increases in veteran's benefits), the fact that the wide-breadth of the computing community -- from the research side, to the practitioner side, to the corporate community -- joined together with one voice is worthy of note and certainly bodes well for future efforts.

Keep an eye here for all the details of the CR as they emerge....

CRA Board Chair and Members Named AAAS Fellows

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!

CRA Appoints Interim Computing Community Consortium Council

From CRA Executive Director Andy Bernat:

We are pleased to announce that the following individuals have agreed to serve on the interim CCC Council. The interim Council will begin immediately to implement the activities envisioned in the CCC proposal (see www.cra.org/ccc or the November 2006 Computing Research News).

Greg Andrews, Arizona
Bill Feiereisen, LANL
Susan Graham, California-Berkeley
Jessica Hodgins, CMU
John Hollerbach, Utah
Daniel Jackson, MIT
Anita Jones, Virginia
Dick Karp, California-Berkeley
Ken Kennedy, Rice
John King, Michigan
Peter Kogge, Notre Dame
Ed Lazowska, Washington
Ran Liebskind-Hadas, HMC
Dan Ling, Microsoft
Dan Reed, UNC
Frances Sullivan, IDA
David Tennenhouse, A9
Ellen Zegura, Georgia Tech

We are currently constituting a Nominating Committee to generate potential appointees to the more permanent (rotating three-year terms) CCC Council and Chair. Our intent is to move quickly towards appointing this group.

Previous coverage of the CCC.

Computing Community Consortium Ramps Up

As we noted last week, the National Science Foundation has tasked CRA with establishing a Computing Community Consortium that can provide scientific leadership and vision on issues related to computing research and future large-scale computing research projects. Today, the CCC Planning Group released a white paper (pdf, 210kb) with much more detail on the structure and purpose of the CCC. They've also released a timeline of future activities.

The first step in "Bootstrapping Phase 1" has been completed with the naming of an interim CRA GENI Community Advisory Board. Its members are:

Charlie Catlett, Argonne National Lab
Vint Cerf, Google
Susan Graham, University of California, Berkeley
Ron Johnson, University of Washington
Anita Jones, University of Virginia
Ed Lazowska, University of Washington (Chair)
Peter Lee, Carnegie Mellon University
Ellen Zegura, Georgia Tech

Finally, we've set up a page for all CCC related information: http://www.cra.org/ccc.

NSF Taps CRA to Form Computing Community Consortium

Update: (9/29/06) -- The CCC Planning Group has released a white paper with much more detail on the structure and purpose of the CCC. They've also released a timeline of future activities.

The first step in "Bootstrapping Phase 1" has been completed with the naming of an interim CRA GENI Community Advisory Board. Its members are:

Charlie Catlett, Argonne National Lab
Vint Cerf, Google
Susan Graham, University of California, Berkeley
Ron Johnson, University of Washington
Anita Jones, University of Virginia
Ed Lazowska, University of Washington (Chair)
Peter Lee, Carnegie Mellon University
Ellen Zegura, Georgia Tech

Finally, we've set up a page for all CCC related information: http://cra.org/ccc.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Peter Harsha, CRA
202-234-2111 x 106

NSF TAPS CRA TO CREATE COMPUTING COMMUNITY CONSORTIUM

WASHINGTON, DC, September 18, 2006 - The National Science Foundation today announced an agreement with the Computing Research Association (CRA) to establish a consortium of computing experts that will provide scientific leadership and vision on issues related to computing research and future large-scale computing research projects.

Under the three-year, $6 million agreement, CRA will create the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) to identify major research opportunities and establish “grand challenges” for the field. The CCC will create venues for community participation for developing visions and creating new research activities.

One of the first tasks of the CCC will be to assume the role of community proxy organization for the NSF's Global Environment for Networking Innovations (GENI) Project, providing broad scientific oversight to its potential construction and operation. In addition, the CCC will provide scientific oversight for future NSF large-scale computing research initiatives.

A council of 9 to 15 members and a council chair will lead the CCC. All council members will be leaders of the computing research community and will represent the diversity of that community.

"We're pleased that NSF has charged our organization with establishing the CCC," said Dan Reed, chair of the Computing Research Association and director of the Renaissance Computing Institute in North Carolina. "Computing research continues to fuel the innovations that drive economic productivity. We see the CCC as a mechanism that will enable continued innovation by enhancing our community's ability to envision and pursue long-term, audacious computing research goals."

Reed said the main challenges for the CCC will be to catalyze the computing research community to debate long-range research challenges, to build consensus around research visions, to articulate those visions, and to develop the most promising visions into clearly defined initiatives.

About CRA. The CRA was established 30 years ago and has members at more than 250 research entities in academia, industry and government. Its mission is to strengthen research and advance education in the computing fields, expand opportunities for women and minorities, and improve public and policymaker understanding of the importance of computing and computing research in society.

We'll have more on this announcement shortly, including a white paper that will help provide a little more detail. But in the interim, you can get some additional context by looking at NSF's original solicitation for the CCC, "Defining the Large-Scale Infrastructure Needs of the Computing Research Community."

CRA Members Visit Capitol Hill

As part of the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), CRA brought participants to the 2nd annual CNSF Fall Hill Visits Day this week. The overall visits brought over 80 people from many scientific disciplines to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers and staff regarding NSF funding. Robert Constable from Cornell University, Mary Jane Irwin from Penn State University, Joe Kearney from the University of Iowa, Charles Nicholas from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Michael Oudshoorn from Montana State University, below with Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), ably represented CRA and met with 30 Congressional offices to emphasize the importance of NSF funding to computer research and innovation. The participants shared their personal research and funding stories and many others from their universities. The message was well received on the Hill with many offices encouraging participants to follow up in the future with stories or problems involving research and funding.

As we’ve noted before, meetings between scientists and members of Congress and their staff are an incredibly effective tool in keeping Congress interested and engaged in the needs of scientists. The examples of research done in a particular district are invaluable to a member of Congress and can be a real boon for science when it comes time for appropriations votes. It’s also important to point out that Congressional offices will not turn away constituents who ask for a meeting although it often means you will meet with a staff member instead of your Senator or Representative. Don’t discount those meetings—Congressional staffers are the eyes and ears of their bosses!

We highly encourage all members of the CRA community to get in touch with their Congressional delegation, either by visiting Washington, DC or going to their local offices. If you have any questions or concerns about setting up appointments or meeting with Congressional staff, please let us know. We’re happy to help any way that we can.

Getting Scientists and Congress to Mingle...

One of the most effective "tools" the science advocacy community has in making the case for federal support of science is, well, scientists. Those occasions in which researchers are able to sit down with Members of Congress and discuss their own work do more to advance the cause of science than five meetings with staff like me. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, scientists tend to be pretty smart and well-spoken. They've thought a lot about their work and usually understand how to explain it to lay people (despite the usual stereotypes about scientists, it's a rare exception to this rule). More importantly, they're usually pretty good at conveying why their work matters, and to do it in a way that makes any passion they feel for the research palpable. If they have the opportunity to spend 5, 10, 15 minutes with a Member, it's pretty good odds that Member will leave the meeting with a better appreciation for the work and a sense of connection to the researcher.

And that's no small thing. When the time comes to make decisions about priorities, a Member's personal connection to a researcher, an understanding of what research goes on in his or her district, and an understanding of the long-term benefits of that research all can help swing the balance in favor of science. They are by no means the only factors that go into that decision, but they're certainly weights we want to have on our side of the balance.

So I'm especially pleased to point out occasions when members of our community take time out of their schedules to spend time in Washington, mingling with policymakers and trying to convey a little of what it is they do. One occasion CRA tries to take advantage of every year is the Coalition for National Science Funding's Capitol Hill Science Exhibition and Reception, held this year on June 7th.

Each year, CNSF brings together 30-35 of its members to stage a science fair of sorts on Capitol Hill for Members of Congress and their staff as a way to highlight the important and interesting work enabled by the federal investment in basic research at the National Science Foundation. This year, CRA was well-represented at the Exhibition by Lucy Sanders and Katie Ertz from the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT).

The NCWIT display occupied a unique niche at this year's exhibition. While the great majority of booths highlighted particular research efforts of NSF, NCWIT's was one of the few (if the only) to focus on NSF's broader role of developing the science and engineering workforce. In particular, Lucy and Katie were able to bring some attention to the continued need to focus on increasing the participation of underrepresented populations within that workforce.

The event was quite well-attended and Lucy and Katie found a number of willing listeners among Members of Congress (like Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), seen at left), key congressional staffers, and a surprising number of agency personnel. There were times when it was quite difficult to move around the room, the bodies were packed so tightly. CNSF counted more than 300 attendees this year, including six Members of Congress, despite a very busy day in the House -- a very encouraging symbolic display of support for science.

Thanks to Lucy and Katie for their willingness to travel to DC and participate and for making the case so effectively. They join a growing list of CRA member institutions who have participated in CNSF Exhibitions, including James Hendler and his colleagues from the Mind Lab at the University of Marylandin 2005, DK Panda and his students from Ohio State University in 2004, Tim Finin and his colleagues and students from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2003, and Thad Starner and Janet Kolodner of Georgia Tech in 2002. If you're at a CRA-member institution and are interested in showing of your NSF-sponsored research at a future Hill event, drop me a line!

This is also a reminder that it's not too late to participate in CNSF's upcoming Fall Congressional Visits Day, scheduled for September 13, 2006 (with an orientation session on September 12th). This is a great opportunity to make sure computing researchers are represented as the research community goes up to the Hill to speak with one voice about the importance of the federal role in supporting research. CRA's Melissa Norr has all the details.

Outsourcing Our Snowbird Coverage

So, having caught my breath a bit after a long few days at CRA's biennial Snowbird "Chairs' Conference," I was just setting out to write up a post with some of the highlights of the conference when I saw that Cameron Wilson of ACM's Technology Policy Blog had already beaten me to the punch. Cameron's summary of Rick Rashid's talk today on bringing the romance back to computer science is right on target and well worth reading...so the first thing you should probably do is go there.

In addition to Rashid's talk, the other keynotes/plenaries were also very good. Genevieve Bell, Director of Domestic Designs and Technologies Research at Intel, gave a wonderful keynote speech drawing upon her experience as an anthropologist helping Intel understand the needs of its customers. She highlighted the incredibly varied ways different cultures make use of technologies, pointing out how these uses illustrate a whole range of different computing futures. (Her slides, as well as all the others, will be available here as soon as they're posted.)

As Cameron mentioned, Ed Lazowska laid out the opportunities and challenges ahead for computing -- pointing out the unique opportunity the President's American Competitiveness Initiative presents and the reasons to be optimistic and energized by the intellectual challenges and career opportunities in the field. Ed's talk (slides available here) helped provide themes that speakers referenced in many of the sessions that followed.

Dan Reed's "State of Computing" talk was also very effective, I thought, (and not just because he's CRA's Chair and my boss) laying out the essential role of computing as an intellectual lever and discussing the need for the computing community to engage in grand visioning and find a compelling, unified voice. When his slides are up, I'll post the link right here because they're worth reviewing.

All in all, I hope the attendees left the conference today feeling more energized about the discipline -- reminded of the intellectual richness of the field, the promise of the work, the improving budget climate, and with a clearer sense the true opportunities (growing opportunities) in the field -- to arrive back at their home institutions more optimistic than ever about the future of computing.

CRA Adds New Policy Staff

CRA is pleased to announce that Melissa Norr will be joining the staff here at CRA World HQ on June 19th to augment our Government Affairs efforts. Melissa is already well-familiar with federal science policy, having come to CRA from the Optical Society of America, where she was the Government and Public Relations Coordinator. She has a BA in Public Relations with a minor in English from Penn State University.

In her new role, Melissa will be responsible for monitoring and tracking a portfolio of issues important to CRA -- in addition to being tasked with helping CRA communicate its policy efforts more effectively to policymakers and to our membership.

CRA will also again have the services of an Eben Tisdale Public Policy Fellow for the summer. This year's fellow is Erica Camese, who is currently studying public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Erica is originally from New Orleans and was a nuclear engineering student at Texas A&M before heading to CMU.

Blog posting frequency should increase substantially with both Melissa and Erica contributing items they think will be of interest to the community. More importantly, this expansion of CRA's policy staff should allow CRA and the computing community take advantage of new opportunities to engage DC policymakers and make the case for IT research.

Welcome Melissa and Erica!

Computing Leaders Praise House Appropriatiors for Innovation Funding

Reacting to yesterday's good news, CRA and ACM's U.S. Public Policy Committee issued a joint statement yesterday thanking Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) and his colleagues for their efforts. Here's the full text:

June 15, 2006

COMPUTING COMMUNITY LEADERS PRAISE HOUSE APPROPRIATORS
FOR INCREASING RESEARCH FUNDING TO AID COMPETITIVENESS

Washington, DC -- Leaders of the Computing Research Association (CRA) and ACM's U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM) today commended Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) and his colleagues on a House Appropriations Subcommittee for fully supporting the President's American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) in legislation passed by the subcommittee today.

The bill, approved by the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Science, State, Justice and Commerce, would provide an 8 percent increase in research funding at the National Science Foundation - an increase of $439 million over last year's level - and an additional $104 million increase to the core laboratories of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Both increases are key parts of the ACI proposed by the President in his State of the Union address last January.

"Chairman Wolf and his committee have created a historic opportunity to secure the Nation's leadership in research in information technology and other physical sciences," said Daniel A. Reed, Director of the Renaissance Computing Institute at the University of North Carolina and Chair of the Computing Research Association. "By acting to fulfill the promise of ACI, the subcommittee has made a down payment on America's future competitiveness."

"We applaud this decisive action and are pleased that the legislation responds to our advice about making a serious statement about fostering innovation in America," said Eugene Spafford, Director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance at Purdue University and Chair of the Association for Computing Machinery's U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM). "The computing research field is a crucial example of how federal investment in fundamental research drives economic growth. These increases would reverse a lengthy trend of flat or declining budgets in computing research that threaten to put future innovation at risk."

"The computing research community thanks Chairman Wolf, Ranking Member Allan Mollohan (D-WV), and the other members of the subcommittee for their extraordinary leadership in support of federal investment in fundamental research," Reed said.

-------
About CRA
The Computing Research Association is an association of more than 200 North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government and academia engaging in basic computing research; and affiliated professional societies. CRA's mission is to strengthen research and advanced education in the computing fields, expand opportunities for women and minorities, and improve public and policymaker understanding of the importance of computing and computing research in our society. web: http://cra.org

About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is an educational and scientific society uniting the world's computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field's challenges. ACM strengthens the profession's collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.
web: http://acm.org

ABOUT USACM
The ACM U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM) serves as the focal point for ACM's interaction with U.S. government organizations, the computing community, and the U.S. public in all matters of U.S. public policy related to information technology. Supported by ACM's Washington, D.C., Office of Public Policy, USACM responds to requests for information and technical expertise from U.S. government agencies and departments, seeks to influence relevant U.S. government policies on behalf of the computing community and the public, and provides information to ACM on relevant U.S. government activities.
web: http://www.acm.org/usacm

# # #

So, while this development is great news for those with an interest in seeing the federal investment in the physical sciences, mathematics, computer science and engineering increase, it's by no means a done deal. As I pointed out in the last post, there are a number of significant hurdles ahead. One potentially troublesome aspect is that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) did not fare well at all in the House SSJC appropriation. NOAA, which was already facing a cut in the President's requested budget for FY 2007 would receive even less than the President's request in this bill (actually, nearly $240 million less!). Given NOAA's role in hurricane warning and prediction, it's probably not a stretch to imagine a number of Gulf Coast representatives inclined to protect NOAA at the expense of a big increase to NSF or NIST, just as an example of what may ensue when this bill gets to the floor and the amendments start flying.

The bill is expected to go to the full committee next week, which means it will likely hit the floor the following week. As we get closer, watch this space to learn what you can do to make sure the gains for science are preserved.

We Want You! (Well, one of you)

Update: (Jun 8, 2006) -- The search is over! We'll have an official announcement soon, but the position is now filled. Blog posting frequency should return to its normal rate (a few times a week) soon!

Original Post: As long-time readers of this blog have probably realized, things in CRA's Washington policy office have been growing steadily busier and busier as CRA's influence in DC has grown. (Posting frequency here is inversely proportional to the policy workload). This is a very good thing for us and, we'd argue, for the community as well. Our arguments are getting heard. Our counsel is being sought.

But, in response, CRA's policy office has to grow as well. So we are. Today we're announcing the creation of a new Policy Analyst position within our Washington, DC, office. I thought I'd post the position announcement here, in addition to the usual places, because I think the type of person we're looking for might be reading this blog (at least, I hope they would). In any case, here it is:

POLICY ANALYST
The Computing Research Association, the national voice of the computing research community, seeks to increase its Washington, DC, presence with the addition of a Policy Analyst. This position will work closely with the Director of Government Affairs, providing research support, tracking and managing a portfolio of policy issues, and helping communicate with CRA's membership.

The ideal candidate will have a Bachelors degree in information technology, public policy or a related field; some experience in a policy-oriented environment; excellent verbal and written skills; web skills; and a demonstrated interest in federal research policy and IT. Interested candidates should submit a resume with cover letter describing qualifications and salary requirements to analyst@cra.org.

CRA's a special place with a great staff, a highly-engaged and prominent board, and a real role to play in the future of the field. So, if you're reading this and think the position might sound appealing to you, please take the time to respond. If you think it might appeal to someone you know, please forward it on!

CRA Chair Named to PCAST

Today President Bush announced he is planning to appoint CRA Board Chair Dan Reed, to the newly-expanded membership of the President's Council of Advisors for Science and Technology. Reed, who is Vice-Chancellor of IT and CIO for the University of North Carolina, and Director of the Renaissance Computing Institute, joins 13 other members named as the committee prepares to take on the former functions of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, which was rolled into PCAST by presidential order on September 30, 2005.

Here's the list of those named by the President today [and affiliation, if known]:

F. Duane Ackerman, of Georgia [CEO, Bell South]
Paul M. Anderson, of Washington [CEO, Duke Energy]
Robert A. Brown, of Massachusetts [Dean of Engineering at MIT]
Nance K. Dicciani, of Pennsylvania [Pres and CEO, Specialty Materials Honeywell]
Richard H. Herman, of Illinois
Martin C. Jischke, of Illinois [President, Purdue University]
Fred Kavli, of California [Physicist, philanthropist]
Daniel A. Reed, of Illinois
Hector de Jesus Ruiz, of Texas [Chairman, AMD]
Stratton D. Sclavos, of California [Chairman, Verisign]
John Brooks Slaughter, of Connecticut [President and CEO, NACME]
Joseph M. Tucci, of New Hampshire [CEO, EMC]
Robert E. Witt, of Alabama [President, Univ of Alabama]
Tadataka Yamada, of Pennsylvania [Chair of R&D at GlaxoSmithKline]

Quite an august group. Hopefully this will give the PCAST sufficient depth in IT to make good progress on the broad review of the NITRD program they seemed to be headed towards at the last meeting.

New BLS Projections: IT jobs to grow by more than a million between 2004 and 2014

At the CRA Bulletin, Jay Vegso has the first part of what will be a three-part look at the new Bureau of Labor Statistics workforce projections for 2004-2014. Some noteable bits:

• The professional IT workforce added 134,000 jobs between 2002 and 2004, a significant turnaround from the period between 2000 and 2002, when the workforce shrank by 7,000 jobs. The overall workforce added 1.6 million jobs between 2002 and 2004, but numbered 145.6 million in both 2000 and 2004.
• The professional IT workforce is projected to add a little over a million new jobs between 2004 and 2014, an increase of about 30 percent. In 2004, there were 3.4 million IT professionals out of a total workforce of 145.6 million. The total workforce is expected to add 18.9 million jobs between 2004 and 2014.
• Six of the 30 occupations that are projected to grow the fastest (i.e., percent gain) between 2004 and 2014 are in the IT profession. Among the 30 fastest-growing occupations, 17 have median salary earnings of $43,605 or above, including all six IT occupations.
• Two of the six IT occupations listed as the fastest growing also rank among the 30 that are projected to have the largest numeric growth. Only seven of these 30 have median salary earnings of $43,605 or more, including both IT occupations.

Of course, the usual caveats for long-term projections of anything should apply here ("notoriously unreliable," "a crap shoot," etc) but this is the current "best guess" of your Federal Government.

We've put some additional IT workforce data over at our IT Workforce page. There you'll also find a link to an article written by John Sargent, a senior policy analyst at the Department of Commerce's Office of Technology Policy for Computing Research News on the last set of projections. And to top it off, Jay also has a number of good posts on the IT workforce debate at the CRA Bulletin.

Boston Globe: In computer science, a growing gender gap

The Boston Globe has a great, fairly in-depth piece today on the declining interest of women in computer science. Reporter Marcella Bobardieri writes:

Born in contemporary times, free of the male-dominated legacy common to other sciences and engineering, computer science could have become a model for gender equality. In the early 1980s, it had one of the highest proportions of female undergraduates in science and engineering. And yet with remarkable speed, it has become one of the least gender-balanced fields in American society.

...

The percentage of women studying physics, already low, dropped dramatically and stayed in the single digits for decades. Eventually the physics bubble burst for men as well, and today a high percentage of the country's physicists are foreign-born.

Some computer scientists fear that they may be going in the same direction. They view the dearth of women as symptomatic of a larger failure in their field, which has recently become less attractive to promising young men, as well. Women are ''the canaries in the mine," said Harvard computer science professor Barbara J. Grosz.

In the wake of the dot-com bust, the number of new computer science majors in 2004 was 40 percent lower than in 2000, according to the Computing Research Association. The field has seen ups and downs before, and some think the numbers for men will soon improve at least a bit. But the percentage of undergraduate majors who are female has barely budged in a dozen years.

The shortage of new computer scientists threatens American leadership in technological innovation just as countries such as China and India are gearing up for the kind of competition the United States has never before faced.

Read the whole thing (also mentions the National Center for Women and Information Technology).

MSNBC Highlights NCWIT and Computing's Image Problem

A nice follow-up to last week's post on the "science gap" and some of the ways the computing community is dealing with its "image problem" can be found today over
at MSNBC in a piece focusing on the new National Center for Women in IT (CRA and CRA-W form one "hub" of NCWIT -- other hubs include the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, ACM, The Colorado Coalition for Gender and IT, Georgia Tech, The Girl Scouts of the USA, and The University of California). The piece is called Fewer women find their way into tech and here's a tease:

The number of women considering careers in information technology has dropped to its lowest level since the mid-1970s -- and one local nonprofit organization intends to do something about it.

Based at the University of Colorado in Boulder, the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) wants to know why women are losing interest in technology -- and what can be done to bring them back.

Read the whole thing.

CRA Bulletin Now a Blog

For several years now CRA has sent anyone who was interested an electronic bulletin containing links to items of interest to the computing research community. While the content was always useful, the desire to aggregate links and not bombard subscribers with e-mail after e-mail meant that we'd let the bulletin ripen until we'd accumulated enough entries to make it worthwhile to send out. This had the disadvantage of making things a little less-than-timely. So it was time to evolve the format.

Behold, the new CRA Bulletin, now a blog complete with RSS feed for easy subscribing. CRA's Jay Vegso is the curator of the blog. Here's his description for the blog's function:

The focus of the bulletin will be student/faculty demographic, workforce, and R&D information. My intention is to create a source for reliable information, like footnotes, rather than 'breaking news' or editorials. Rather than deal with large reports in a single entry, individual graphs or issues will be given their own entries. For example, Science & Engineering Indicators might have 10 entries, viewable by clicking on the S&E Indicators 'category' in the right-side menu.

Expect frequent cross-links from here to there as Jay comes across more juicy morsels to post. There's already plenty of good content there, like Growth Among Computer/Math Sciences Workforce in the late 1990s, NSF Reports on Academic R&D Expenditures for FY 2002, Close to 40% of Those Employed in Computer and Math Science Occupations Do Not Have a B.S. Degree, and a whole lot more.

CRA Welcomes New Fellow

As you may have noted from the post below, there's a new face at CRA World HQ. For the first year, CRA is participating in the Tisdale Fellowship Program, which has been bringing college students to Washington, D.C. for internships that explore current public policy issues of critical importance to the high technology sector of the economy. Other participants in the program include HP, Agilent, Dell, CSPP, BSA and Infotech.

CRA's fellow is Daniel Rothschild, who received his Master of Public Policy this May from the University of Michigan. Dan's interests are in the interactions between technology and society -- in particular, regulatory issues, federal funding of research activities, and information and network economics. You'll see his (hopefully frequent) contributions to the blog -- like today's post on Commerce's proposed changes to the deemed export regulations -- throughout the summer as he serves his time chained to the CRA intern desk.

CNSF Exhibition: Science on Capitol Hill

Tuesday marked the 11th annual Coalition for National Science Funding science exhibition and reception on Capitol Hill, an event that brings together 31 universities and scientific associations (including CRA) to highlight for Members of Congress and staff some of the interesting and important research supported by the National Science Foundation. This year CRA was ably represented by Professor James Hendler and his colleagues and students from the Mind Lab of the University of Maryland, who demonstrated their research into the Semantic Web.

Dr. Hendler's group put together a great exhibit featuring some examples of semantic web applications in science and in anti-terrorism efforts. Group member and terrorism expert Aaron Mannes demonstrated how the semantic web app has helped him explore links between terrorists operating in Iraq and elsewhere around the globe -- including an eye-catching web of links between leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and Osama Bin Laden.

To demonstrate the power of structured data, the group members snapped photos of visitors to the booth, uploaded the shots to their web app running on a server under the display table, plugged in some metadata about the individual and demonstrated how the application could dynamically link their information to a variety of other sources. Visitors to the booth -- including the Chairman of the House Science Committee's Research Subcommittee Bob Inglis (R-SC) and a number of key committee staffers -- seemed to grasp the import of what they were seeing. Indeed, as Inglis watched the terrorism web demonstration dynamically create new linkages between persons in the database as new information was entered, he recognized another potential use of the technology. "This would be really useful for my campaign database," he said. Which led to a brief discussion of the open-source nature of the tools....

The exhibition was remarkably well-attended -- there was barely enough room to stand at points during the event -- and there were a fair number of "key" attendees besides Rep. Inglis, including House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-NC), NSF Deputy Director Appointee Kathie Olson, and a large number of interested congressional staffers.

Thanks to Dr. Hendler and the members of his research group -- Jennifer Golbeck, Chris Halaschek-Wiener, Ron Alford, Daniel Krech, Aaron Mannes, Aditya Kalyanpur, Evren Sirin, and Amy Alford -- for their willingness to take time out of their schedules and fight through DC traffic and Capitol Hill security to make sure the computing research community was well-represented among the exhibits this year.

If you're at a CRA member institution, interested in showing off your NSF-supported research and representing your colleagues in the computing research community at a future Hill event, drop me a line! Recent participants have included DK Panda and his students at Ohio State University in 2004; Tim Finin and his colleagues and students at University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2003; and Thad Starner and Janet Kolodner of Georgia Tech in 2002.

CRA-W Wins NSB Public Service Award

CRA's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research received one of two 2005 Public Service Awards presented by the National Science Board in recognition of CRA-W's dedication "to increasing the number and success of women participating in Computer Science and Engineering research and education." The board noted three CRA-W projects in particular:

Career Mentoring Workshops: which bring together junior women in academic careers with women already established in their fields to provide practical information and advice, as well as opportunities for networking and peer support.

Distributed Mentoring Project: which aims to increase the number of women entering graduate school, by matching outstanding female undergraduates with female mentors for a summer of research at the mentor's institution.

Collaborative Research Experiences for Undergraduates: which aims to increase the numbers of women and minorities who continue on to graduate school, by providing positive research experiences for teams of undergraduates who work during the academic year at their home institutions.

Of course, this isn't the first award for CRA-W. Last year, the committee was recognized by President George W. Bush as a winner of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. CRA-W is among the most energized, hardest-working committees of CRA, so it's great to see them continue to earn plaudits for their efforts. Given the current situation, the effort is surely needed....