House S&T Committee Considers Cyber Security R&D

On September 24, 2009, In Diversity in Computing, Policy, Research, Security, By MelissaNorr

The House Committee on Science and Technology’s Research and Science Education Subcommittee marked up a bill designed to amend portions of Cyber Security R&D Act of 2005 today. The aptly named Cybersecurity Research and Development Amendments Act of 2009 (PDF) touches on several things that CRA supports including:

  • Requires the development of a cybersecurity R&D strategic plan throughout the federal government

  • Requires the inclusion of social and behavioral research at NSF as part of the cybersecurity research portfolio
  • Specifically includes “identity management” as an area of research that should be supported in a cybersecurity research portfolio
  • Requires NSF to create a postdoctoral fellowship program in cybersecurity
  • Authorizes a cybersecurity scholarship for service program at NSF
  • Requires OSTP to assess the current and future cybersecurity workforce needs of the federal government, including comparison of the skills needed by each fed agency, the supply of talent, and any barriers to recruitment
  • Establishes an academic-industry task force to explore public-private research partnerships in cybersecurity

Only two amendments to the original bill language were proposed and both were adopted. The first was the manager’s amendment which made technical changes to the bill and clarifies the service requirements for those students participating in the Scholarship for Service program authorized in the bill. The second amendment was introduced by Congresswoman Johnson (D-TX) and seeks to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in the scholarship program and include minority institutions as stakeholders in the strategic plan. We don’t yet have copies of either the Manager’s amendment or Rep. Johnson’s, but when we do, we’ll post them here.
Both the chairman of the subcommittee, Congressman Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) and the ranking member, Congressman Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) emphasized the need for cybersecurity research to keep pace with the changing cyber threats and to ensure a sufficient workforce in cybersecurity. Ehlers mentioned that the workforce problem had been personally brought to his attention last year by a computer science professor who visited his office and discussed the drop in computing related undergraduates after the boom, a situation that we have discussed in great detail here in the past, but one that, based on the most recent Taulbee data, we believe is turning around.

 
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Two Hill Briefings This Week

On May 19, 2009, In CRA, Computing Community Consortium (CCC), Computing Education, Diversity in Computing, Events, By MelissaNorr

Two events this week on Capitol Hill that CRA will be involved in. First, there will be a Congressional STEM Education Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus briefing on CS education called “Bringing Innovative Computing Curriculum across the Digital Divide” that CRA is co-sponsoring with ACM, CSTA, NCWIT, SWE, IEEE-USA, and Microsoft. The briefing will cover the current state of CS education at the K-12 level and discuss new curriculum and teacher preparation developed by NSF and Microsoft. The briefing will take place on Wednesday, May 20 at noon in B339 Rayburn.
The second event will unveil the first CCC funded initiative in robotics this Thursday, May 21. The Congressional Robotics Caucus is hosting this briefing to showcase the Robotics Roadmap and the potential for growth and roadblocks for the use of robotics in various industries. Speakers at the briefing will include Henrik Christensen who led the CCC robotics effort, Rodney Brooks of Heartland Robotics, Dan Jones of Intuitive Surgical, Eric Close of RedZone Robotics, and Jared Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University. The briefing will take place beginning at 11:45 at the Capitol Visitor Center HVC 201 A-B. Lunch will be served and it will be a widely attended event. RSVP to Patti Rote at pattir at techcollaborative.org.

 
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Turing Award Recipient Announced

On March 10, 2009, In Diversity in Computing, Misc., People, By MelissaNorr

Barbara Liskov, a professor at MIT, has received the 2008 A.M. Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for her work in the design of computer programming languages. Liskov is only the second woman to receive the Turing Award and she was the first woman to earn a computer science PhD. The A.M. Turing Award was first presented in 1966 and was named for British mathematician Alan M. Turing, is widely considered the “Nobel Prize in Computing.” It carries a $250,000 prize, with financial support from Intel Corporation and Google Inc.
A press release from MIT quoted Provost L. Rafael Reif saying, “Barbara Liskov pioneered some of the most important advances in fundamental computer science. Her exceptional achievements have leapt from the halls of academia to transform daily life around the world. Every time you exchange e-mail with a friend, check your bank statement online or run a Google search, you are riding the momentum of her research.”
The full citation for the A.M. Turing Award states:

Barbara Liskov has led important developments in computing by creating and implementing programming languages, operating systems, and innovative systems designs that have advanced the state of the art of data abstraction, modularity, fault tolerance, persistence, and distributed computing systems.
The Venus operating system was an early example of principled operating system design. The CLU programming language was one of the earliest and most complete programming languages based on modules formed from abstract data types and incorporating unique intertwining of both early and late binding mechanisms. ARGUS extended many of the CLU ideas to distributed programming, and incorporated the first versions of nested transactions to maintain predictable consistencies. Other advances include solutions elegantly combining theory and pragmatics in the areas of decentralized information flow, replicated storage and caching of persistent objects, and modular upgrading of distributed systems. Her contributions have been incorporated into the practice of programming, thereby influencing many of the most important systems used today: for programming, specification, systems design, and distributed architectures.

In addition to her research, Liskov is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and ACM, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and IEEE. She won the 1996 Achievement Award from the Society of Women Engineers and has served on a wide variety of interest groups and advisory committees.

 
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