Jun

27

CIFellows Status Report

Filed Under CIFellows, resources | Comments

Less than six weeks ago we launched the Computing Innovation Fellows Project.  In that short time, more than 1,200 people announced their interest in hosting a CIFellow on our mentor website, and 526 applications for CIFellowships were completed and forwarded to the Selection Committee for review.

The website for submitting applications was taken down on schedule at midnight on June 9, and the reviewing process commenced two days later. We’ve been very busy reviewing ever since, assigning each application to multiple reviewers, to guarantee a minimum of three reviews for each awardee. We are targeting July 10 for completing the review and decision process.

The 526 applications come from 415 145 distinct colleges and universities and specify a total of 949 different applicant-mentor pairs. The mentors span 198 different universities, companies, and non-profits.

27% of the applicants declare themselves to be female and 62% male. 42% are US citizens and 5% are permanent residents. The two largest international groups are from China (15%) and India (14%). 6% of the applicants are members of an underrepresented racial/ethnic group.

We asked each applicant to specify his or her research subdiscipline. A quick tabulation of the responses is as follows:

  • 21%: AI / Machine Learning / Robotics / Vision
  • 2%: Communications/Signal Processing
  • 3%: Computer Science Education / Educational Technology
  • 6%: Databases / Information Retrieval / Data Mining
  • 3%: Graphics / Visualization
  • 7%: Hardware / Architecture
  • 7%: HCI / CSCW
  • 7%: Information Assurance / Security / Privacy / Cryptography
  • 2%: Information Systems / Information Science
  • 5%: Mobile / Ubiquitous / Embedded Computing
  • 9%: Networks / Operating Systems
  • 3%: Numerical/Scientific Computing / HPC / Data-Intensive Scalable Computing
  • 3%: Other (e.g., Quantum Computing, Synthetic Biology, Computational Neuroscience, Technology for the Developing World)
  • 3%: Programming Languages / Compilers
  • 8%: Scientific/Medical Informatics (includes Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Clinical Informatics, Public Health Informatics, Chemical Informatics)
  • 2%: Social Computing / Social Informatics
  • 2%: Software Engineering
  • 0% (2): Technology Policy
  • 6%: Theory / Algorithms

(It seems clear that a further subdivision of AI/ML/Robotics/Vision into separate areas would provide better information.)

The response by both prospective mentors and applicants far exceeds our expectations! The level of interest has been extremely gratifying, and we truly appreciate the cooperation of almost all of the mentors and recommenders in submitting their endorsements on time. The members of both the Selection Committee and Steering Committee have been working very, very hard on a completely volunteer basis. The CCC’s oversight is working well to ensure broad community input, notification and, ultimately, participation.

We’re all looking forward to making the final decisions, in about two weeks or so …

– Peter Lee and Ed Lazowska

Jun

7

“Computing Research that Changed the World” – VIDEOS!

Filed Under computer history, policy, research horizons, resources | Comments

loc1-300x219On March 25th, the Computing Community Consortium organized a spectacular daylong symposium at the Library of Congress:  “Computing Research that Changed the World:  Reflections and Perspectives.”

Videos of the presentations (as well as slides) are now available on the symposium website.  See http://www.cra.org/ccc/locsymposium_slides.php for the complete agenda with individual links, or see our YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/computingresearch.

Talks at the Symposium included:

  • Introductory Session
    • Ed Lazowska (University of Washington), “Changing the World”
  • Session 1: The Internet and the World Wide Web
    • Alfred Spector (Google), “Why We’re Able to Google”
    • Eric Brewer (UC Berkeley), “The Magic of the ‘Cloud’: Supercomputers for Everybody, Everywhere”
    • Luis von Ahn (Carnegie Mellon University), “Human Computation”
  • Session 2: Evolving Foundations
    • Barbara Liskov (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), “Security of Online Information”
    • Daphne Koller (Stanford University), “Learning to Improve Our Lives”
    • Jon Kleinberg (Cornell University), “Global Information Networks”
  • Session 3: The Transformation of the Sciences via Computation
    • Larry Smarr (UC San Diego), “Supercomputers and Supernetworks are Transforming Research”
    • Chris Johnson (University of Utah), “Computing and Visualizing the Future of Medicine”
    • Gene Myers (Howard Hughes Medical Institute), “Zooming In On Life”
  • Session 4: Computing Everywhere!
    • Deborah Estrin (UCLA), “Sensing Everywhere!”
    • Pat Hanrahan (Stanford University), “Pixels Everywhere!”
    • Rodney Brooks (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), “Robots Everywhere!”