If there is any doubt in your mind (or even if there is not!), read the testimony delivered by Regina Dugan to the House Armed Services Committee on March 23.  It’s here.  Mind-blowing!

The White House Office of Science & Technology Policy seeks comments on a proposed initiative for student-led innovations in broadband applications. In doing so, OSTP leads with CCC’s “Landmark Contributions by Students in Computer Science“: “Students have contributed some of the most important advances in information and communications technologies—including data compression, interactive computer graphics, Ethernet, Berkeley Unix, the spreadsheet, public key cryptography, speech recognition, Mosaic, and Google.  Today, with the right kind of support, students can play the role of innovators again — by leading the way in the development of broadband applications. In the same way that Mosaic and Google drove demand for today’s Internet, new applications could drive […]

The National Science Foundation is commencing a national search for the NSF’s Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and seeks your assistance in the identification of candidates. The Assistant Director for CISE leads a directorate comprised of three divisions: Computing and Communication Foundations; Computer and Network Systems; and Information and Intelligent Systems.  The CISE directorate is also a major contributor to NSF’s cyberinfrastructure investments through the Office of Cyberinfrastructure. The search committee will be headed by Dr. Susan Graham, Pehong Chen Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley.  The qualifications for the Assistant Director include: outstanding leadership; a deep […]

Several sources report that MIT’s Dean of Engineering, Subra Suresh, is to be nominated to be the new Director of NSF.  Previously, Dr. Suresh was chair of the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Eric Brewer has won the ACM – Infosys Foundation Award “for his contributions to the design and development of highly scalable Internet services.”  Brewer’s work was a key reason for the success of Inktomi, a search engine pioneer that Brewer co-founded in 1995 and was purchased by Yahoo in 2003. The ACM-Infosys Foundation Award, established in August 2007, “recognizes personal contributions by young scientists and system developers to a contemporary innovation that exemplifies the greatest recent achievements in the computing field.” ACM announcement here.  Wall Street Journal article here. Congratulations Eric!

Chuck Thacker has won the ACM A.M. Turing Award (quoting ACM) “for his pioneering design and realization of the Alto, the first modern personal computer, and the prototype for networked personal computers.  Alto incorporated bitmap displays, which enable modern graphical user interfaces, including What You See Is What You Get editors.  Thacker’s design, which he built while at Xerox PARC, reflected a new vision of a self-sufficient, networked computer on every desk, equipped with innovations that are standard in today’s models.” ACM announcement here.  Microsoft announcement (a wonderful profile of Chuck) here.  Terrific 6-minute interview on NPR’s All Things Considered here. Congratulations Chuck, and thanks for being an inspiration to […]