(This post has been updated; please scroll down for the latest.) The NSF’s CISE Directorate has issued a call for white papers for the new US Ignite initiative: The National Science Foundation invites white papers from individuals and organizations (e.g., academic, non-profit, industry, associations, government agencies) that want to express particular interest in the US Ignite initiative — as a partner/resource/infrastructure provider; researcher/innovator for gigabit application development in areas of national priority; or as an entity willing to set up a not-for-profit to govern US Ignite resources in a public-private partnership…

The following is a special contribution to this blog by Alan Neustadtl, Jennifer Preece, and Ben Shneiderman, faculty at the University of Maryland at College Park, as well as Marc Smith of the Connected Action Consulting Group. The four co-organized a Summer Social Webshop on Technology-Mediated Social Participation in College Park, MD, last Tuesday through Friday. Future leaders of social media research gathered at the University of Maryland at College Park Aug. 23-26 to hear from top researchers about Technology-Mediated Social Participation (TMSP), including the state of the art, emerging methodologies, and practical applications to national priorities. The Summer Social Webshop (@Webshop2011) — the result of a collaboration between the University of Maryland’s Human Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL), its College of […]

The following is a special contribution to this blog from Shashi Shekhar and Mohamed Mokbel, faculty in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Minnesota. The pair organized the 12th International Symposium on Spatial and Temporal Databases in Minneapolis, MN, this week. We were delighted to host a successful Vision and Challenge Track at the 12th International Symposium on Spatial and Temporal Databases this past Wednesday through Friday. SSTD 2011 was the twelfth event in a series of biennial symposia that discuss research in spatial, temporal and spatio-temporal data management. This year’s SSTD program exhibited diversity across organizations (e.g., academic, industry, and government), career stage (e.g., graduate students, early-stage, mid-stage, […]

(This post has been updated; please scroll down for the latest.) Despite some slight weakening over the last few hours, Hurricane Irene is being called the “storm of a lifetime” — on its current path, it will affect over 65 million people in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern U.S. over the next 72 hours. Packing winds of 100 mph (as of this writing) and ocean waves in excess of 25 feet near its center, Irene looks every bit as ferocious as it sounds — and forecasters are warning of destructive flooding and wind damage. And as those of us on the East coast prepare for the storm, at a cost of millions […]

The NSF’s CISE Directorate today announced the appointment of Cynthia Dion-Schwarz as the Deputy Assistant Director, effective Sept. 12: Dr. Dion-Schwarz will be joining us from the Department of Defense (DoD), where she served as the Director of Information Systems & Cyber Security Research in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. In this position, she was responsible for the strategic oversight of the science and technology research in Information Technologies and for serving as the program executive for research programs in tactical networked communications, software initiatives, cyber security, and high performance computing. She also served as the DoD representative to the Networking and Information Technology […]

The following is a special contribution to this blog by Doug Fisher, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Computer Engineering at Vanderbilt University. From July 2007 to August 2010, Doug served as a Program Director in the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) within NSF’s CISE Directorate. He has agreed to describe something of his life as a NSF PD so that others can judge whether it might be something they would like to try. To contact him, e-mail douglas.h.fisher@vanderbilt.edu. In November 2006, I received a call from a colleague suggesting I apply for a PD opening at NSF. Prior to his call, I had determined to reorient my […]