Chairing the CRA

Policy, News

Today I attended a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association, my first as its Chair. In case you don’t know, the CRA does a lot to promote the cause of computing research, including educating policymakers, building community, developing human resources, and providing information useful to computing research organizations all across North America. It’s many committees, spanning areas such as government affairs and women in computing, as well as its major events, such as the Snowbird Conference, have become increasingly influential.

In just the past couple of years, the CRA created the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), with the mission to foster new ideas and funding opportunities for computing researchers. The CCC funds visioning workshops and major events such as the “Computing for the 21st Century Symposium” at the Library of Congress, and the development of research “roadmaps,” for example for future robotics research. Right now, CCC is running the CIFellows Project, a major program for creating postdoctoral fellowships for many promising new computing PhDs.

Looking ahead to my tenure as Chair, I hope to maintain the momentum created during Dan Reed’s tenure as Board Chair. I also find it important to be a representative for CMU in this important body. With the potential restoration of government investments in computing research, we might see many new opportunities in the coming years. Mobilizing our community to take advantage of these opportunities in ways that help our society meet the great challenges in energy, healthcare, education, and core computer science, will be more important than ever. I have no doubt that the CRA will be a key part of this.

Peter Lee @ June 18, 2009