ACM MemberNet - June 28, 2012

Welcome to the June edition of ACM MemberNet, bringing you the world of ACM and beyond. Explore the many facets of ACM with our newsletter of member activities and events. Read current and past issues of MemberNet online at http://membernet.acm.org. Is there a person, event, or issue you'd like to see covered? Please email mn-editor at acm.org.

TOP STORIES

Awards Member Recognition SIG Awards Conferences and Events Public Policy Member Programs Learning Center Career & Job Center Education Student News Distinguished Speakers Program Chapters News ACM-W News Publications News ACM in the News
TOP STORIES

Technology Giants Celebrate Alan Turing—the Man, the Scientist, and the Visionary
More than 30 ACM Turing Award winners joined with a host of other world-renowned computer scientists and technology pioneers at the ACM Turing Centenary Celebration on June 15 and 16, to honor and evaluate the life and legacy of Alan Turing. An audience of over 1,000 attendees gathered at the Palace Hotel to hear the leading innovators of the digital age as they celebrated Turing's wide-ranging contributions to computing, and projected how the future of today's always-on, interconnected world will unfold. Turing, known as the father of modern computing, envisioned the power of the thinking machine and opened the way for innovations that continue to change the world. His name is attached to the highest award in computer science, the ACM A.M. Turing Award. The event, which was broadcast live, is available as a webcast. View photos of the event.
Read the ACM press release.

ACM Awards Banquet Program Now Available in PDF
This year's ACM award recipients were honored at the 2012 ACM Awards Banquet on June 16, 2012, at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, California. The awards presentation booklet, which includes photos and bios of the award winners and their formal citations, is now available for download in PDF format.

ACM India Council Elects Officers
The ACM India Council completed its first election earlier this month. The results of the election are as follows:
  • President: PJ Narayanan
  • Vice President: Srinivas Padmanabhun
  • Secretary: Mangala Gowri Nanda
  • Treasurer: Shekhar Sahasrabudhe
  • Council Members:
    • Sangeeta Bhattacharya
    • Supratik Chakraborty
    • Madhavan Mukund
    • Ganesan Ramalingam
    • S. Ramesh
    • Rajeev Rastogi
Their terms will begin on July 1. "We are now poised to play an active role and I am sure the new team will drive ACM India forward to make ACM relevant to the larger computing community in India," said President-Elect PJ Narayanan.

ACM Special Interest Groups Elect New Officers
The following SIGs have elected new officers for terms beginning July 1, 2012 and ending June 30, 2015:
  • SIGACCESS: Chair, Andrew Sears; Vice Chair, Clayton Lewis; Secretary/Treasurer, Shari Trewin
  • SIGACT: Chair, Paul Beame; Members-at-Large, Venkatesan Guruswami, Rocco A. Servedio, Avrim Blum, Tal Rabin
  • SIGCHI: President, Gerrit C. van der Veer; Executive Vice-President, Elizabeth F. Churchill; Vice-President for Membership & Communications, Allison Druin; Vice-President for Finance, Gary M. Olson; Vice-Presidents-at-Large, Kristina Höök, Joseph "Jofish" Kaye
  • SIGDA: Chair, Naehyuck Chang; Vice-Chair/Awards Chair, Iris Bahar; Finance Chair, Matthew Guthaus; Conference Chair, Frank Liu; Education Chair, Gi-Joon Nam; Technical Activities Chair, Alex Jones; Past Chair/Communications Chair, Patrick Madden
  • SIGGRAPH: Treasurer, Anthony (Tony) Baylis; Directors-at-Large, Masa Inakage, Jessica Hodgins
  • SIGITE: Chair, Rob Friedman; Vice Chair, Mihaela Sabin; Secretary/Treasurer, Rick Homkes
  • SIGPLAN: Chair, Jan Vitek; Vice Chair, Jeremy Gibbons; Treasurer, Christina Videira Lopes; Members-at-Large, Michael Hind, Andrew P. Black, Norman Ramsey, Susan Eisenbach, Julia Lawall, Derek Dreyer
  • SIGSOFT: Chair, Will Tracz; Vice Chair, Laura Dillon; Secretary/Treasurer, Gail C. Murphy; Members-at-Large, Frank Tip, Frances Newbery Paulisch, Willem Visser
The following SIG has elected new officers for the term beginning July 1, 2012 and ending June 30, 2014:
  • SIGSIM: Chair, Paul Fishwick; Vice Chair, Magaret Loper; Secretary/Treasurer, Andreas Tolk
Awards

Call for ACM Award Nominations
Each year, ACM recognizes technical and professional achievements within the computing and information technology community through its celebrated Awards Program. And annually, ACM's award committees evaluate the contributions of candidates for various awards that span a spectrum of professional and technological accomplishments. You and your colleagues are invited to nominate candidates for ACM awards, including:
  • ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award: July 1
  • Doctoral Dissertation Award: October 31
Please take a moment to consider those individuals in your community who may be suitable for nomination. Refer to http://www.acm.org/nominations for nomination guidelines and the complete listing of Award Subcommittee Chairs and Members.

Member Recognition

Call for ACM Senior and Distinguished Member and Fellows Nominations
The Senior Member advanced grade of membership recognizes ACM members with at least 10 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership who have demonstrated performance and accomplishment that set them apart from their peers. Nominations are accepted on a quarterly basis. The deadline for nominations is September 4.

The Distinguished Member designation recognizes ACM members with at least 15 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership who have demonstrated significant accomplishments or made a significant impact on the computing field. The deadline for nominations is August 1. Please read Advice to Members Seeking ACM Distinction, by past Committee Co-chairs Marc Snir and Telle Whitney.

Fellow is ACM's most prestigious member grade recognizing the top 1% of ACM members for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community. The deadline for nominations has been extended to September 5. Please read ACM Awards Committee Co-chair James Horning's Making the case for an ACM Fellow.
 
SIG Awards

ACM SIG Awards Recognize Achievements in Diverse Fields
ACM's Special Interest Groups (SIGs) regularly cite outstanding individuals for their contributions in more than 30 distinct technological fields. Some awards presented (or to be presented) at recent conferences:
Conferences and Events

Judea Pearl to Deliver Turing Award Lecture at AAAI Conference July 24
The 2011 ACM A.M. Turing Award winner Judea Pearl will be presenting the ACM Turing Lecture at the AAAI 2012 conference on artificial intelligence in Toronto on July 24. Pearl, who received the Turing Award this year for fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence through the development of a calculus for probabilistic and causal reasoning, will speak on The Mechanization of Causal Inference: A 'Mini Turing Test' and Beyond. The Turing Lecture is open free of charge to all registrants and ACM members, and will be available after the conference as an on-demand video on the Turing Lecture site.

SIGGRAPH 2012, August 5 to 9, Los Angeles
SIGGRAPH 2012, the International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, is a five-day interdisciplinary educational experience including a commercial exhibition that attracts hundreds of exhibitors from around the world. SIGGRAPH is widely recognized as the most prestigious forum for the publication of computer graphics research. In addition to SIGGRAPH's leading-edge technical program, the conference's installations provide close-up views of the latest in digital art, emerging technologies, and hands-on opportunities for creative collaboration. The conference also hosts the international SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival, showcasing works from the world's most innovative and accomplished digital film and video creators. The scheduled keynote speaker is Janice McGonigal, Chief Creative Officer of SuperBetter Labs and author of Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How they Can Change the World. Advance online registration is now available.

GHC 2012, October 3 to 6, Baltimore, Maryland
The 12th Annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women of Computing (GHC 2012), presented by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, is the world's largest gathering of women in computing. This year's theme, "Are We There Yet?", recognizes that technology and the culture of technology are continuously evolving. Sessions will focus on key technology areas: Big Data, Security, and Social Collaboration. A Tech Entrepreneurs' Lab will open with a presentation by Robin Chase, founder and ex-CEO of Zipcar and currently founder and CEO of Buzzcar. In a first-ever government plenary, a panel of technology leaders in government will discuss the role of technology in solving big societal problems. In addition, a new track of sessions related to Women of Under-Represented Groups will broaden the accessibility of the conference. Scheduled keynote speakers are Nora Denzel of Intuit, and Anita K. Jones of the University of Virginia. Confirmed technical speakers hail from a variety of corporate and academic institutions, including Microsoft Research, WellPoint, University of Massachusetts, UCLA, and PepsiCo. Registration is now open.

SPLASH 2012, October 19 to 26, Tucson, Arizona
SPLASH, the conference on Systems, Programming, Languages and Applications: Software for Humanity (formerly known as OOPSLA) is still accepting submisions for content relating to all aspects of programming languages and software engineering. The deadline for submissions for posters, doctoral symposia, films, Student Research Competition, and student volunteer applications is July 9. Dynamic Languages Symposium submissions are due July 11. Demonstrations are due July 15.

SC12, November 10 to 16, Salt Lake City, Utah
SC12, the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, is implementing a new conference planning system this year. Through social media, data mining, and active polling, the organizers will determine which technical interests and issues emerge throughout the year, and focus on the ones that will interest attendees the most. Leading up to the conference, attendees will have opportunities to interact with selected speakers via social media. Community-building events, such as the popular HPC educator program, broader engagement, and a revved-up student cluster competition, are geared up to build communities among high performance computing professionals, students, and anyone else who wants to participate. SC12 is still accepting submissions for some program events; please see the submissions site for the complete list of deadlines.

HILT 2012, December 2 to 6, Boston
HILT, the conference on High Integrity Language Technology sponsored by SIGAda, will provide a forum for experts from academia/research, industry, and government to present the latest findings in designing, implementing, and using language technology for high integrity software. Technical papers, experience reports (including experience in teaching), and tutorial proposals will cover a broad range of relevant topics. Scheduled keynote speakers include Barbara Liskov, the winner of the 2008 ACM A.M. Turing Award and the first woman in the US to receive a Ph.D. in computer science. Other keynote presentations from leading experts in language technology and high-integrity systems: Kathleen Fisher, an ACM Fellow and DARPA Project Manager for High-Assurance Cyber Systems; Nancy Leveson, professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and professor of engineering systems at MIT, and an ACM Allen Newell Award recipient; Greg Morrisett, the Allen B. Cutting professor of computer science at Harvard, also on the editorial board of Journal of the ACM; and Guy Steele, a software architect at Oracle and an ACM Fellow and Grace Murray Hopper Award recipient. The deadline for submissions of papers, extended abstracts, panel proposals, and tutorial proposals has been extended to July 6.

SIGGRAPH Asia 2012, November 28 to December 1, Singapore
The SIGGRAPH Asia conference features a myriad of stellar and innovative contributions from artists, designers, animators, researchers, and developers from industry and academia. As with the US SIGGRAPH conference, the events are geared to the computer graphics community and those in related fields, and include exhibits, an Art Gallery, the Computer Animation Festival, courses, posters, an Emerging Technologies track, an apps symposium, and technical papers and briefs. The call for submissions for some of the programs is still open; please check the submitters page for deadlines and more information.

Public Policy

USACM Urges White House to Improve Robustness of E-Government Resources During Disasters
USACM, ACM's US Public Policy Council, issued a statement of recommendations for government agencies to address natural disasters and other circumstances that challenge the provision of online information and services. The statement, based on a letter sent to US Chief Information Officer (CIO) Steven VanRoekel , cited the growing dependence of the public, government agencies and the media on the reliability and availability of e-government information, and urged the CIO to ensure that such information is available. USACM hailed the recent White House Digital Government Strategy as a good step, and offered these recommendations to help the federal government better prepare to maintain e-government information:
  • Prepare plans and procedures to minimize website interruption/ disruption, including backup sites when agency websites are rendered inoperable.
  • Develop plans to minimize website interruption/disruption for the Executive Office of the President and the federal government with a chain of control for websites and designations of alternate website personnel.
  • Coordinate federal e-government tools and resources with local and state e-government services, exchanging best practices and developing communication protocols for information exchange among key-government agency contacts.
Read the statement and letter on USACM's web site.
 
Member Programs

ACM Ambassador Program Ends June 30
ACM's 2011-2012 Ambassador program ends June 30, so ACM members have just a few more days to be eligible for prizes by getting new members to join. ACM members like you are our greatest source of new members. Your first-hand experience with ACM's valuable career development and continuous learning programs makes you a perfect envoy to share your ACM experiences. That's why we renamed this program Ambassadors for ACM. Grand prizes for the 2011–2012 year include an Android tablet and a Nook eBook reader. The top ACM Ambassador for May was Paramartha Dutta. Learn more about rules, recruitment tips and tools, as well as rewards and prizes by visiting the Ambassadors for ACM site.

Live Chat Feature Now Available to Members
ACM's new interactive Live Chat feature provides members with an opportunity for real-time customer service from our Member Service Representatives. To start your chat, simply log in to myACM with your ACM web account username and password and click on the Live Chat icon. Live chat is available Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET. Any chats attempted after hours will automatically generate an email to ACM to be answered during regular business hours.

Discount on CLSI Publications Now Available to ACM Members
CSLI Publications is pleased to offer ACM members a 20% discount off list prices for purchases made through its online shopping cart. Go to http://www.acm.org/membership/discounts/clsi1127 to learn more about CLSI publications and how to get the discount.
 
Learning Center

New and Improved Online Course Program Coming in August
Beginning August 15, ACM Members will be able to access new online courses provided by Skillsoft in the Learning Center. This leaner and more targeted offering replaces courseware currently provided by Element K. Please finish up your remaining Element K training and print any certificates by July 31. Although Skillsoft will offer a variety of courses covering some of the same technical areas and certification tracks as Element K, there will be no direct "mapping" from one vendor to the other. In the coming weeks, you will receive more information regarding ACM's new online courses.

Career & Job Center

Import Your LinkedIn Profile in ACM's Career & Job Center
Be sure to visit ACM's Career & Job Center to update your résumé or create a new one in the Résumé Bank. ACM members' résumés include an ACM logo on their entry, highlighting their ACM membership to employers.

Now available when posting a résumé in the Résumé Bank: import your LinkedIn profile. You will be required to sign in to your LinkedIn account. Please note that LinkedIn does not have exactly the same fields as ACM, so you will have to review the imported information and update where necessary. Once you have a résumé created and saved in our system, you can publish it to the Résumé Bank so that employers find you! Or keep it private and use it when applying online for jobs. Log in to ACM's Job Board and post your résumé today. You can also upgrade to a Preferred Résumé to keep it at the top of the Résumé Bank, highlighted with a star next to it for increased visibility ($25 for 90 days).

In addition, ACM offers CareerNews, which provides summaries of articles on career-related topics of interest to students and professionals in the computing field, in a bi-weekly email alert to ACM members. ACM members can subscribe to the CareerNews email alert service.

For more information about the Career & Job Center please contact Jennifer Ruzicka.
 
Education

Microsoft Research Faculty Summit to Be Streamed Live July 16 and 17
For the first time, Microsoft Research will present its Faculty Summit in a virtual forum freely accessible by the public. On July 16 and 17, 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST) (noon to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time), hear leading academic researchers and educators, as well as Microsoft researchers, product group engineers, and architects explore new opportunities in computer science research and advances that address real-world challenges. The event will feature such luminaries as:
  • Eric Horvitz, Microsoft Research Distinguished Scientist, on harnessing large amounts of data for generating insights and guiding decision making
  • Patrick Baudisch, computer science professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute, on research opportunities and challenges in natural user interface research
  • David Breashears, founder and Executive Director of GlacierWorks, on vanishing glaciers of the Greater Himalaya
Whether you are a computer scientist, researcher, or student, you will benefit from the rich and valuable content presented in this virtual forum, and also have a chance to share ideas and ask questions in real-time on Twitter at #FacSumm. A web page for the streaming video will be available in ACM's Learning Center on July 16.

New Site for Computing Educators
Ensemble is a new collaborative portal for computing educators where you can share and upload files, resources, and other valuable information, join groups and communities, and participate in discussion on important education news and research. An NSF NSDL (National STEM Education Distributed Learning) Pathways project, Ensemble provides single access to a broad range of existing educational resources for computing while preserving the collections and their associated curation processes. The site strongly encourages use, reuse, review and evaluation of educational materials at multiple levels of granularity and seeks to support the full range of computing education communities, including computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, information science, information systems and information technology as well as other areas often called "computing + X" or "X informatics." Users can tag, rate, and comment on one another's contributions and participation. Notably, Ensemble offers a set of "ready-for-prime-time" technology resources as part of TECH, a project of the ACM Education Council.

CS2013 Computing Curricula Strawman Draft Available for Review
The Joint ACM/IEEE-CS Task Force on Computing Curricula has completed the Strawman draft of the CS2013 computing curricula guidelines and it is now available for review. To comment on the draft, please read the guidelines and instructions. Following a roughly 10-year cycle, the ACM and IEEE Computer Society jointly sponsor the development of a Computing Curricula volume on Computer Science. These volumes have helped to set international curricular guidelines for undergraduate programs in computing. The comment period will close on July 15.
 
Student News

Apply for George Michael HPC Fellowship by July 2
The George Michael HPC Fellowship honors exceptional PhD students throughout the world whose research focus is on high-performance computing applications, networking, storage, or large-scale data analysis using the most powerful computers that are currently available. ACM, the IEEE Computer Society, and the SC Conference Series sponsor this fellowship, which includes a $5,000 honorarium; travel and registration for SC12 and SC13; and an invited presentation opportunity at SC13. Applicants must be enrolled in a full-time PhD program at an accredited college or university. They are expected to have completed at least one year of study in their doctoral program. Fellowship recipients will be selected based on overall potential for research excellence; degree to which technical interests align with those of the HPC community; academic progress to-date; presentations and publications; recommendations by faculty advisor and (optionally) others; a plan of study to enhance HPC-related skills; and demonstration of current and future use of HPC resources. All applicants must meet minimum scholarship requirements at their institution. To apply, go to https://submissions.supercomputing.org, log in, and complete the George Michael Application Form. Applications are due July 2, 11:59 p.m. ET. Questions can be directed to [email protected].

Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions
ACM Student Research Competitions (SRCs), sponsored by Microsoft Research, offer a unique forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their original research at well-known ACM sponsored and co-sponsored conferences before a panel of judges and attendees. The most recent SRC winners presented at PLDI 2012. The next conferences accepting submissions are: Learn about more competitions on the SRC submissions page.

Computing Community Consortium's Site Lists Undergraduate Summer Research Positions
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is offering a new website listing undergraduate summer research positions. The listings are linked from the CCC's relatively new Computer Science Research Opportunities & Graduate School (CSGS) site, a resource clearinghouse for CS undergraduates. Researchers will be able to post their summer research opportunities on the listing site for free. The site will enable students to find summer research programs, and will enable the CCC to promote a pipeline of young talent for careers in computing research. The CSGS site provides information on summer research opportunities, a Q&A on "why do research," and links to summer programs from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), Research Experiences for Undergraduates, the CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research, and Canadian Collaborative Research Experiences for Undergraduates, among others. Students also will be able to find information and advice on applying to graduate school in computing fields.

CRA's URO Zone Connects Students with Opportunities for Undergraduate Research
The Computing Research Association (CRA) recently launched a website to help undergraduate students identify computing research opportunities. The site—URO Zone, for Undergraduate Research Opportunities—provides links to a range of summer undergraduate research resources. It also posts profiles of undergraduates and details their recent computing research projects. URO Zone offers guidelines to help discover research opportunities in a variety of areas, from applied to theoretical computer science. It also defines specific research fields, describes CRA and ACM undergraduate awards programs, and lists links for finding computing research opportunities.

ACM-W Student Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences
The ACM Women's Council (ACM-W), with funding from Wipro Technologies, provides support for women undergraduate or graduate students in computer science and related programs who wish to attend research conferences. The student does not have to present a paper at the conference she attends. High school students will also be considered for conference support. As of 2011, 20 ACM-W/Wipro scholarships are funded annually: 10 scholarships of up to $600 will be awarded for intra-continental conference travel, and 10 scholarships of up to $1,200 will be awarded for intercontinental conference travel. ACM-W encourages the student's home department to match the scholarship award and recognize the student's achievement locally within her department. In addition, if the award is for attendance at one of several ACM Special Interest Group (SIG) conferences (SIGACCESS, SIGACT, SIGARCH, SIGCOMM, SIGCSE, SIGDA, SIGECOM, SIGSOFT, SIGGRAPH, SIGITE, SIGOPS, and SIGPLAN), the SIG will provide complementary conference registration and a mentor during the conference. Applications are evaluated in six groups each year, in order to distribute awards across a range of conferences. In the most recent application review, scholarships were awarded to the following recipients:
  • Dima Kassab, PhD student at University of Albany, to attend ISIC 2012: The Information Behaviour Conference
  • Jiali Sheng, BA student at University of Pennsylvania, to attend SIGGRAPH 2012
  • Olivia Kotsopoulos, BA student at Wellesley College, to attend the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing
  • Yousra Lembachar, MS student, University of California Riverside, to attend AVOCS 2012
Congratulations all! For application form, notification dates and more information, please visit the scholarships page.

NEW: ACM-W is pleased to announce additional scholarship awards for women students to attend research conferences, made possible by Microsoft Research. Microsoft has given ACM-W $20,000 to support scholarships for women of European citizenship. Under the agreement with Microsoft, these awards will cover conference registration fees and provide an additional $600 if the conference is intracontinental, or $1200 if it is involves intercontinental travel. The student does not have to be attending a European school in order to be eligible, and the amount of the award is based on where she attends school relative to where the conference is. We are delighted to have this additional support for the scholarships, in addition to the funds we already have from Wipro Ltd. In addition, 16 SIGs have thus far signed on to support the scholarships by providing complimentary conference registration to scholarship recipients.
 
Distinguished Speakers Program

Featured ACM Distinguished Speaker: Ernst Leiss
The Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP) is one of ACM's most valued outreach programs, providing universities, corporations, event and conference planners, and local ACM chapters with direct access to top technology leaders and innovators from nearly every sector of the computing industry.

This month's featured speaker is Ernst Leiss. Leiss earned graduate degrees in computer science and mathematics from University of Waterloo and Vienna University of Technology. He joined the University of Houston in 1979; from 1985 to 1994 he headed its Research Computation Laboratory. He wrote more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and the books Principles of Data Security (1982, Plenum), Software Under Siege (1990, Elsevier), Parallel and Vector Computing (1995, McGraw-Hill), Language Equations (1999, Springer), A Programmer's Companion to Algorithm Analysis (2006, Chapman & Hall,), and, with Jose Aguilar, Introducción a la Computación Paralela (2004, University of Mérida, Venezuela).
For more information on Ernst, please visit his DSP speaker information page.
Ernst Leiss's Digital Library author page.

ACM, IEEE Computer Society Join to Share Distinguished Speakers Programs
IEEE-CS and ACM have joined to share their invited speaker programs, to further the dissemination of technical knowledge of computing fields that greatly benefit both memberships. IEEE-CS chapter volunteers can host a speaker from ACM's Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP), with access to top technology leaders and innovators from nearly every sector of the computing industry, by following the instructions on the DSP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an IEEE Computer Society Chapter.

IEEE-CS provides a popular offering of first-quality speakers serving its professional and student chapters. The Distinguished Visitors Program (DVP) owes its success to the many volunteers and staff members of the Computer Society who generously contribute their time and talent. Organizers of an ACM chapter, conference, or event can host a speaker from IEEE-CS's DVP by following the instructions instructions on the DVP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an ACM chapter or event.
 
Chapters News

Student Chapter Excellence Award Winners Announced
Congratulations to the winners of the 2011–2012 Student Chapter Excellence Awards! This program recognizes ACM student chapters worldwide that display considerable initiative during the academic year. Chapters submit applications in five areas: Outstanding Chapter Activity, Outstanding Website, Outstanding Recruitment Program, Outstanding Community Service, and Outstanding School Service. Winning chapters in each of these five areas receive $500 and a "best of" icon to proudly display on their chapter's Web page. The winners for 2011–2012 are:
  • Outstanding Chapter Activities: University of Peloponnisos
  • Outstanding Community Service: University of Central Florida
  • Oustanding Recruitment Program: University of Tehran
  • Outstanding School Service: National University of Sciences & Technology School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (NUST SEECS)
  • Outstanding Chapter Website: Ain Shams University
Learn more about what's happening at these schools by reading their winning submissions, and how you can enter your school's chapter in next year's competition, on the Student Chapter Excellence Awards website.

Notice to Chapters: Please Complete Your Annual Reports
Chapter Leaders: If you have not yet submitted your annual report for the fiscal year July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012, please do so as soon as possible. To access your chapter's administrative interface, enter your username and password here: https://campus.acm.org/chapter_admin. If you have forgotten your username or password, please follow this link: https://campus.acm.org/public/account/signin.cfm?r=1. In addition, you may notice the Annual Report looks a bit different from years past. ACM has been working hard to serve our chapters in the best way possible, and this new release provides a user-friendly interface which allows full editing of your information until submission. SIGGRAPH Chapters will find additional questions at the end of their report that must be completed as well. Any questions, please contact [email protected].

Welcome New ACM Chapters
Chapters are the "local neighborhoods" of ACM. The regional ACM Professional, Student, ACM-W, and Special Interest Group (SIG) chapters around the globe involve members locally in competitions, seminars, lectures, workshops, and networking opportunities. ACM welcomes these new chapters that were chartered May 20 to June 22, 2012:

ACM Student Chapters:
  • AGI-CSE ACM Student Chapter, Hyderabad, India
  • Butte College ACM Student Chapter, Oroville, California
  • Capitulo de Programadores Universitarios ACM Student Chapter, Arteaga, Coahuila, Mexico
  • CSUSM ACM Student Chapter, San Marcos, California
  • ITU ACM Student Chapter, San Jose, California
  • METU-CENG ACM Student Chapter, Ankara, Turkey
  • Morrison University ACM Student Chapter, Reno, Nevada
  • Salem International University ACM Student Chapter, Salem, West Virginia
  • SCU ACM-W Student Chapter, Santa Clara, California
  • UPRM-ECE ACM Student Chapter, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico
ACM Professional Chapters:
  • Bilkent ACM SIGCSE Chapter, Ankara, Turkey
  • IKDD ACM Chapter, Gurgaon, Haryana, India
  • Kitchener/Waterloo ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
ACM-W News

Participation Doubles at Second Carolinas Women in Computing Conference
by CWIC 2012 Conference Coordinators Paige Meeker (Presbyterian College) and Madeleine Schep (Columbia College)
The Second Carolinas Women in Computing Conference (CWIC 2012) was held February 17 and 18 in Columbia, South Carolina. About 90 women (students, academics, and professionals) participated, with many students presenting posters and lightning talks. All enjoyed the informative talks from our speakers. Susan Rodger (Duke University) and Amy Wilson (The Medical University of South Carolina) were our keynote speakers sponsored by CRA-W, the Computing Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research. Participants also enjoyed talks from Lindsey Stork and Powers Strickland (IT-oLogy), Jennifer Wells (Intel), Diana Zink (NBA Digital), Ed Donahue (Microsoft), Tina Pratt (Anita Borg Institute), and Joanne Cohoon (National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT). Rodger talked about her research experience in education in her talk "Through Visualization and Interaction, Computer Science Concepts Come Alive," while Wilson discussed "Issues and Challenges in Healthcare Informatics." Participants also attended a panel on "life after graduation," competed in an IT-themed Jeopardy! game, and enjoyed a career fair. Mary Shuman from University of North Carolina at Charlotte won first place in the undergraduate poster competition with "Integration of a 3D Programming Environment with Robotics to Stimulate Interest in Computing," and Kirashae Graham from Johnson C. Smith University was awarded second place for "Gap Analysis: Cell Phone Forensic Tools." Each won a scholarship to the 2012 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC).

The Grace Hopper Regional Consortium, a project of ACM-W, provides programming that showcases female role models, encourages mentoring and networking, supplies accurate information about computing careers and creates opportunities for women to participate in the program, often for the first time in their careers. Visit the Grace Hopper Regional Consortium site to learn more about these events.

Join ACM-W's Membership Email List
Did you know that ACM-W offers a general email distribution list for its members? This ACMW-public list is a communication channel for disseminating general information about ACM-W, bulletins and upcoming events. To join the list: http://signup.acm.org/listserv_index.cfm?ln=ACM-W-PUBLIC. And to keep more informed about the activities of ACM-W and its members, you can sign up for our quarterly CIS Newsletter notification. Be sure to read the current issue for the latest news on ACM-W activities and events on the ACM-W CIS Newsletter issues page.
 
Publications News

XRDS Summer Issue Focuses on Tech Startups
The Summer issue of XRDS (Crossroads), ACM's magazine for students, explores the interplay between academia and entrepreneurship with the articles "The role of academia in the startup world," "How to be an 'entrepredemic,'" and "Want a Tenure? Try a Startup," as well as interviews with people who have a foot in both worlds. Readers will also benefit from career advice and lessons learned from startup failures.

CACM Reports: Using Computation to Study Cultural Development and Change
Computational methods enable researchers to "see the forest" even as they probe deeply into details of cultural contours of groups and societies. In the July cover story of Communications of the ACM (CACM), researchers from Rutgers University and the University of California, Los Angeles propose computational approaches to the study of folklore to accommodate the digitized archives and web-based social media sites that collect and circulate information critical to folklorists. By augmenting traditional methods of scholarship with digitization of existing and new resources in machine-readable format; development of extensive data structures for description and storage; novel classification methods that capture linguistic texts; domain-sensitive search and discovery methods; and algorithms that include visually rich approaches and combinatorial graphs, researchers are able to study folklore in a holistic fashion.

Communications, the flagship publication of ACM, offers readers access to this generation's most significant leaders and innovators in computing and information technology, and is available in print, Web and digital format.
Read the ACM press release.

ACM Queue Presents: LinkedIn Password Leak: Salt Their Hide
Poul-Henning Kamp's latest Bikeshed column takes LinkedIn to task for poor practices regarding user password security. His main point is that not enough care is taken to properly salt encrypted passwords and also goes so far as to pull support for the very password scrambler he proposed in the 1990s. The column has generated a very lively discussion that is as informative as the column itself.

Subscribe to Communications of the ACM
Subscribe to Communications of the ACM, the computing industry's most trusted source for news, analysis and insights! Non-members can use our online form and receive a new ACM membership with your 12-month subscription, or request a sample issue using our online free trial issue form.

ACM in the News

"Computer Graphics Pioneer Ivan Sutherland Wins Kyoto Prize"
Network World, June 25, 2012
Portland State University scientist and 1988 ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient Ivan Sutherland was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology by the Inamori Foundation for his contributions to the field of computer graphics.

"Computer Science Tackles 30-Year-Old Economics Problem"
MIT News, June 25, 2012
MIT researchers have developed an algorithm for finding an almost perfect approximation of the optimal design of a multi-item auction. The difficulty in finding the optimal multi-item auction suggests that it has such a wide range that there is no simple description that provides the optimal outcome, says MIT professor and ACM 2008 Doctoral Dissertation Award recipient Constantinos Daskalakis.

"How Alan Turing set the rules for computing"
Computerworld, June 22, 2012
Last week, the Association of Computing Machinery held a two-day celebration of Turing, with the computer field's biggest luminaries paying tribute to the man and his work.

"Ashton Kutcher backs CMU duo's startup Duolingo"
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 20, 2012
Carnegie Mellon University announced that Duolingo, a language translation website created by computer scientists Luis von Ahn (2011 ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award recipient) and Severin Hacker, has received a $3.3 million round of funding from New York-based Union Square Ventures and from an independent investment made by actor/producer Ashton Kutcher.

"Making it Easier to Build Secure Web Applications"
MIT News, June 18, 2012
Aeolus, a programming system developed at MIT for preventing information leaks in new applications, is designed for programmers developing large, distributed Web applications. The system should prove much easier to use than its predecessors, says MIT professor and 2008 Turing Award recipient Barbara Liskov, who led Aeolus' development.

"4 Elite CIOs Share Lessons"
InformationWeek, June 14, 2012
A recent panel at the annual meeting of ACM's Special Interest Group on Management Information Systems (SIGMIS) included four chief information officers, who shared real-world information technology trends with academics to help them prepare students for IT careers.

"Penn Reaches Thousands Online with Coursera"
Penn Current, June 7, 2012
"We decided that we had to think about how to expand the scale of this, in terms of giving students a great education across disciplines," says Daphne Koller, who co-created Coursera, a new online education platform with Andrew Ng. Koller received the ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in 2007.

"Internet Co-Creator Vint Cerf Welcomes IPv6 Elbow Room"
CNet, June 5, 2012
Google vice president and ACM president-elect and Turing Award winner Vint Cerf is eager for the improvements that the transition to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) technology, which is large enough to assign a network address to 340 undecillion devices, will enable.

"UN Regulation of Internet: 'The Threat Is Real'"
Government Computer News , May 31, 2012
"The Internet's success has generated a worrying desire by some countries' governments to create new international rules that would jeopardize the network's innovative evolution and its multifaceted success," says Google vice president and ACM President-Elect Vint Cerf.
 

Copyright © 2012, ACM, Inc.