ACM MemberNet - April 23, 2015

Welcome to the April 2015 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.

April 23, 2015

TOP STORIES

Dan Boneh to Receive 2014 ACM-Infosys Foundation Award

ACM and the Infosys Foundation have named Dan Boneh of Stanford University the recipient of the 2014 ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences for ground-breaking contributions to to the development of pairing-based cryptography and its application in identity-based encryption. His work helped establish the field of pairing-based cryptography, a dominant area in cryptography for the last decade, by demonstrating the use of pairing functions to solve a wide variety of problems in cryptography. Boneh, with Matt Franklin, showed how pairings could be used to develop a fully functional identity-based encryption scheme (IBE). This ushered in a new area of cryptography research to which Boneh's contributions have been central.

Boneh is professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, and leads the applied cryptography group there. He has written extensively on cryptography and computer security, publishing more than 150 refereed conference and peer-reviewed journal papers. Boneh served as an editor of ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT), Journal of the ACM (JACM), and Journal of Cryptology. He has served as program chair or general chair for several academic conferences and as member of more than 30 conference program committees.

ACM will present these and other awards at the ACM Awards Banquet on June 20 in San Francisco.

Read the ACM news release.

ACM-W Names Jennifer Widom 2015-2016 Athena Lecturer

The ACM-W Council on Women in Computing has named Jennifer Widom of Stanford University as the 2015-2016 Athena Lecturer for pioneering foundations, architecture, and applications of database systems. Widom introduced active database systems, a major area of research in the database field today. Her work with semi-structured data has been extremely influential and has led to the popularization of XML and query languages for XML data. She has made contributions to streaming data management, data integrity, data lineage, and data accuracy and uncertainty.

An ACM Fellow, Widom is the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, where she currently also serves as Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs in the School of Engineering. She has served as editor of ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS), VLDB Journal, and IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE). A frequent keynote speaker, she has served on the program committees of a variety of technical conferences, and as program chair for the ACM SIGMOD and the VLDB conferences.

Read the ACM news release.

ACM Technical Awards Honor Computing Innovators Who Are Changing the World

ACM has announced the recipients of six prestigious awards for their innovations in computing technology. These innovators have made significant contributions that enable computer science to solve real world challenges. The awards reflect achievements in efficient networked and software systems, standard software libraries, social connections on the Web, national science and engineering education standards, and search and rescue robotics. The 2014 ACM technical award recipients include computer scientists and educators:

Read the ACM news release.

ACM Honors Leaders for Expanding Promise and Profile of Computing

Two leaders who have transformed the way the world views computing will be honored with awards recognizing their service. The ACM Distinguished Service Award will go to Jeannette Wing of Microsoft Research for helping the computing community articulate the promise of computation to broad audiences. The Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award will go to Professor Dame Wendy Hall of University of Southampton for increasing the visibility of ACM in leading scientific venues worldwide by broadening its values, resources, and services. The honorees will be recognized with ACM Awards for leadership and service, to be presented at the ACM Awards Banquet on June 20 in San Francisco.

Read the ACM news release.

AWARDS

Gordon Bell Prize Nominations Due April 24

The Gordon Bell Prize is awarded each year to recognize outstanding achievement in high-performance computing. The purpose of the award is to track the progress over time of parallel computing, with particular emphasis on rewarding innovation in applying high-performance computing to applications in science, engineering, and large-scale data analytics. Prizes may be awarded for peak performance or special achievements in scalability and time-to-solution on important science and engineering problems. Finalists present their work each November at the annual SC Supercomputing Conference, and the award is presented at the SC Awards Ceremony accompanied by a prize of $10,000. Financial support for the award is provided by Gordon Bell, a pioneer in high-performance and parallel computing. Nominations for the 2015 award are due April 24.

MEMBER RECOGNITION

Call for ACM Senior Member 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 June 3. Please read Advice to Those Seeking ACM Senior Members by former Senior Member Committee Chair Susan Rodger on how to submit a strong nomination package.

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 35 distinct technological fields. Some awards presented (or to be presented) at recent conferences:

CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

March Meetups in Pittsburgh and New York Feature Big Data, Soft Robots

ACM Pittsburgh and ACM New York hosted events last month in ACM's continuing series of Meetups.

At Chatham University on March 24, M.C. Srivas, CTO and Co-founder of MapR, gave a talk on The Future of Big Data. Srivas founded MapR on his vision to build the next-generation platform for semi-structured big data. ACM New York featured Soft Robots for Hard Problems on March 25 at NYC Resistor, a hacker collective in Brooklyn. Matt Borgatti, founder of soft robotics company Super-Releaser, demonstrated how a single seamless piece of silicone can be fabricated into a walking quadruped cast.

ACM Pittsburgh and ACM New York City are part of the ACM Local program, a non-profit professional group that meets regularly to discuss diverse topics in computer science.

ICSE 2015, May 16 to 24, Florence, Italy

ICSE 2015, the International Conference on Software Engineering, provides a forum for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, experiences and concerns in the field of software engineering. This year ICSE features keynotes by Claudio Silenzi of Ferrari on "Software Engineering in Ferrari F1"; Susan Landau, Professor of Cybersecurity Policy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and ACM Fellow, on "Mining the Metadata—and Its Consequences"; Grady Booch, Chief Scientist for Software Engineering at IBM Research and ACM Fellow, on "The Future of Software Engineering," and Gerard J. Holzmann of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on "The Power of Swarms."

SIGMOD/PODS 2015, May 31 to June 4, Melbourne, Australia

SIGMOD/PODS 2015, the conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Management of Data and the Symposium on Principles of Database Systems, is a leading international forum for database researchers, practitioners, developers, and users to explore cutting-edge ideas and results, and to exchange techniques, tools, and experiences. Scheduled keynoters are Jignesh Patel, a professor in Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Laura Haas, an IBM Fellow and Director of IBM Research's Accelerated Discovery Lab. 2015–2016 ACM-W Athena Lecturer Jennifer Widom will deliver her lecture on June 2.

DAC 2015, June 7 to 11, San Francisco, California

DAC 2015, the 52nd Design Automation Conference, has six tracks, focusing on silicon design, security, IP, embedded systems, EDA, and automotive. A workshop for women in electronic design automation will provide a forum for the exchange of ideas for successful careers in the EDA profession. Vivek Singh, Intel Fellow and director of computational lithography in Intel's Technology and Manufacturing Group, will give a Visionary Talk on "Moore's Law at Fifty: No End in Sight." Other scheduled keynotes: Brian Otis, director at Google [x] and research associate professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, on "Google Smart Lens: IC Design and Beyond"; Jeffrey J. Owens, chief technology officer and executive vice president of Delphi Automotive, on "The Design of Innovation that Drives Tomorrow"; Jeffrey Massimilla, chief product cybersecurity officer, Vehicle and Vehicle Services Cybersecurity for General Motors and Craig Smith, founder of OpenGarages.org, on "Cyber Threats to Connected Cars"; and John A. Rogers, Swanlund Chair Professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and director of the Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, on "Electronics for the Human Body." Sky Talks will feature cutting-edge and current topics.

FCRC 2015, June 12 to 19, Portland, Oregon

FCRC 2015 assembles a spectrum of affiliated research conferences and workshops into a week-long coordinated meeting held at a common time in a common place. This model retains the advantages of the smaller conferences, while at the same time, facilitates communication among researchers in different fields in computer science and engineering. Mornings of FCRC week will begin with joint plenary talks on topics of broad appeal to the computing research community. Scheduled plenary speakers are 2014 ACM A.M. Turing Award Michael Stonebraker, delivering the Turing Lecture; Andrew Yao, dean and professor at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University; Olivier Temam, engineer, Google; Don Syme, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research, Cambridge; Kathy Yelick, professor, electrical engineering and computer sciences, University of California, Berkeley, and 2013-2014 ACM-W Athena Lecturer; and Balaji Prabhakar, professor, electrical engineering and computer science, Stanford University. FCRC includes conferences, workshops and symposia on Computational Complexity, Computer Architecture, Programming Language Design and Implementation, Theory of Computing, and much more. Early bird registration ends May 18.

GHC 2015, October 14 to 16, Houston, Texas

GHC 2015, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, is a great opportunity to gain professional visibility as a subject matter expert, expand your network, learn about new and exciting technologies, and inspire other women in computing. Tracks in Emerging Technology, Productization, Open Source, Diversity, Careers and more offer unique venues to discuss challenging topics. Other ways to participate: submit a nomination for the GHC ABIE Awards for someone you know who is doing important work in the areas of technical leadership, social impact, emerging leaders, and educators. Deadline is May 1.

SPLASH 2015, October 25 to 30, Pittsburgh

SPLASH 2015, the ACM SIGPLAN conference on Systems, Programming, Languages and Applications: Software for Humanity (incorporating OOPSLA) explores all aspects of software construction and delivery. Paper submissions are invited in several tracks: Pattern Languages of Programs, Software Language Engineering, Dynamic Languages, Generative and Component Approaches, Databases and Programming Languages, and more. See the Important Dates page for a complete list of deadlines.

SIGGRAPH Asia 2015, November 2 to 5, Kobe, Japan

SIGGRAPH Asia 2015 invites you to submit your works and showcase your outstanding creative ideas and innovations at the 8th ACM SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Asia. The eighth edition of the event, back for the second time in Japan, expects to draw conference attendees, exhibition visitors, and exhibitors from more than 50 countries worldwide. This is anticipated to be the largest SIGGRAPH Asia event organized since 2008. Programs open for submissions include Art Gallery, Computer Animation Festival, Emerging Technologies, Technical Papers, Workshops, Posters, and more. Visit the submitters page for a complete list of deadlines. Student volunteers are also encouraged to apply; the deadline is June 30.

MEMBER PROGRAMS

Become an Ambassador for ACM—You Could Be a Grand Prize Winner!

The Ambassadors for ACM program rewards ACM members like you for encouraging new members to join. Your first-hand experience with ACM's valuable career development and continuous learning programs makes you a perfect envoy to share your ACM experiences with prospective members. The 2014–2015 Ambassadors for ACM program offers opportunities for you to earn new prizes, rewards and bonus gifts with each referral. The top ACM Ambassador for January was Rashid Sheikh; the top ACM Ambassador for February was Gibeom Park; the top ACM Ambassador for March was Kuntalkumar P. Patel.

Submit the ACM Referral Form, and your referrals can join ACM at a special discount rate. Our members are our greatest asset. Your support of ACM is critical to our continuing efforts to advance computing as a science and a profession. Please consider becoming an Ambassador for ACM.

HP has teamed up with ACM to offer ACM members the opportunity to purchase award-winning HP consumer products at discounted prices. The HP Employee Purchase Program (EPP) offers HP consumer products at discounts typically up to 10% off starting prices.

You can also take advantage of instant rebates, coupons and HP Home and Home Office sales promotions that combine with your EPP discount—for a typical savings of 20-30% off. Sign up and begin saving! There are two ways to set up your account and order:
Online

  1. Go to www.hpdirect.com/employee/c_acm
  2. Click the "Sign Up" button
  3. Fill in your name, email address, and password
  4. Enter your company's assigned Company Code: ACM2001

By phone

  1. Call our toll-free number: 1-866-433-2018. Our sales center is open from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. (EST) seven days a week.

LEARNING CENTER

Watch April 30 Webcast with 2014 ACM A.M. Turing Award Winner Michael Stonebraker

The Fast Data Challenge and Picking the Right Database: Why One Size Doesn't Fit All, to be presented on Thursday, April 30 at 11:30 am ET (10:30 am CT/9:30 am MT/8:30 am PT/4:30 pm GMT) by 2014 Turing Award recipient Michael Stonebraker and software developer John Hugg, both of VoltDB. The talk will be followed by a live question and answer session moderated by Aaron J. Elmore, Stonebraker's Postdoctoral Associate at MIT.

ACM Learning Webinars are free with registration, available for streaming on all major mobile devices, and are recorded for on-demand viewing.

 

New eBooks from Morgan Kaufmann and Syngress

This winter, the Learning Center's collection of Morgan Kaufmann and Syngress books expanded, with extended, updated coverage of hot topics areas such as cyber warfare, data mining and modeling, digital technology law, software defined networks, user experience design, and web hacking. Newly added titles include Bridging UX and Web Development, Commercial Data Mining, Engineering a Compiler, Hacking with Kali, Knowledge-based Configuration, Measuring the User Experience, Object-Oriented Analysis and Design for Information Systems, Quotient Space Based Problem Solving, Software Defined Networks, and Windows Forensic Analysis Toolkit. See all the newly added titles here.

Recent Additions to Skillsoft IT and Desktop Video Library

Did you know that ACM members have access to thousands of IT and productivity videos from Skillsoft in the ACM Learning Center? Covering a variety of today's hottest topics, these videos offer "on-the-job" support and solutions for busy practitioners.

Recently, Skillsoft added significant video content in the following knowledge areas: Apache Spark Fundamentals, ASP.NET MVC 4 and MVC 5, Cisco Networks, Cisco SIMOS 1.0, CompTIA Mobility+, Data Science Fundamentals in R, Git Fundamentals, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, Microsoft Security Fundamentals, Microsoft SQL Server 2014, MySQL, MongoDB, SharePoint 2013, Swift Programming Fundamentals, Software Testing Fundamentals, UX Foundations, and Windows 8. To access these and other videos, visit the Learning Center, log into Skillsoft and Books 24x7 with your ACM member credentials, then browse by IT and Technical Video Topics. See the videos page for more video listings.

New Member Discount on EMC Courseware

ACM has partnered with EMC to bring members a 15% discount on practical training in some of today's most vital IT knowledge areas, such as Big Data, Cloud Computing, Information Storage and Management, Virtualization, and more. These EMC courses focus on technology, not products, to teach technology topics applicable to any vendor environment. Training is available in various modalities, including eLearning, instructor-led (ILT), online ILT, video ILT, and video ILT-stream. For the list of eligible courses and the discount code, visit the EMC courses page.

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.

CSTA JOB BOARD

Computer Science Teachers Association Job Board Matches Job Seekers, Employers

The Computer Science Teachers Association's CSTA Job Board is the career hub for K-12 Computer Science teachers. The career center provides access to 100% computer science K-12 teaching-related job postings.

The CSTA Job Board will allow you to manage your career:

  • Search and apply to K-12 computer science related jobs
  • Upload your anonymous résumé and allow employers to contact you
  • Set up job alerts specifying your skills, interests, and location to receive email notifications when a job is posted that matches your criteria

or recruit for open positions:

  • put job openings in front of the most qualified group of K-12 computer science-focused professionals
  • Simply create an employer account on the CSTA Job Board and choose from three levels of online job postings options: Basic 30-Day Online Job Posting ($190); Enhanced 30-Day Online Posting ($250); or Premium 30-Day Online Posting ($310).

CSTA Members: be sure to visit the CSTA Job Board directly (or click the Job Board link from the CSTA homepage) to create and upload your résumé to the Résumé Bank so that employers find you, or keep it private and use it when applying online for jobs. Log in and post your résumé today!

EDUCATION

Invitation to Participate in Survey on Career Pathways for PhDs in Science

While the number of PhDs conferred in the US has increased over the past several decades, the number of tenure-track faculty positions has remained flat. Recent studies have illuminated the change in career decisions of some PhDs over time, but none has described or visualized a career map detailing where recent PhDs are currently employed.

The study "Identifying Career Pathways for PhDs in Science" will endeavor to accomplish this visual representation by collecting current employment data from PhDs who have studied, worked, or trained in the US and received a doctorate in the last ten years.

If you have received a PhD in any of the physical, life, engineering, computational, or social sciences between 2004 and 2014 from any institution worldwide and have ever studied, worked, or trained in the United States, you are invited to participate in a survey study by completing the online survey here. The survey takes approximately 15 minutes to complete and includes questions about career interests, activities, current employment, and motivations for choosing your career. At the end of the survey, you will be invited to participate in a drawing for one of five $100 gift cards to Amazon.com. Responses to this optional drawing will not be linked in any way to the Career Pathways survey.

Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. The study has been approved by the Committee on the Use of Human Subjects at Harvard University. To protect the privacy of participants, responses to the survey will be encrypted and kept on a password-protected, encrypted computer. Please contact study author and administrator Melanie Sinche, Senior Research Associate in the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, with any questions about this study.

Please also share the survey link with all individuals and/or groups who might meet the criteria above. The goal of the study is to gather as many responses as possible from recent PhDs to develop a careers map that is as comprehensive as possible.

STUDENT NEWS

George Michael Fellowship Award Nominations Due May 1

The ACM/IEEE-CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship is now open for submissions from 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. Recipients receive a $5,000 honorarium, travel and registration for the SC Supercomputing Conference, and recognition at the SC15 Awards Ceremony. Submissions are due May 1.

Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions: Submission Deadlines

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 ASPLOS 2015. The next conferences accepting submissions are:

Learn about more competitions on the SRC submissions page.

ACM-W Student Scholarships for Attendance at Research Conferences

The ACM Women's Council (ACM-W) provides support for women undergraduate or graduate students in computer science and related programs who wish to attend research conferences. This exposure to the computer science research world can encourage a student to continue on to the next level (Undergraduate to Graduate, Masters to Ph.D., Ph.D. to an industry or academic position). The student does not have to present a paper at the conference she attends. Students can apply an unlimited number of times; however, once a student receives an award, she is no longer eligible for future ACM-W scholarships.

The ACM-W scholarships are divided between scholarships of up to $600 for intra-continental conference travel, and scholarships of up to $1200 for intercontinental conference travel. Scholarship applications are evaluated in six groups each year, in order to distribute awards across a range of conferences.

ACM-W encourages the student's home department to match the scholarship award and recognize the student's achievement locally within their department. In addition, if the award is for attendance at one of several ACM Special Interest Group conferences (SIGACCESS, SIGACT, SIGARCH, SIGCOMM, SIGCHI, SIGCSE, SIGDA, SIGECOM, SIGEVO, SIGGRAPH, SIGHPC, SIGIR, SIGITE, SIGMM, SIGMOBILE, SIGOPS, SIGPLAN, and SIGSOFT), the SIG will provide complimentary conference registration and a mentor during the conference. The number of free registrations available varies from SIG to SIG. The 2013-2014 scholarships are made possible by generous support from Google.

For application form, notification dates and more information, please visit the scholarships page.

Graduating Students Eligible for Special Transition Rate

ACM offers a special ACM Professional Membership for $49 USD (regularly $99) to help graduating students make the transition to professional careers, and take advantage of continuous learning opportunities, including free online books and courses and access to ACM's Career & Job Center. This one-year-only transition rate includes all the benefits of Professional Membership plus the option of purchasing a Digital Library subscription for $50. Recent graduates can access this special transition offer through ACM's convenient online renewal form, or by following the instructions on the paper renewal form. For more information, visit the Reasons to Transition to Professional Membership page.

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

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 João Carlos Setubal. João is Full Professor at the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), Department of Biochemistry; Adjunct Faculty at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI, USA); and Director of the Genome Sciences Research Center at the University of Sao Paulo. Setubal has a Mechanical Engineering degree (1979) from the University of Sao Paulo and an M.Sc. degree in Computer Science (1987) from the University of Campinas, also in Brazil. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science (1992) from the University of Washington.

Setubal's research area is in bioinformatics, focusing on development of computational analysis tools for microbial genomes and metagenomes. In 1997 he co-authored a well-known pioneering textbook in computational molecular biology. He then led the bioinformatics effort of several bacterial genome projects, which resulted in publications in the journals Nature and Science. At Virginia Tech he was an investigator in numerous federally funded projects, notably the NIH-funded, five-year Bioinformatics Resource Center PATRIC. Setubal has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed journal or book chapter publications, which have received more than 3,000 citations as of 2012.

For more information on João, please visit his DSP speaker information page.
João Setubal'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 on the DVP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an ACM chapter or event.

CHAPTERS NEWS

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 March 18 to April 16, 2015:

ACM Student Chapters:

  • Bucks ACM Student Chapter, Bucks County Community College, Newtown, Pennsylvania
  • Clovis ACM Student Chapter, Clovis Community College, Fresno, California
  • CSE-IMSEC ACM Student Chapter, IMS Engineering College, Ghaziabad, India
  • FI-UAC ACM Student Chapter, Autonomous University of Campeche, Campeche, Mexico
  • FUNAAB-Nigeria ACM-W Student Chapter, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Abeokuta, Nigeria
  • Sheridan CSS ACM Student Chapter, Sheridan College, Brampton, Ontario, Canada
  • Siksha 'O' Anusandhan University ACM Student Chapter, Bhubaneshwar, India
  • University of Richmond ACM Student Chapter, Richmond, Virginia
  • Villanova University ACM Student Chapter, Villanova, Pennsylvania

ACM Professional Chapters:

  • Hefei ACM Chapter, Hefei, China
  • iSIGCSE ACM Chapter, Pune, India
  • Manila ACM SIGGRAPH Professional Chapter, Cavite City, Philippines

ACM-W NEWS

Midwest Celebration Inspires Technical Women to Excel

By Maria Gini (University of Minnesota), Kate Lockwood (University of St.Thomas), and Shana Watters (Augsburg College)

The 3rd Regional Celebration of Women in Computing in the Upper MidWest (MinneWIC 2015) was held February 20-21 on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.

Friday's program featured lightning talks from students, an industry lead BOF on how to evaluate employers to find the right opportunity, and a poster session. After dinner, Lana Yarosh, from the Computer Science Department at the University of Minnesota, gave an engating talk about her work using technology to design tools that support strong relationships between people.

Three student-led discussion groups followed. The breakout groups were on student-led organizations, the impostor syndrome, and outreach to K-12. They all were a big success and a great way for students to share their experiences.

Saturday activities included an invited talk by healthcare CIO Julie Flaschenriem on opportunities for computer science in the health industry. A career panel and a graduate school panel in parallel with a BOF for faculty on outreach activities followed. Mock interviews with industry representatives and with faculty concluded the program.

More than 120 attendees came from numerous places in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Generous funding from our sponsors enabled us the keep the registration fees significantly below cost and to provide scholarships to out-of-town students.

Overall, it was a big success. It was great to hear plans from some students, such as "creating a computer science club for women at my school," and positive changes inspired by the celebration, such as, "I will believe in myself more as a woman of technology." One student summarized the feelings of most attendees: "Having so many smart, successful women in the field of computing around me showed me that anything is possible!"

ACM-W Celebrations are local events that showcase female role models, encourage mentoring and networking, supply accurate information about computing careers, and create opportunities for women to present their research, often for the first time in their careers. Many of the ACM-W Celebration events include poster competitions for undergraduate and graduate students to present their research and project work. You can find information on starting new Celebrations and conference planning resources on the ACM-W Celebrations site. Please contact Jodi Tims for any additional assistance.

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.

Also read the ACM-W Connections newsletter for updates on ACM-W programs: local celebrations, scholarships and awards, chapters, and more.

PUBLICATIONS NEWS

NSF Workshop Reports Now in Digital Library

The National Science Foundation's Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is now including reports from CISE-funded workshops in the ACM Digital Library. These workshops aim to address current challenges via open discussions of experts from academia, industry, and government. View the first roster of reports in the DL.

ACM Transactions on Computing Education Seeks New Editor-in-Chief

ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) is seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. Nominations are due May 24.

ACM Inroads Seeks New Editor-in-Chief

ACM Inroads is seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. Nominations are due May 31.

ACM Transactions on Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems Accepting Submissions

The new ACM journal ACM Transactions on Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems (TOMPECS) is now accepting submissions. Visit the submissions site for more information.

Information Systems Category Editor Needed for Computing Reviews

Computing Reviews, the post-publication review and comment journal of ACM, is seeking a volunteer interested in serving as a category editor for a segment of the information systems area. Please see the Information Systems Category Editor search page for more information.

ACM Queue Presents: Spicing Up Dart with Side Effects

In their article for ACM Queue, Erik Meijer at Applied Duality and Kevin Millikin and Gilad Bracha at Google describe a set of extensions to the Dart programming language, designed to support asynchrony and generator functions. Dart has recently incorporated a set of extensions designed to support asynchrony and generator functions. Because Dart is a language for Web programming, latency is an important concern. To avoid blocking, developers must make methods asynchronous when computing their results requires nontrivial time. Generator functions ease the task of computing iterable sequences.

Subscribe to Communications of the ACM

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ACM IN THE NEWS

"Disaster Robots Slow to Gain Acceptance from Responders"

ZDNet, April 21, 2015
2014 ACM Lawler Award recipient Robin Murphy says robots can play a major role in dangerous situations, but the greater value is the data robots can provide.

"Explore Resources for Women Undergrads in Science, Engineering"

US News & World Report, April 20, 2015
ACM-W Chair Valerie Barr cites the importance of "celebrations"—face-to-face mentoring events—to network and build community, and provide support for women in STEM.

"Disney Researchers Show Soft Sides With Layered Fabric 3D Printer"

EurekAlert, April 17, 2015
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research have developed a 3D printer that layers laser-cut sheets of fabric to form soft, squeezable objects. They presented their research at CHI 2015.

"These Nightmare Bracelets Were Made by a New 3D Printing Design Method"

Motherboard, April 9, 2015
New type of user interface called Tactum that uses skin as the primary input method will win "best paper honorable mention" at CHI 2015.

"Stanford Crypto Expert Dan Boneh Wins $175K Computer Science Award"

Network World, March 31, 2015
Stanford University's Dan Boneh honored by ACM and Infosys Foundation for his cryptography work.

"Wearable Technology Can Help With Public Speaking"

University of Rochester NewsCenter, March 30, 2015
University of Rochester team presented an intelligent user interface for smart glasses at ACM's Intelligent User Interfaces Conference (IUI 2015).

"Reviewing Online Homework at Scale"

MIT News, March 30, 2015
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a system that automatically compares students' solutions to programming assignments, and batches those that use the same methods. They presented the OverCode system at CHI 2015.

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