ACM MemberNet - November 30, 2016

Welcome to the November 2016 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.

More ACM member newsletters: ACM-W Connections, newsletter from ACM Women's Council; MemberNet Europe; MemberNet India.

Read coverage of ACM in the news media.

Is there a person, event, or issue you'd like to see covered? Please email mn-editor at acm.org.

November 30, 2016

TOP STORIES

ACM Names 2016 Distinguished Members

ACM has named 45 Distinguished Members for their individual contributions to the field of computing. Their achievements have advanced the science, engineering and education of computing, and highlight the growing role of computing in the major technological advances shaping society today.
"The contributions of our Distinguished Members lead to breakthroughs that improve our lives, advance the frontiers of scientific discovery, and boost economic development," said ACM President Vicki L. Hanson.

Read the ACM news release.

New Hour of Code Tutorials Feature Minecraft and Moana

The Hour of Code is a global movement designed to generate excitement in young people. Games, tutorials, and other events are organized by local volunteers from schools, research institutions, and other groups during Computer Science Education Week, December 5-11.

The all-new Minecraft Hour of Code Designer is tutorial that allows students to code their own Minecraft rules. Now students can use code to control how animals and other Minecraft creatures behave, creating a unique Minecraft experience. And the new tutorial Moana: Wayfinding with Code features characters from the upcoming Disney animated film "Moana." As students follow Moana and Maui's travels, they learn basic coding commands that help steer the boat.

Computer Science Education Week is almost here! Sign up your Hour of Code event and check out all the new activities that you can filter on the site based on grade level, experience level, subject area, and more.

AWARDS

Renamed ACM Prize in Computing to Recognize Young Researchers

The ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences has been renamed the ACM Prize in Computing. The award recognizes computing professionals in the early to middle stages of their careers. In conjunction with the renaming of the award, the corresponding cash prize has been increased to $250,000. Infosys will continue to fund the award.

"By focusing on early- and mid-career professionals, the ACM Prize highlights innovations that are changing paradigms and reshaping technology in ways that will lay future foundations in the field," says ACM President Vicki L. Hanson.

"In addition to giving credit to these young visionaries, the ACM Prize will enlighten the public about the underpinnings that make technological advances possible," says Vishal Sikka, CEO of Infosys.

Underscoring the renaming and prestige of the award, ACM Prize in Computing recipients will now be invited to participate in the Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF), an annual networking event for mathematicians and computing scientists from all over the world.

The recipient of the 2016 ACM Prize in Computing will be announced in April 2017 and formally recognized at ACM's annual awards banquet in San Francisco in June 2017.

Read the ACM news release.

Chinese Research Team Wins 2016 ACM Gordon Bell Prize

ACM has named a 12-member Chinese team the recipients of the 2016 ACM Gordon Bell Prize for their research project, "10M-Core Scalable Fully-Implicit Solver for Nonhydrostatic Atmospheric Dynamics." The winning team presented a solver (method for calculating) atmospheric dynamics. The ACM Gordon Bell Prize tracks the progress of parallel computing and rewards innovation in applying high performance computing to challenges in science, engineering, and large-scale data analytics. The award was bestowed during the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC16).

Read the ACM news release.

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 December 3.

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

Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work, December 5 to 6, 2016, Houston, Texas

The Humans, Machines, and the Future of Work conference will focus on issues created by the impact of information technology on labor markets over the next 25 years. The event features renowned speakers from academia, industry and leading think tanks with expertise in technology, economics, social sciences and the humanities. Introducing the conference and providing concluding remarks will be Moshe Vardi, professor of Computer Science at Rice University and Editor-in-Chief of Communications of the ACM.

SIGGRAPH Asia, December 5 to 8, Macao

The ACM SIGGRAPH Asia Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques is the premier platform for the advancement of graphics, animation, art, and technology in Asia. The conference features research papers, demonstrations, and screenings featuring the community's latest technical achievements, and exhibits displaying the industry's current hardware, software, and services. Paul Debevec, Senior Staff Engineer at Google VR, a former Vice President of ACM SIGGRAPH, and an Academy Award recipient, will be keynoting.

POPL 2017, January 15 to 21, Paris, France

The ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages is a forum for the discussion of all aspects of programming languages and programming systems. Invited speakers are Stephanie Weirich, Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania; Patrick Cousot, New York University (interviewed by Roberto Giacobazzi, University of Verona); and Aaron Turon, Max Planck Institute for Software Systems.

CSCW 2017, February 25 to March 1, Portland, Oregon

is the premier venue for presenting research in the design and use of technologies that affect groups, organizations, communities, and networks. Bringing together top researchers and practitioners from academia and industry, CSCW explores the technical, social, material, and theoretical challenges of designing technology to support collaborative work and life activities. Workshops cover Citizen Science, Collaborative Editing Systems, Social Theory, Robots, CSCW in China and more.

SIGCSE 2017, March 8 to 11, Seattle, Washington

The SIGCSE Technical Symposium addresses problems common among educators working to develop, implement and/or evaluate computing programs, curricula, and courses. The symposium provides a forum for sharing new ideas for syllabi, laboratories, and other elements of teaching and pedagogy, at all levels of instruction. Gail Chapman of the University of California, Los Angeles will receive the 2017 SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education and will deliver a keynote. Mats Daniels of Uppsala University will receive the 2017 SIGCSE Award for Lifetime Service to the Computer Science Education Community and will deliver a talk at the first-timers' lunch.

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 Ambassadors for ACM program offers opportunities for you to earn new prizes, rewards and bonus gifts with each referral.

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.

ACM's Discounts and Special Offers Program (formerly known as the ACM Member Value Plus (MVP) Program) is our way of saying "Thanks!" to our members by providing you with discounts on the goods and services you need, want and use. Save on insurance, software/hardware, careers and conferences, magazines, books and journals, travel, financial products, and general consumer products.

ACM and SocialCoder Team Up for Positive Impact through Computing

You can use your technical skills for social good and offer volunteer support on software development projects to organizations who could not otherwise afford it. SocialCoder connects volunteer programmers/software developers with registered charities and helps match them to suitable projects based on their skills, experience, and the causes they care about. Learn more about ACM's new partnership with SocialCoder, and how you can get involved.

LEARNING CENTER

Watch December 8 Webcast, "Town Hall on AI and Machine Learning," with Peter Norvig

Register to watch the free ACM webinar, Town Hall with Peter Norvig on AI, Machine Learning, and More, to be presented on December 8 at 12 p.m. ET. Norvig is Director of Research at Google Inc. and an ACM Fellow. This open, interactive session's agenda willl be decided by questions submitted live. Please review the registration page for potential topics.

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

New Skillsoft Books and Videos

New books covering the latest IT skills and technologies are always being added to the ACM Skillsoft Learning Collections. New titles recently added to our library cover Beginning and Advanced AutoCAD 2017; Agile Systems Engineering; Data Simplification: Taming Information with Open Source Tools; Foundations of Quantum Programming; Cryptography Made Simple; Data Mining for Business Analytics; Programming with Minecraft; DevOps Handbook; and much more.

Did you know that ACM members have access to thousands of IT and productivity videos from Skillsoft? Covering a variety of today's hottest topics, these videos offer "on-the-job" support and "just-in-time" solutions for busy practitioners. Recently, Skillsoft added significant video content in the following knowledge areas: Apache; AWS; CISA; Cybersecurity Analyst+; Microsoft Azure; Domain-driven Design; Google Cloud SQL; Scala; iOS Application Development; Java EE 7; Microsoft Power BI; Python for Data Science; Teradata; Transact-SQL; and Akka.

See the Skillsoft Learning Collections page for more information on books and videos. A more comprehensive list of recently added book and video titles is available here (see sidebar).

ACM CAREER & JOB CENTER

ACM's Career & Job Center and CSTA Job Board Offer Indispensable Job Search Tools

Be sure to visit ACM's Career & Job Center to update your résumé or create a new one in the Résumé Bank, so that employers can find you. ACM members' résumés include an ACM logo on their entry, highlighting their ACM membership to employers. 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). Log in to ACM's Job Board and post your résumé today.

Computer Science Teachers Association members: Be sure to visit the CSTA Job Board to create and upload your résumé to the Résumé Bank so that employers find you. Log in and post your résumé today!

ACM and CSTA members: Set up job alerts specifying your skills, interests, and location to receive email notifications when a job is posted that matches your criteria. For more information about the ACM Career & Job Center or CSTA Job Board, please email [email protected].

EDUCATION

2016-2017 ACM NDC Study Now Open

The 2016-2017 ACM NDC Survey of Non-doctoral-granting Academic Departments in Computing is now open. NDC is the only survey producing timely data on enrollment, degree production, student body composition, and faculty salaries/demographics that can help benchmark your institution/program(s). See 2015-2016 results here. If your unit has a program in CS, CE, IS, IT, and/or SE but you haven't received an invitation to participate, email [email protected].

STUDENT NEWS

Young Researchers: Apply Now for Next Heidelberg Laureate Forum—Deadline February 14, 2017

ACM encourages young computer scientists and mathematicians from all over the world to apply for one of the 200 coveted spots to participate in the Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF), an annual event. The HLF offers all accepted young researchers the great opportunity to personally meet the winners of the most prestigious prizes in their fields.

For one week, the recipients of the ACM A.M. Turing Award (Computer Science), the ACM Prize in Computing (formerly the ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences), the Abel Prize (Mathematics), the Fields Medal (Mathematics), and the Nevanlinna Prize (Mathematical Aspects of Information Science) will engage in a cross-generational scientific dialogue with young researchers in Heidelberg, Germany.

The fifth HLF will take place September 24 to 29, 2017. This high-profile event combines scientific, social and outreach activities in an informal atmosphere, and is fueled by comprehensive exchange and scientific inspiration.

Applications must be submitted online at application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org by February 14, 2017. Read more about how to apply in the FAQ. You can also nominate a candidate (on the registration form, you will need to enter ACM's organization number; please email [email protected] to request this number). Successful candidates will be selected by an international committee of experts to ensure that only the most qualified candidates are invited. Those who are accepted will be notified in April.

Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions: Submission Deadlines

ACM Student Research Competitions (SRCs), sponsored by Microsoft, 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 FSE 2016.

The next conferences accepting submissions are:

Learn more about competitions on the SRC submissions page and SRC guidelines for students.
 

ACM Scholarships for Women Computing Students to Attend 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 2015-2016 scholarships are made possible by generous support from Google, Microsoft Research, and Oracle.

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

About the ACM Distinguished Speakers Program

Book the speaker for your next event through the ACM Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP) and deliver compelling and insightful content to your audience. ACM will cover the cost of transportation for the speaker to travel to your event. Our program features renowned thought leaders in academia, industry and government speaking about the most important topics in the computing and IT world today. Our booking process is simple and convenient.

This month's featured speaker is Oge Marques. Oge is Professor of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University. He has more than 25 years of international teaching and research experience in the fields of image processing and computer vision. His research interests are in the area of intelligent processing of visual information, which combines the fields of image processing, computer vision, image retrieval, machine learning, serious games, and human visual perception. He is particularly interested in the combination of human computation and machine learning techniques to solve computer vision problems, and is the co-author of two patents, more than 50 refereed journal and conference papers, and several books on these topics. He was one of the co-chairs for the Doctoral Symposium of the ACM International Conference on Multimedia 2014 (ACMMM); the organizer and co-chair of a special track on Image and Video Databases for the ACM SAC 2003; and reviewer and Program Committee member for several ACM conferences and workshops. He is a senior member of both ACM and IEEE.

For more information on Oge, please visit his DSP speaker information page.
Oge Marques's Digital Library author page.

ACM, IEEE Computer Society Share Distinguished Speakers Programs

IEEE-CS and ACM are sharing 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

ACM Chapter De-charter Notice

ACM has de-chartered chapters on probation who have not completed their 2016 annual reports. The list of de-chartered chapters can be found at: http://www.acm.org/chapters/acm-chapter-de-charter-notice. Members interested in revitalizing their chapters should complete their 2016 Annual Report. If you have any questions, contact the ACM Local Activities Department at [email protected].

ACM Chapter Probation Notice

ACM has placed active chapters who did not complete their 2016 annual report on probation. This list of chapters can be found at: http://www.acm.org/chapters/acm-chapter-probation-notice. Members interested in activating their chapters should complete their 2016 Annual Report. If you have any questions, contact the ACM Local Activities Department at [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 October 17 to November 14, 2016:

ACM Student Chapters:

  • St. Mary's College of Maryland ACM-W Student Chapter, St. Mary's City
  • Ball State University ACM-W Student Chapter, Muncie, Indiana
  • BITS Pilani-Rajasthan ACM-W Student Chapter, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Rajasthan, India
  • College of William & Mary ACM-W Student Chapter, Williamsburg, Virginia
  • Coppin State University ACM-W Student Chapter, Baltimore, Maryland
  • County College of Morris ACM Student Chapter, Randolph, New Jersey
  • Florida Polytechnic University ACM Student Chapter, Lakeland
  • Global Institute of Technology ACM-W Student Chapter, Jaipur, India
  • Golden Gate University ACM Student Chapter, San Francisco, California
  • Indus University ACM Student Chapter, Karachi, Pakistan
  • Kean University ACM-W Student Chapter, Union, New Jersey
  • MIET ACM Student Chapter, Model Institute of Engineering and Technology, Jammu, India
  • MNM Jain Engineering College ACM Student Chapter, Misrimal Navajee Munoth Jain Engineering College, Chennai, India
  • Northern New Mexico College ACM Student Chapter, Espanola
  • Oregon State University ACM-W Student Chapter, Corvallis
  • Royal University of Bhutan ACM Student Chapter, Phuentsholing, Bhutan
  • RYM Engineering College ACM Student Chapter, Rao Bahadur Y Mahabaleswarappa Engineering College, Ballari, India
  • Santa Fe College ACM-W Student Chapter, Gainesville, Florida
  • Seattle University ACM-W Student Chapter, Seattle, Washington
  • SICSR ACM Student Chapter, Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, Pune, India
  • SRM University ACM-W Student Chapter, Sri Ramaswamy Memorial University, Chennai, India
  • Stern College for Women ACM-W Student Chapter, New York, New York
  • University of Houston-Downtown ACM-W Student Chapter, Houston, Texas
  • University of New Mexico ACM Student Chapter, Albuquerque
  • Wentworth Institute of Technology ACM Student Chapter, Boston, Massachusetts

ACM-W NEWS

Indiana Celebration of Women in Computing Motivates Women to Aim High in Computing Careers

By Alka Harriger (Purdue University)

The 2016 Indiana Celebration of Women in Computing (InWIC 2016) was held September 30-October 1 in West Lafayette, Indiana. Through the support of 11 sponsors, 145 attendees (72 undergraduate students, 31 graduate students, 20 university faculty/staff, and 22 IT professionals) were able to enjoy the offerings.

Undergraduate and graduate students presented 15 lightning talks and 22 posters, giving everyone an opportunity to see the impressive work of the female students across Indiana. One of the platinum sponsors, USAA, provided prizes for the top poster and top lightning talk. The winning poster was presented by Miranda Lung, a Purdue University senior, who shared her work, "Natural Language Processing: Graphing an Ontology." The winning lightning talk was presented by Izabelle Bystrowicz and Jacqueline Pelletier, both sophomores at DePauw University. The pair shared, "Balancing Your Life and Your Resume."

Results of a survey completed by some of the attendees showed that over 90% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the following statements about their attendance at InWIC:

  • Increased my commitment to complete my current degree program (100% of the respondents said they have completed or would complete a computing degree)
  • Helped me see myself as a computing person
  • Positively impacted my professional development
  • Made me feel part of a community of women in computing
  • Fed my interest in a computing career (a Career Fair was held where attendees could talk to recruiters about job opportunities)
  • Inspired me to emulate the successful women I saw at the conference
  • Increased my network of technical women
  • Motivated me to stay in touch with people I met at the conference
  • Taught me about opportunities at sponsor companies

Both keynote speakers made the InWIC experience memorable for all. Raquel Hill, an associate professor at Indiana University, related her insights using the analogy of being an eagle among chickens. Carolyn Phillips, the Lead Scientist at Neurensic, shared useful, online resources that showed the beauty of data.

The success of InWIC is due to the tireless voluntary activities of many including, but not limited to the keynote speakers, Day-in-the-Life panelists, proposal reviewers and review coordinator, judging coordinator, speaker coordinator, school coordinators, and our student assistant.

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 these 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 Wendy Powley 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

Computer Systems Organization and Human-Centered Computing Category Editors Needed for ACM Computing Reviews

Computing Reviews, the post-publication review and comment journal of ACM, is seeking volunteer editors interested in serving as category editors for two areas: Computer Systems Organization and Human-Centered Computing.

acmqueue Presents: "Faucet: Deploying SDN in the Enterprise"

Josh Bailey and Stephen Stuart of Google describe how they use OpenFlow and DevOps for rapid development: "While SDN as a technology continues to evolve and become even more programmable, Faucet and OpenFlow 1.3 hardware together are sufficient to realize benefits today. This article describes specifically how to take advantage of DevOps practices to develop and deploy features rapidly. It also describes several practical deployment scenarios, including firewalling and network function virtualization."

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 FYI

What Are ACM's Visual Identity Standards?

ACM's Visual Identity Standards Guide provides guidelines and tools for producing dynamic communications with distinct visual elements central to the ACM brand. The guide provides tools to assist you in displaying ACM logos and using banners and templates to produce web pages, newsletters, announcements, and more.

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