ACM MemberNet - February 25, 2021

Welcome to the February 2021 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 past issues of MemberNet online at https://www.acm.org/membership/acm-membernet-archive.

Read coverage of ACM in the news media.

February 25, 2021

TOP STORIES

AWARDS

MEMBER RECOGNITION

SIG AWARDS

ONLINE CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

PUBLIC POLICY

MEMBER PROGRAMS

LEARNING CENTER

ACM CAREER & JOB CENTER

STUDENT NEWS

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

CHAPTERS NEWS

ACM-W NEWS

PUBLICATIONS NEWS

TOP STORIES

ACM Annual Reports for FY 2019-2020

ACM has released its annual report for the fiscal year of July 2019 to June 2020. Read this and other annual reports of ACM's councils, boards and committees at https://www.acm.org/about-acm/annual-reports-current-fy.

ACM Celebrates Black History Month

ACM is celebrating Black History Month in the US this year by posting responses from Black ACM Fellows, volunteers and members to questions about their careers in computing. Learn about what inspired them to pursue careers in this field, how underrepresentation shapes the experiences of Black students and professionals in computing, and what can be done to combat racial bias in computing and technology.

2021 SIG Election Candidate Slate

In accordance with ACM Bylaw 6, the following SIGs will hold elections in April 2021: SIGACCESS, SIGACT, SIGAda, SIGBED, SIGBio, SIGCHI, SIGCOMM, SIGDA, ACM SIGGRAPH*, SIGEVO, SIGITE, SIGKDD, SIGMIS, SIGMOBILE, SIGMOD, SIGMM, SIGPLAN, SIGSAC, SIGSAM, and SIGSOFT.

ACM's Policy and Procedure on SIG Elections requires that those SIGs holding elections notify their membership of candidates for elected offices. To see the slate of candidates, please visit the 2021 ACM SIG Elections site.

In accordance with the ACM SIG Bylaws, additional candidates may be placed on the ballot by petition. All candidates must be ACM Professional Members, as well as members of the SIG. Anyone interested in petitioning must inform ACM Headquarters, Pat Ryan and the Secretary of the SIG of their intent to petition by 16 March 2021. Petitions must be submitted to ACM Headquarters for verification by 2 April 2021.

*ACM SIGGRAPH's election will commence on 15 June 2021.

Discover the latest "ACM Selects," Shortlists of Learning Resources Curated by Experts

ACM Selects are themed shortlists curated by subject matter experts for both serious and emerging computing professionals, with the goal of providing new ways to discover relevant resources, either through ACM or authenticated by ACM-affiliated specialists. The latest Selects cover Getting Started with Cloud Computing, People of Computing #4: Quantum Computing and AI for Robotics.

AWARDS

Shafi Goldwasser Receives L'Oréal-UNESCO Award

Shafi Goldwasser, the RSA Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 2012 ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient, has been named the laureate for North America in the 2021 L'Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science International Awards. The award celebrates her groundbreaking work in cryptography, which has enabled secure communication and verification over the internet and collaborative computation on private data.
Read the MIT news release.

ACM Award Nomination Submission Procedures

Each year, ACM recognizes technical and professional achievements within the computing and information technology community through its celebrated Awards Program. ACM welcomes nominations for candidates whose work exemplifies the best and most influential contributions to our community, and society at large. ACM's award committees evaluate the contributions of candidates for various awards that span a spectrum of professional and technological accomplishments.

Please take a moment to consider those individuals in your community who may be suitable for nomination. Refer to the award nominations page for nomination guidelines and the complete listing of Award Subcommittee Chairs and Members. And read ACM Past President and former Awards Committee Chair Cherri Pancake's article in Communications of the ACM, "Dispelling Common Myths about ACM Awards and Honors."

The deadline for nominations for the main awards has passed. Other deadlines: ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award, March 30; Gordon Bell Prize, April 15; ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship, May 1; ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award, June 15.

MEMBER RECOGNITION

Call for ACM Senior Member Nominations

The Senior Member advanced grade of membership recognizes ACM members with at least 5 years of Professional ACM membership in the last 10 years. Nominations are accepted on a quarterly basis. The deadline for nominations is March 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 conferences:

ONLINE CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Panel, March 3

ACM A.M. Turing Award laureates John Hennessey and David Patterson will participate in a panel on Valuing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Our Computing Community being held as a joint session of several co-located virtual conferences on March 3 from 1:30 to 3:00 PM EST. ACM Fellow Timothy Pinkston organized and will moderate the panel, which also includes ACM Diversity and Inclusion Council Co-Chair Natalie Enright Jerger, ACM Fellow Margaret Martonosi, NVIDA Cheif Scientist Bill Dally and Facebook's Kim Hazelwood. The panel session is free and open to the public by registering here.
Read more about this event.

SIGUCCS 2021, March 14 to April 30

This year’s conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on University & College Computing Services will be free for attendees and held online as a series of seminars. Gather with fellow higher education technology professionals for seminars and social events. Keynote speakers are ACM Fellow Margaret Burnett (Oregon State University) and educational consultant Susan Zvacek.

SAC 2021, March 22 to 26

The ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing gathers computing professionals engaged in the development of new computing applications. Tracks will cover Bioinformatics; Cloud Computing; Evolutionary Computing; Health Informatics; Intelligent Robotics and Multi-Agent Systems; Social Network and Media Analysis; and much more. Scheduled keynote speakers are Sng-Wook Kim (Hanyang University) and Pasi Fränti (University of Eastern Finland).

PEARC 2021, July 18 to 22: Call for Participation

The Practice & Experience in Advanced Research Computing Conference invites technical content proposals, especially in the areas of three technical tracks: Workforce Development, Training, Diversity, and Education; Applications and Software; and Systems and System Software. Full paper submissions are due March 9. Short papers due April 13. Panels and BoFs due May 9. For more deadlines and information, please visit the PEARC submissions page.

PUBLIC POLICY

ACM USTPC HotTopics Webinar Tackles Election Security

By Adam Eisgrau, ACM Director of Global Policy and Public Affairs

ACM's US Technology Policy Committee (USTPC) hosted its second HotTopics webinar February 11, on the topic of Technology & Trust: Voting in the Electronic Age. USTPC Chair Jim Hendler moderated the discussion, and panelists included nationally recognized experts Douglas W. Jones of the University of Iowa; former ACM President and USACM (predecessor of USTPC) founder Barbara Simons; USTPC Law Subcommittee Chair and voting rights litigator Andrew Grosso; and Virginia's former Commissioner of Elections Edgardo Cortés (now at the Brennan Center for Justice). The panelists discussed the security challenges of online voting, voter verification technologies (including biometric identifiers), and risk assessment frameworks for voting technology and processes. (See Government Technology for additional coverage.)

The HotTopics webinar series takes attendees inside pressing technology policy issues, from artificial intelligence to quantum computing. Session recordings, panelist bios, and background resources are archived on the HotTopics homepage.

ACM Europe TPC Leaders Lend Expertise to European Policy Panels

By Adam Eisgrau, ACM Director of Global Policy and Public Affairs

Leaders of the ACM Europe Technology Policy Committee were featured presenters at two European policy events organized in February by the Science|Business Network (S|B). ACM Europe TPC Chair Chris Hankin joined six experts from the European Commission, private sector, and academia for a webinar on AI: Who is liable?. In addition, ACM Europe TPC Vice Chair Paola Inverardi joined five others for "Basic vs. Applied: Getting the balance right between early-and late-stage R&D in Horizon," a plenary session of the S|B 2021 Annual Network Conference. The two-day event featured prominent speakers from academia, industry, and the public and private sectors, as well as from the European Commission, including the EC's Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager, Innovation and Research Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, and Health and Food Safety Commissioner Stella Kyriakides.

To learn more about upcoming programs and the work of ACM's Technology Policy groups, follow @ACMpolicy, @USTPC, and @EuropeTPC on Twitter. If you're interested in contributing to the work of ACM's Europe or US Technology Policy Committees, email [email protected].

Apply for Science and Technology Policy Fellowship by February 28

US citizens who have a PhD in Statistics, Data Science, Mathematics or closely related field are encouraged to apply for the ASA/ACM/AMS/IMS/MAA/SIAM 2021-2022 Science and Technology Policy Fellowship. Focusing on data science in areas such as machine learning, data visualization and causal inference, the Fellowship offers an opportunity to learn about executive and legislative processes while lending statistical and scientific expertise to public policy issues. Fellows serve one year on the staff of a senator, representative, or congressional committee beginning September 2021. Apply by February 28.

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.

Did you know that you could potentially save thousands by refinancing your student loans? ACM has partnered with Credible to help you find out if you are overpaying and could save thousands by refinancing. As a multi-lender marketplace that allows borrowers to receive competitive loan offers from its vetted lenders, Credible empowers consumers to take control of their student loans. Borrowers can fill out one form, then receive and compare personalized offers from numerous lenders and choose the best offer. Reduce your rate, lower your payments, repay faster. To learn more visit Credible.com.

ACM Academic Membership Option

The ACM Academic Department Membership option allows universities and colleges to provide ACM Professional Membership to their faculty at a greatly reduced collective cost. ACM offers a membership for academic department faculty at the cost of $49 per person, more than half off the standard ACM professional membership fee of $99 per year. Through this program, each faculty member will receive all the benefits of individual professional ACM membership, including Communications of the ACM, member rates to ACM Special Interest Group conferences, member subscription rates to ACM journals, and much more. To learn more, visit the ACM Academic Department Membership page or contact Cindy Ryan.

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 partnership with SocialCoder, and how you can get involved.

LEARNING CENTER

ACM ByteCast Interviews Maria Klawe, Jeffrey Heer and Denae Ford

ACM ByteCast is ACM's series of podcast interviews with researchers, practitioners, and innovators who are at the intersection of computing research and practice. In each monthly episode, guests share their experiences, the lessons they've learned, and their own visions for the future of computing. The latest episodes feature Maria Klawe, former ACM President President of Harvey Mudd College; Jeffrey Heer, ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award Recipient and the Jerre D. Noe Endowed Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington; and Denae Ford, Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research in the Software Analysis and Intelligence Team (SAINTes) group and an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Human Centered Design and Engineering Department at the University of Washington.

Watch ACM TechTalk with Bertrand Meyer

Register now for the next ACM TechTalk, The Four PEGS of Requirements Engineering, to be presented on Thursday, March 4 at 12:00 PM ET/9:00 AM PT by ACM Fellow and Software System Award recipient Bertrand Meyer, Professor of Software Engineering and Provost at the Schaffhausen Institute of Technology in Switzerland and CTO of Eiffel Software. Will Tracz, Lockheed Martin Fellow Emeritus and member of the ACM Professional Development Committee, will moderate the Q&A session. Continue the discussion on ACM's Discourse Page.

Visit the TechTalks Archive for our full archive of past TechTalks.

ACM CAREER & JOB CENTER

ACM Career & Job Center Connects You with Career Opportunities

Connecting with the right employers in computing can be a daunting task. Thankfully, the world's leading companies, colleges and universities come to the ACM Career & Job Center to find the best candidates. By creating an account on the ACM Career and Job Center, you'll gain access to a wide range of tools to help you find the perfect job:

  • Finding a Job - Use the job search tools to find a job that matches your search criteria.
  • Create and Manage Email Alerts - Stay on top of the latest job openings. Receive an email when new jobs match your search criteria.
  • Create/Post Resumes - Get noticed by employers. Create or upload a resume with our easy-to-use tools so employer can get in touch with you.
  • View Saved Jobs - Save jobs that interest you, add notes, share with friends, and track your applies to keep on top of your job search.

For any assistance with the ACM Career and Job Center, please contact ACM's Advertising Sales Manager, Ilia Rodriguez.

STUDENT NEWS

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 POPL 2021. 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 Community of Support for Women in Computing (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). 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.
See ACM Distinguished Speakers in action on our flickr page.

Laura Haas is Dean of the College of Information and Computer Sciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is best known for her work on the Starburst query processor, from which DB2 LUW was developed; on Garlic, a system that allowed integration of heterogeneous data sources; and on Clio, the first semi-automatic tool for heterogeneous schema mapping. Among other awards, Haas received the ACM SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovation Award. She is an ACM Fellow, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

For more information on Laura, please visit her DSP speaker information 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

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 new chapters that were chartered January 14 to February 8, 2021:

ACM Student Chapters:

  • Baker College ACM Student Chapter, Flint, Michigan
  • JNTUK UCEV ACM Student Chapter, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Kakinada, University College of Engineering, Vizianagaram, India
  • Medicaps University ACM Student Chapter, Indore, India
  • St. John's University ACM Student Chapter, Queens, New York
  • SVKM-IOT Dhule ACM Student Chapter, SVKM Institute of Technology, Dhule, India
  • University of Ottawa ACM-W Student Chapter, Ottawa, Canada

ACM Professional Chapter:

  • Baltimore ACM Chapter, Laurel, Maryland

ACM-W NEWS

Celebrating Technology Leaders, Episode 4: Women in Data

In the most recent episode of ACM-W’s webinar series, “Celebrating Technology Leaders,” host Bushra Anjum highlighted the stories of women in computing who are successfully leading a diverse set of careers in the data field. Panelists from Microsoft, Doximity, and Eurostar International discussed the most in-demand data careers, the top skills required, how one can break into the field of data science, how the data landscape will evolve in the next decade (especially fueled by the COVID era), and more. Visit the archive for current and past webinars in this series.

Read an interview with Bushra in the ACM-W Connections newsletter.

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, visit: 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

ACM and Purdue University Sign New ACM OPEN License

ACM and Purdue University have entered into a new transformative Open Access (OA) “read and publish” agreement under the ACM OPEN program. The three-year agreement will allow for Purdue corresponding authors to publish an unlimited number of OA research articles in the ACM Digital Library across ACM’s entire portfolio of journals, magazines and conference proceedings. Regular access to the rest of the ACM Digital Library’s subscription contents is also provided for in the license. The new agreement demonstrates a shared commitment between ACM and Purdue to further sustainable OA publishing in computer science.
Read the ACM news release.

ACM Publications Seeking New Editors-in-Chief

IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (TCBB) is seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. Nominations are due March 1. For more information please visit the TCBB nominations page.

ACM Transactions on Applied Perception (TAP) is seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. Nominations are due March 15. For more information please visit the TAP nominations page.

ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems Welcomes New Editor-in-Chief

ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems (TCPS) has named Chenyang Lu as Editor-in-Chief, for the term March 1, 2021 to February 29, 2024. Chenyang is an engineer and the Fullgraf Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

ACM Queue Presents: "Best Practice: Application Frameworks"

After an overview of the central aspects of frameworks, Chris Nokleberg and Brad Hawkes of Google dive deeper into the benefits of frameworks, the tradeoffs they entail, and the most important features they recommend implementing. They show a practical application of frameworks at Google: how developing a microservices platform allowed Google to break up its monolithic code base, and how frameworks enabled that change.

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