ACM MemberNet - October 26, 2021

Welcome to the October 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.

October 26, 2021

TOP STORIES

AWARDS

MEMBER RECOGNITION

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 Europe Council Names Valerie Issarny as New Chair

The ACM Europe Council has named Valerie Issarny as its new Chair. Issarny, who will serve a two-year term through 30 June 2023, is Director of Research at Inria in France. Prior to that, she was Scientific Director of Inria@SiliconValley, Berkeley, California and Visiting Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. She has been a member of the ACM Europe Council since Autumn 2017 and served as Secretary/Treasurer from 2019 to 2021. Valerie is also Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems and Associate Editor of ACM Transactions on Internet of Things.

Also elected to two-year terms are Vice Chair Rosa M. Badia, Manager of the Workflows and Distributed Computing Group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain; and Secretary/Treasurer Bran Knowles, Senior Lecturer, Lancaster University, UK.

Call for Nominations for Fran Allen Mentorship Award

ACM announces a new award that highlights the value of mentoring in the development of computing professionals. The ACM Frances E. Allen Award for Outstanding Mentoring emphasizes contributions in mentoring students and young professionals from diverse communities. Please consider nominating a deserving individual for this unique award that promotes diversity in computing. Nominations are due December 15.

ACM Focus, a New Way to Explore and Interact with ACM Content

ACM Focus is a new way to explore the breadth and variety of ACM content, and to stay current with the latest trends in your technical community. ACM Focus consists of a set of AI-curated custom feeds by subject, each serving up a focused set of the latest relevant ACM content. These high-level subject-based feeds of original and curated content provide overall awareness of relevant ACM activities, people, talks and a variety of published works. Current topic areas are Artificial Intelligence; Information Systems; the Web; Society and the Computing Profession; Applied Computing; Graphics and Computer-Aided Design; Networks and Communications; Architecture; Hardware; Human-Computer Interaction; Security and Privacy; Software Engineering and Programming Languages; and Computational Theory. The feeds are built in an automated fashion and are refined as the user interacts with them.

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 Select covers Spotlight on Computing in Bangladesh.

AWARDS

David Abramson Named 2021 ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award Recipient

ACM and the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) have named David Abramson, a professor at the University of Queensland, as the recipient of the 2021 ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. Abramson was recognized for contributions to parallel and distributed computing tools, with application from quantum chemistry to engineering design. He is also cited for his mentorship and service to the field. The award will be formally presented to Abramson in November at the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC21).
Read the ACM 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 is December 15, 2021. Other deadlines: Doctoral Dissertation: October 31 (for dissertations being translated into English: November 30).

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 December 3.

CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

HLF 2021, September 20 to 23 (online): Watch Recorded Sessions

The 2021 Heidelberg Laureate Forum introduced new virtual components, including the laureate debate and speed-networking. The timely Hot Topic was “Spread of Infectious Diseases.” As in past HLFs, many of the laureate lectures were delivered by ACM A.M. Turing Award and ACM Prize recipients, such as Vint Cerf and Daphne Koller. Workshops and panel discussions rounded out the program. Video material from most of the sessions is now available on the HLF YouTube channel.

CIKM 2021, November 1 to 5 (online)

The ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management provides a forum for presentation and discussion of research on information retrieval, data science and knowledge management. Keynote speakers are Leman Akoglu (Carnegie Mellon University), Mark Johnson (Oracle), and Himabindu Lakkaraju (Harvard University).

SIGSPATIAL 2021, November 2 to 5, Beijing, China

The ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems will include workshops on emergency management using GIS; resilient and intelligent cities; spatial computing for epidemiology; and more. Keynotes will be delivered by Vincent Tao (Wayz.ai) and Dawn Woodward (Uber).

ICAIF 2021, November 3 to 5 (online)

The second ACM International Conference on AI in Finance will feature keynote speakers Manuela Veloso (JP Morgan AI Research, Carnegie Mellon University), Stephen Roberts (University of Oxford), Charles-Albert Lehalle (Imperial College London, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority), Robert Axtell (George Mason University) and Thaleia Zariphopoulou (University of Texas at Austin).

SC21, November 14 to 19, St. Louis, Missouri (hybrid)

At the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, invited talks will show how translational research and technologies and their applications address some of the most complex challenges of our time, in addition to panels, workshops and more. ACM Turing Award laureate Vint Cerf will deliver the keynote.

CCS 2021, November 15 to 19 (online)

The ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security brings together information security researchers, practitioners, developers, and users to explore cutting-edge ideas and results. Workshops will cover Privacy in the Electronic Society, Cloud Computing Security, and more. Keynotes will be delivered by Cynthia Dwork (Harvard University), Dawn Song (University of California, Berkeley) and Taesoo Kim (Georgia Tech).

PUBLIC POLICY

ACM USTPC Comments on Creation of National AI Research Resource

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

In response to a formal Request for Information issued in late July, ACM's US Technology Policy Committee (USTPC) submitted Comments early this month to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on an implementation plan for the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR). Comments like USTPC's will be assessed by the 12-expert NAIRR Task Force established by Congress as part of the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.

As described by OSTP, the Task Force's mandate is "to study the feasibility of and develop a roadmap to implement a National AI Research Resource. This resource is envisioned as cyber-infrastructure that would democratize access to an advanced computing ecosystem, data sets and educational tools, and provide user support mechanisms. Such a capability would lower the barrier to entry to AI research for communities, institutions, and regions that have been tradi-tionally underserved, and set us on a path to transform our Nation's ability to leverage AI across fields of science and engineering and economic sectors."

Before making more specific observations, USTPC's Comments first highlighted that, as a threshold matter: "the new National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) should be undertaken only if it is independently funded. Creation and operation of the NAIRR thus should not reduce current levels of federal financial support for Artificial Intelligence (AI) research by any other arm of the government." Key additional comments addressed a broad range of NAIRR elements and operation, including: governance and oversight, public and private sector funding, coordination with other federal agencies engaged in AI research, priorities (particularly relating to computing resources and access to data), and how the NAIRR might best promote and enable the ethical and responsible research and development of AI with an emphasis on "racial and gender equity, fairness, bias, civil rights, transparency, and accountability."

USTPC concluded: "AI holds tremendous promise for society, and provides important opportunities for national economic competitiveness, health and welfare, defense, and security. The NAIRR can play an important role in achieving these benefits by providing democratized access to AI research computing and data infrastructure, and to services built on and around this infrastructure. USTPC looks forward to working with NSF and OSTP to those vital ends."

Connect with ACM's Tech Policy Groups!

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, please email [email protected].

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. You choose. 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 Jelani Nelson

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 episode features Jelani Nelson, Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Research Scientist at Google.

Watch ACM TechTalks with ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award Recipient Maria Florina Balcan and Nigel Poulton from Kubernetes

Watch the ACM TechTalk, Machine Learning for Algorithm Design, presented on Tuesday, October 26 at 12:00 PM EST/9:00 AM PT by Maria Florina Balcan, Cadence Design Systems Professor of Computer Science in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and recipient of the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award. Steve Hanneke, Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Purdue University, will moderate Q&A session following the talk.

Watch the ACM TechTalk, Getting Started with Kubernetes, to be presented on Thursday, November 11 12:00 PM EDT by Kubernetes and Docker Trainer Nigel Poulton. Dominic Holt, CEO, Harpoon Corp., will moderate Q&A session following the talk.

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) 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 SIGCOMM 2021. The next conferences accepting submissions are:

  • ICSE 2022, May 21-29, deadline December 31
  • CHI 2022, April 3-May 5, deadline January 13

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.

Geeta Chauhan is AI Practice Head and CTO at Silicon Valley Software Group. She has built and launched platforms and applications based on AI/deep learning, cloud computing, blockchain, internet of things, Kubernetes and Mesos Clustering, data pipelines for real-time and offline analytics, software defined networking, micro-services, self-healing, and elastic scaling. Geeta received the Women in IT Silicon Valley CTO of the Year 2019 award. She speaks on topics ranging from AI and deep learning to ethics in AI, blockchain, and IoT.

For more information on Geeta, 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 September 18 to October 13, 2021:

ACM Student Chapters:

  • BYU-Hawaii ACM Student Chapter, Brigham Young University, Laie
  • Defiance College ACM Student Chapter, Defiance, Ohio
  • Egyptian Chinese University ACM Student Chapter, Cairo, Egypt
  • FDU ACM Student Chapter, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, New Jersey
  • IISERB ACM Student Chapter, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal
  • Krishna Engineering College ACM Student Chapter, Ghaziabad, India
  • UAO ACM Student Chapter, Universidad Anahuac Oaxaca, Mexico
  • UAO ACM-W Student Chapter, Universidad Anahuac Oaxaca, Mexico
  • Wabash College ACM Student Chapter, Crawfordsville, Indiana

ACM Professional Chapter:

  • Extended Reality ACM SIGCHI Chapter, Gainesville, Florida

ACM-W NEWS

Celebrating Technology Leaders, Episode 8: Machine Learning Careers: Looking Beyond the Hype

By highlighting successful technical women who are leading diverse careers in the technology industry, ACM-W’s webinar series, Celebrating Technology Leaders, aims to inform students and early-career professionals about the multitude of career options open to them. The latest episode featured "Machine Learning Careers: Looking Beyond the Hype" on October 20; previous webinars featured tech entrepreneurship, UI/UX, data, robotics, cybersecurity and tech "returnships" for women. To watch the recorded webinars, visit the YouTube playlist.

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

New ACM Books on Technical History of Software, Socially Interactive Agents, and Life and Works of Tony Hoare

Software: A Technical History, by Kim W. Tracy, examines such areas as fundamentals, operating systems, programming languages, programming environments, networking, and databases, from their earliest beginnings to their modern variants. Case studies illustrate UNIX, APL, SAGE, GNU Emacs, Autoflow, internet protocols, System R, and others. Extensive problems and suggested projects enable readers to deeply delve into the history of software in areas that interest them most.

In The Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents, editors Birgit Lugrin, Catherine Pelachaud, and David Traum provide a comprehensive overview of the research fields of embodied conversational agents, intelligent virtual agents, and social robotics. Socially interactive agents, whether virtually or physically embodied, are autonomous agents that are able to perceive an environment including people or other agents, reason, decide how to interact, and express attitudes such as emotions, engagement, or empathy.

In Theories of Programming: The Life and Works of Tony Hoare, editors Cliff B. Jones and Jayadev Misra present the essence of the ACM Turing Award laureate's various works—the quest for effective abstractions—both in his own words and in chapters written by leading experts in the field, including many of his research collaborators. This volume also contains biographical material, his Turing Award lecture, the transcript of an interview and some of his foundational papers.

Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research and Practice: Call for Papers

The new ACM journal Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research and Practice (DLT) seeks to publish high quality, interdisciplinary research on the research and development, real-world deployment, and/or evaluation of distributed ledger technologies, e.g., blockchain, cryptocurrency, and smart contract. DLT will offer original research work and innovative practice-driven advancements by DLT experts and researchers from academia and public- and private-sector organizations. For more information see the Call for Papers or email [email protected].
Read the ACM news release.

ACM Queue Presents: "Static Analysis at GitHub"

Timothy Clem and Patrick Thomson are on the Semantic Code team at GitHub, where they build and operate a suite of technologies that power symbolic code navigation on github.com. In their article for ACM Queue, they say that static analysis is difficult to scale with respect to human behavior; we often think of complex analysis tools working to find problems and then trying to convince humans to fix them. Their approach took a different tack: use basic analysis techniques to quickly put information that augments our ability to understand programs in front of everyone reading code on GitHub with zero configuration required and almost immediate availability after code changes.

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