ACM MemberNet - Fall 2024

Bringing You the World of ACM and Beyond

Geoffrey Hinton Awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics

2024 Nobel Prize in Physics recipient Geoffrey Hinton

ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient Geoffrey Hinton has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics along with John J. Hopfield "for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks." Hinton received the 2018 A.M. Turing Award with Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun for conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing. Learn more here.

Organize an Hour of Code in Your Community During Computer Science Education Week

The Hour of Code has introduced more than 1.8 billion students in more than 180 countries to computer science. It is a global movement designed to generate excitement in young people about programming and technology, taking place during Computer Science Education Week, December 9–15, with games, tutorials, and other experiences organized by local volunteers from schools, research institutions, and other groups. Join the event now and organize an Hour of Code event to enjoy any of a number of fun, engaging, and educational projects which are available in several languages.

Young Researchers: Apply for the 12th Heidelberg Laureate Forum, September 14 – 19, 2025

Young researchers are invited to apply for one of 200 coveted spots to participate in the 12th annual Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF). The invitation is open to undergraduates, graduate students and recent PhDs of mathematics and computer science (and closely related fields). The 11th HLF will take place September 14 – 19, 2025. This prominent and versatile event combines scientific, social and outreach activities in a unique atmosphere, and is fueled by comprehensive exchange and scientific inspiration. Young researchers can either apply directly or be nominated by a colleague, professor, mentor, or manager. Applications must be submitted online by Tuesday, February 11, 2025, via the application page. You will need to enter ACM's organization code to complete the application process. Please email [email protected] to request this number.

ACM PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

Former ACM President Barbara Simons Honored at Verified Voting's 20th Anniversary Celebration

Former ACM President Barbara Simons and House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi

On September 14th, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi presented former ACM president and Verified Voting Board Chair Barbara Simons with an award for her decades of commitment to securing our elections at Verified Voting’s 20th anniversary celebration. Simons has served on the Board of Advisors of the US Election Assistance Commission since 2008, and as a computer scientist who believes in the power of paper, she continues to champion secure, transparent elections. Read more here.

Yolanda Gil and Juan Gilbert Appointed to US National Science Board

National Science Board members Yolanda Gil and Juan Gilbert

ACM Fellows Yolanda Gil and Juan Gilbert have been appointed by President Joe Biden as Members of the National Science Board. Gil is Principal Scientist and Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California. Gilbert is Recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor, UF Distinguished Professor & Department Chair at the University of Florida. Read more here.

Nicola Dell Named 2024 MacArthur Fellow

ACM Member Nicola Dell has been named a 2024 MacArthur Fellow. She was cited for developing technology interventions to address the needs of overlooked populations, such as survivors of intimate partner violence. Dell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Science at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech. She is also the Director of Technological Innovation for the Initiative on Home Care Work in the Center for Applied Research on Work (CAROW) at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and the Steering Committee Chair of ACM COMPASS. Read more here.

AWARDS & MEMBER RECOGNITION

David A. Padua Recognized With ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award

ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award recipient David A. Padua

David A. Padua, Donald Biggar Willett Professor Emeritus of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is the recipient of the 2024 ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. Padua is cited for innovative and usable contributions to the theory and practice of parallel compilation and tools, as well as service to the computing community. The Ken Kennedy Award recognizes groundbreaking achievements in parallel and high performance computing. Padua is cited for innovative and usable contributions to the theory and practice of parallel compilation and tools, as well as service to the computing community. The award will be formally presented at The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC24). Read the ACM news release.

2024 ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowships

2024 ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship recipients Ke Fan and Daniel Nichols

ACM and the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) have named Ke Fan of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Daniel Nichols of the University of Maryland as the recipients of the 2024 ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowships. The George Michael Memorial Fellowship honors exceptional PhD students throughout the world whose research focus is high-performance computing (HPC) applications, networking, storage, or large-scale data analytics. The Fellowships will be formally presented at the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC24). Read the ACM news release.

Call for ACM Award Nominations

Each year, ACM recognizes technical and professional achievements within the computing and information technology community through its celebrated Awards Program. ACM welcomes nominations for candidates whose work exemplifies the best and most influential contributions to our community, and seeks your help in expanding and diversifying the nomination pool for our ACM Awards. Please take a moment to consider those people in your community who may be suitable for nomination. Refer to the award nominations page for links to individual award pages, where you will find nomination requirements, deadlines, and Award Subcommittee Members. Nominations for most awards are due December 15, 2024.

PUBLIC POLICY

USTPC Statement on CrowdStrike Incident

ACM's US Technology Policy Committee has released a “Statement on Mass Cybersecurity Incidents Likely to Recur.” On July 18, 2024, CrowdStrike, a US-based cybersecurity technology company, released a sensor configuration update which caused a global outage affecting an estimated 8.5 million computers. Several critical infrastructure sectors including airlines, 911 emergency systems, banks, government agencies, healthcare, and hospitals around the world were impacted. While CrowdStrike has provided some information as to how the accident happened, ACM USTPC urges that all the details be thoroughly and publicly investigated.

Recent Appointments

Virginia Dignum has been named Chair of ACM's Technology Policy Council. Dignum is a Professor of Computing Science / Responsible Artificial Intelligence and the Director of the AI Policy Lab at Umeå University, Sweden. USTPC serves as the focal point for ACM's interaction with US government organizations, the computing community, and the US public in all matters of US public policy related to information technology.
Jody Westby has been named ACM's TechBriefs Committee Chair. Westby is the Vice Chair of ACM’s US Technology Policy Committee, and founder of Global Cyber Risk LLC, which provides advisory and technical services to organizations in the areas of cyber governance, privacy, cybersecurity, incident response, and digital asset inventories and data mapping. ACM TechBriefs is a series of short technical bulletins by ACM’s Technology Policy Council that present scientifically-grounded perspectives on the impact of specific developments or applications of technology.
Michel Beaudouin-Lafon has been named Chair of the ACM Europe Technology Policy Committee. Beaudouin-Lafon is Professor of Computer Science, Classe Exceptionnelle, at Université Paris-Saclay, senior fellow of Institut Universitaire de France, recipient of the CNRS Silver Medal, and an ACM Fellow. He has served as the Technology Policy Council Vice Chair, and as a member of the TPC TechBriefs Committee, and the Europe Council. The ACM Europe Technology Policy Committee promotes dialogue and the exchange of ideas on technology and computing policy issues with the European Commission and other governmental bodies in Europe, and the informatics and computing communities.

PUBLISHING NEWS

acmqueue: "Confidential Computing Proofs: An Alternative to Cryptographic Zero-Knowledge"

Proofs are powerful tools for integrity and privacy, enabling the verifier to delegate a computation and still verify its correct execution, and enabling the prover to keep the details of the computation private. Both Confidential Computing Proofs and Zero Knowledge Proofs can achieve soundness and zero-knowledge but with important differences. Read the full article here.

Journals Welcome New EICs

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) welcomes Abhik Roychoudhury as its new Editor-in-Chief for the term January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2027. Roychoudhury is a Provost's Chair Professor of Computer Science at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

ACM Transactions on Parallel Computing (TOPC) welcomes Martín Farach-Colton as new Editor-in-Chief, for the term November 1, 2024 to October 31, 2027. Farach-Colton is Computer Science and Engineering Department Chair and Leonard J. Shustek Professor of Computer Science at New York University.

ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT) welcomes Jaideep S. Vaidya as new Editor-in-Chief, for the term December 1, 2024 to November 30, 2027. Vaidya is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Information Systems at Rutgers University and Director of the Rutgers Institute for Data Science, Learning, and Applications.

ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare (HEALTH) welcomes Gang Zhou as its new EIC. Zhou is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the College of William & Mary. The appointment is from October 15, 2024 to October 14, 2027.

ACM / IMS Journal of Data Science (JDS) has reappointed Jelena Bradic (University of California at San Diego) and Stratos Idreos (Harvard University) as Co-Editors-in-Chief for a second term. They are joined by new Co-EiC Barbara Engelhardt (Stanford University) for the term of September 19, 2024 to May 31, 2027.

Digital Government: Research and Practice (DGOV) welcomes Luis Luna-Reyes (University at Albany – SUNY, USA) and Sehl Mellouli (Université Laval, Canada) as its new Editors-in-Chief. Their appointments are from September 1, 2024 until August 31, 2027.

ACM Transactions on Spatial Algorithms and Systems (TSAS) welcomes Mohamed Mokbel as its Editor-in-Chief. The appointment is from September 1, 2024 until August 31, 2027. Mokbel is Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota.

ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software (TOMS) welcomes Hatem Ltaief and Piotr Luszczek as Co-Editors-in-Chief. The appointment is from September 1, 2024 until August 31, 2027. Ltaief is the Principal Research Scientist in the Extreme Computing Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. Luszczek is a Technical Staff Scientist at MIT Lincoln Lab.

New ACM Books

Formal Methods for Safe Autonomy: Data-Driven Verification, Synthesis, and Applications by Chuchu Fan introduces new verification and synthesis algorithms to provide certifiable trusts for real-world autonomous systems. On the theoretical front, the techniques are armed with soundness, precision, and relative completeness guarantees. On the experimental side, this book shows that techniques can be successfully applied on a sequence of real-world problems. It is written for researchers in the corporate world, academia, government, and practitioners in autonomous systems.

ACM Open: ACM Open Expands in China

ACM Open continues to expand in China. In the past month, 12 new Chinese institutions under the DRAA (Digital Resource Acquisition Alliance of Chinese Academic Libraries) Consortium have signed ACM Open licenses. This raises the total number of Chinese institutions participating in ACM Open to 34. Also in the past month, there have been five new institutions across the US joining ACM Open through the Lyrasis Consortium, and two in Wisconsin joining through the Wisconsin Library Services Consortium. There are currently 469 ACM Open institutions in the U.S.

If your university has yet to join, please reach out to your Department Head or Librarian, or contact us at [email protected]. A list of ACM Open participating institutions is available here.

SIG NEWS & AWARDS

SC24, Nov. 17 - 22

This year’s International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC) is tracking to be largest ever, hosting an unparalleled mix of thousands of scientists, engineers, researchers, educators, programmers, and developers and who will intermingle to learn, share, and grow. Highlights include the presentation of the ACM Gordon Bell Prize and ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling on Thursday, November 21, and a series of Invited Talks that offer unparalleled insights into the complex challenges of our time from non-traditional applications of HPC to quantum computing. And the innovative networking infrastructure SCinet will empower SC Conference attendees and the HPC community to connect, transport, and showcase HPC research from across the globe. Tutorials and workshops include "Advanced MPI Programming," "Principles and Practice of High Performance Deep/Machine Learning Training and Inference," "Machine Learning with Graphs in High-Performance Computing Environments," "Core-Level Performance Engineering," and more. The keynote speaker is Nicola Fox (NASA). The event will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA for the first time.

SIGSAC Awards Announced

ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC) announced their SIG awards at CCS’24 in Salt Lake City last week. SIGSAC Outstanding Contributions Award - Gail-Joon Ahn; SIGSAC Outstanding Innovation Award - Giovanni Vigna; SIGSAC Outstanding Early-Career Researcher Award - Elissa Redmiles and Nicolas Papernot; and SIGSAC Doctoral Dissertation Award, "Revamping Binary Analysis With Sampling and Probabilistic Inference" - Zhuo Zhang.

Best Paper Awards Given at Recent ACM SIG Conferences

ACM's Special Interest Groups (SIGs) regularly cite outstanding individuals for their contributions in 38 distinct technological fields. Some awards presented (or to be presented) at conferences:

You can find them all here.

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION

Chad Jenkins Receives Richard Tapia Award

Odest Chadwicke “Chad” Jenkins, Professor of Robotics and Electrical Engineering, as well as Computer Science, at the University of Michigan, received the Richard Tapia Award at the upcoming CMD/IT ACM Richard A. Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference. Jenkins’ service to the field includes being the founding Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI) and Vice President for Educational Activities for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. He also starts his first term on the ACM Council this year.

womENcourage: September 17-19 in Brasov, Romania

The 12th ACM Celebration of Women in Computing: womENcourage 2025 will be hosted by Transilvania University of Brașov and organized in collaboration with Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași and Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj. The theme of the conference is " Computer Science: a Catalyst for Educational Change." and seeks contributions highlighting innovative research and technologies that enhance learning experiences. Learn more here.

Nominations for ACM-W Rising Star Award 2024-25

With the ACM-W Rising Star Award, ACM-W recognizes women whose early-career research has made a significant impact in the field of computing. The award is a tribute to early-career women making waves in computing and contributing to a more inclusive and supportive community. Nominations open until January 17, 2025. Learn more here.

On Demand: Indigenous Peoples' Heritage Awareness Month Panel

In celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Heritage Awareness Month, ACM DEI Council member Timothy Pinkston organized the panel, "Preserving Cultural Data and Language Sovereignty While Also Benefiting from Emerging Technologies in the AI Era: Challenges and Opportunities," to discuss data sovereignty, cultural preservation, and the risks posed by Generative AI. The panel was moderated by Cynthia (Star Horse Woman) Lindquist, with panelists Elmer J. Guy, Te Taka Keegan, Ian Her Many Horses, and Sean Chandler.

On Demand: Hispanic Heritage Month Panel

In celebration of Ibero-American Heritage Month, also known as Hispanic Heritage Month, ACM hosted “Language as Inclusion of Exclusion: Can Artificial Intelligence Make a Difference?” a panel focused on language inclusion in the computer science field moderated by Indira Guzman and featuring Franci Suni, Vinicius Pereira, and Nayat Sanchez-Pi.

MEMBERSHIP

Featured Member Benefit: Discounts and Special Offers

ACM's Discounts and Special Offers 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.

LEARNING PROGRAMS

ACM ByteCast Interviews

ACM ByteCast is a podcast series from ACM’s Practitioner Board in which hosts Rashmi Mohan, Bruke Kifle, and Scott Hanselman interview researchers, practitioners, and innovators who are at the intersection of computing research and practice. In each monthly episode, guests will share their experiences, the lessons they’ve learned, and their own visions for the future of computing. Recent ByteCast interviews include:

Nashlie Sephus, Principal Tech Evangelist for Amazon AI focusing on fairness and identifying biases at AWS AI, describes her early love for mathematics and music, shares a personal experience that deeply influenced her work in AI, discusses the importance of building diverse teams to practicing responsible AI and building sound products, as well as BeanPath, and more.
2024 ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award recipient Wen-Mei Hwu, Senior Distinguished Research Scientist at NVIDIA and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, discusses the evolution of Moore’s Law and the significance of Dennard Scaling, the early days of processors and the rise of specialized processors and new computational units, and more.
ACM Fellow and Software System Award recipient Xavier Leroy, Professor at Collège de France and member of the Académie des Sciences shares the evolution of Ocaml and how it came to be adopted by Jane Street Capital for its financial applications, his interest in formal verification, AI tools like Copilot and the current limitations of AI-generated code in software engineering, and more.

Listen to ACM ByteCast interviews here, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Featured TechTalks

ACM members and non-members alike are welcome to attend our popular series of free TechTalks by expert industry professionals, distinguished ACM award laureates, and visionary researchers from industry and academia. Recent TechTalks include:

In “Developing Vascular Digital Twins to Shift from Reactive to Proactive Care" 2023 ACM Prize in Computing recipient Amanda Randles, Professor at Duke University, will focus on how high-performance computing addresses these obstacles through the development of the Longitudinal Hemodynamic Mapping Framework (LHMF).
In "Lessons Learned from Building GitHub Copilot(s)," Eddie Aftandilian, Principal Researcher at GitHub Next discusses how to bridge the demo-to-real-world gap via lessons learned from building several AI developer tools at GitHub, including the original GitHub Copilot, Copilot for Docs, and Copilot Workspace.
In "Introduction to Retrieval Augmented Generation," Abhinav Kimothi, co-founder and VP of AI at Yarnit, delivers an introductory talk is aimed at explaining why Retrieval Augmented Generation is becoming a critical component of the AI toolkit, perfect for those who want to build AI systems or are simply interested in the latest trends in generative AI, providing an introduction, insights, and practical knowledge on RAG.

Find our entire archive of TechTalks here.

EDUCATION

Call for Submissions: ACM EngageCSEdu

Did you know that the ACM Education Board has a special project that allows you to share outstanding instructional materials from your classes? EngageCSEdu publishes high-quality, engaging, classroom-tested Open Educational Resources (OERs) for computer science education. OERs published by ACM EngageCSEdu are included in the ACM Digital Library as part of the ACM Teaching Materials for Computing Collection.

Turing Lecture Series

Last year, two students from the Online Master of Science in Computer Science at Georgia Tech organized an online speaker series that featured five ACM A.M. Turing Award winners. Now, the Turing Minds Lecture Series continues with several laureate speakers already engaged, including Nobel Prize recipient Geoffrey Hinton, Avi Wigderson, Vint Cerf, Michael Stonebraker, Donald Knuth, Joseph Sifakis, Leslie Variant, John Hennessy, and many others. RSPV to watch the speakers or view recordings of past sessions at the Turing Minds website.

Computer Science Curricular Guidelines (CS2023) Now Available in ACM Digital Library

Computer Science Curricular Guidelines (CS2023) are now available in the ACM digital library. Please help the ACM measure the impact of CS2023 Curricular Guidelines by filling out a brief survey. Survey results will be reported only in aggregate, and responses will be kept confidential.

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 were presented at PACT 2024. The next conferences accepting submissions are:

CHI 2025, April 26-May 1, 2025, deadline January 23, 2025
PASC 2025 , June 16-18, deadline December 15, 2024, 2024
CGO 2025, March 1-5, 2025, deadline December 15, 2024, 2024
ICSE 2025, April 6–May 4, 2025, deadline November 17, 2024

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

ACM Distinguished Speaker: Nelly Bencomo

Nelly Bencomo is an Associate Professor in the CS Department at Durham University and leader of the Research Team SE@Durham. She exploits the interdisciplinary aspects of software engineering, comprising both technical and human concerns, while developing techniques for intelligent, autonomous, and highly distributed systems. Her lectures include "Bayesian Theory of Surprise to Quantify Degrees of Uncertainty," and "Decision-Making under Uncertainty: Human-Machine Teaming." For more information about Bencomo, please visit her DSP speaker information page.

All speakers are available through ACM's ACM Distinguished Speaker Program.

On This Day in Computing History

Visit "On This Day in Computing History", where ACM celebrates pivotal moments that have shaped technology and highlight key milestones, from early inventions to today's advancements. Join us as we honor the visionaries and transformative events that continue to inspire the world of computing, one milestone at a time.

ACM CAREER & JOB CENTER

The Ultimate Career Development Destination

Connecting with the right employers in computing can be a daunting task. The ACM Career & Job Center is a true career planning destination. Whether you are seeking Career Insights, Career Advice, or Career Coaching, ACM can help.

Read past issues of MemberNet online in our archive.

Is there a person, event, or issue you'd like to see covered? Please email [email protected].

ACM MemberNet - Fall 2024