ACM Elects Vint Cerf as President

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The Association for Computing Machinery
Advancing Computing as a Science & Profession

Contact: Virginia Gold
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NEW YORK, May 25, 2012 – The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) today announced the election of Vinton G. Cerf as president for a two-year term beginning July 1.  Cerf, who is Chief Internet Evangelist at Google Inc., said his vision as president is to take advantage of the global networking infrastructure to invite open dialog with ACM's worldwide membership.  He also noted the need to increase the accessibility and utility of ACM’s burgeoning online content, which includes its publications and conferences.  Currently, Cerf serves as General Chair of the ACM Turing Centenary Celebration, to be held June 15-16 in San Francisco, CA.

Also elected to two-year terms were Vice President Alexander L. Wolf of Imperial College London, UK, and Secretary-Treasurer Vicki L. Hanson of the University of Dundee, Scotland. In addition, Members-at-Large elected to four-year terms include Eric Allman, chief science officer for Sendmail Inc.; Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Yahoo! vice president of Research for Europe and Latin America;  Radia Perlman, director of Network Technology at Intel; Mary Lou Soffa, professor and chair of the University of Virginia Computer Science Department; and Eugene H. Spafford, professor at Purdue University and executive director of the Purdue Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), and chair of the ACM US Public Policy Council.
 
The new officers elected by ACM professional members represent the more than 100,000 computing professionals and students who comprise ACM's international membership. They pledged to continue ACM's international growth with the expansion of regional councils to developing countries, and to strengthen ACM's influence in shaping the computing profession as a source of innovation and advances that benefit society.   
 
Cerf indicated his interest in assisting ACM Chapters and Special Interest Groups to serve as conduits for two-way flows of information, education, training and expertise. He also cited the need to introduce options for reducing the cost of access and adding search capability to ACM's online offerings, including audio, video, and text transcripts of presentations.  These advances, he noted, would extend their usefulness during and after events have occurred. 

Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet.  Before joining Google Inc., he was senior vice president of Technology Strategy and of Architecture and Technology for MCI.  He also served as vice president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) and as principal scientist at the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).  His prior experience includes assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University, and distinguished visiting scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).  He was also a member of the U.S. Presidential Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC).  Among honors received for this work are the U.S. National Medal of Technology, the ACM A.M. Turing Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Prior to his election as ACM president, he was a member-at-large on the ACM Council.    

Alexander Wolf, who holds a Chair in Computing at Imperial College London, is known for seminal contributions to software architecture and deployment, as well as automated process discovery, an area related to the business intelligence field. He has helped to shape ACM's role in advancing the educators, practitioners, researchers and students at the core of computing through his active participation. He was formerly Secretary-Treasurer of ACM, and serves on the editorial board of the Research Highlights section of Communications of the ACM.  He also served as chair of the ACM SIG Governing Board.  He was instrumental in nurturing the formation of conferences and SIGs that represent new areas of computing, helping ACM members enhance computing’s role in driving innovation. Named an ACM Fellow, Wolf is a Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society and holds a UK Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award.  He currently serves on the ACM Europe Council, and chairs the ACM Software System Award Committee.

Vicki L. Hanson is Professor of Inclusive Technologies at the University of Dundee, and Research Staff Member Emeritus at IBM Research.  She works on issues of inclusion for older and disabled people with research on accessible and usable technology for diverse populations. While at the IBM Research Division, she founded and managed the Accessibility Research group. She is also a past chair of ACM's Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing (SIGACCESS), and the founder and co-editor-in-chief of ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing. Her research is funded by Research Councils UK (RCUK), which coordinates and funds research on all areas of science and engineering as well as the arts and humanities.  She is a member of the UK Computing Research Committee, a Fellow of the British Computer Society, and an ACM Fellow.  A recipient of the ACM CHI (Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction) Social Impact Award, she holds a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award, which benefits outstanding scientists. 

About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery www.acm.org, is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.