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Computer Science Outside the Box
Jeannette M. WingAssistant Director
Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Computer Science Outside the Box Workshop NSF, November 10, 2008
2Outside the Box Jeannette M. Wing
Why Are You Here?computer, communication and information
science and engineering
Goal: To ensure the vibrancy of our field.
It’s all about our community: who we are, what we think, what we do.
ideasactionspeople
It’s all about pushing the frontiers of our field.
?
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It’s a Collective Effort
We are in this together!
• ACM, CCC, CRA, CSTB, IEEE Computer, NSF/CISE, …
Academia
Industry Government
Ecosystem
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Why NSF Cares NSF support as a percentof total federal supportof academic basic research
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Goals
Recognize scientific and technical opportunities for our field.
Address the cultural challenges we face.
Enumerate for the CRA best practices and recommendations for academia and funding agencies.
Today: Start with four (interrelated) topics.
Today: What incentives, processes and procedures should we revisit and change, and how?
Today: Identify next steps. Writing. Further meetings (with broader audiences).
For Today
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1. Go Outside Your Box
Intra- and inter-disciplinary research
theory
systemsAI
applicationsComputer Science
Sciences (Bio, Astro, Geo, …)
Engineering (EE, Mech, Civil, …)Economics, Social Sciences
The Arts
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Challenges• Hiring
– Joint committees? X . CS+X hardly scales.
• Mentoring young faculty– “Go for it” or “Wait till after tenure”?
• Promotions– Joint committee? Formed when (at hiring or JIT)?– Single tenure review or double jeopardy?
• Financial– Differences in stipend, salary, etc. across disciplines– Who gets the overhead?
• Funding– As a PI, which NSF program do I apply to? Will my proposal fall between the cracks?– As a funding agency, striking balances: deepening the core vs. broadening our reach;
disciplinary vs. inter-disciplinary; single PI vs. multi-PI, etc.
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2. The World Needs Us
Societal Grand Challenges
EnergyEnvironmentClimate ChangeEconomy
Healthcare
WaterFood
Safety and security
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Challenges
• Do we value use-inspired basic research? How do we evaluate it?
Pure basicresearch
(Bohr)
Pure appliedresearch(Edison)
Use-inspiredbasic research
(Pasteur)
Quest for FundamentalUnderstanding?
Considerations of Use?
Yes
Yes
No
No
• In what ways do we encourage students and faculty to work with those in the socialsciences, the arts and humanities?
• In what ways do we support and teach collaborative research? Working in teams (e.g., communication skills)?
• How can academia most effectively work with industry?
Academia
Industry Government
Ecosystem
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3. Breaking the Cycle
Long-term vision, long-lasting impact, high-risk research
Say “No” to dead-line driven research!
tenure and promotion
conference papers
conference deadlines
incrementalism,unscholarly
senior faculty
junior faculty
grad students
undergraduates
administrators
proposal deadlines
panel and ad hoc reviews
funding recommendations
program directors
reviewers
researchers
funding agencies
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Challenges (Academic)• Faculty
– Do you (just) count the number of SIG-X papers at promotion time?– Do you count conference papers alone and not even bother (any more) about
journal articles?– Do you not tenure someone if he/she does not have an NSF CAREER award?
• Graduate Students– Do you say
“Conference deadline in 2 weeks? No problem, let’s start the work now.” “Don’t waste your time submitting to that workshop. Better to wait till you have
solid results and submit to (sigh ) SIG-X.” “We need to write up this work for a journal paper.”
– Do they say• “If I don’t have N publications, I won’t get any job interviews.” or “… I won’t get
any academic offers.”
• Graduate Admissions– How much do you weigh the (number of) publications undergraduates have
in making admissions decisions?
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Challenges (Funding)
• Traditional high-quality versus bold high-risk
non-competitive
competitive
high riskhigh quality
• We are hypercritical. It hurts us in broader competitions.
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4. Serving the Community
who we are, what we say, what we do.
Service matters.
Others judge our field by:
President and Congress
It’s all about our community: who we are, what we think, what we do.
These are (some) of the people who make decisions aboutwhat our children choose to study, our image, …, funding priorities.
parents and teachers
The Media
industry
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Challenges
• Does service really count?– It’s a hard balance to strike!
Here are some FREE things we can all do:
• Put on our c.v. (and give credit to others) for– Service as an NSF reviewer– Selection of our (their) NSF highlights for the President’s Budget
or the CISE website
• Cultivate the next generation– Suggest junior faculty to participate in departmental committees,
to serve on university/gov’t/industry committees/boards, to give keynotes, to meet with gov’t/industry reps, etc.
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CISE Needs Good People
• Quality of program directors Affects quality of reviewers chosen for panels and ad hoc
reviews Affects quality of reviews PIs receive
Affects funding decisions Affects the nature and content of our research
Affects the frontiers of our discipline!
CISE’s Biggest Challenge
Quote from Dr. Arden Bement, Director of NSF:“Send us talent.”
?
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Drivers of Computing
Science
Society
Technology• What is computable?• P = NP?• (How) can we build complex systems simply?• What is intelligence?• What is information?
J. Wing, “Five Deep Questions in Computing,” CACM January 2008
7A’sAnytime Anywhere AffordableAccess to Anything by Anyone Authorized.
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Credits
• Copyrighted material used under Fair Use. If you are the copyright holder and believe your material has been used unfairly, or if you have any suggestions, feedback, or support, please contact: [email protected]
• Except where otherwise indicated, permission is granted to copy, distribute, and/or modify all images in this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation license” (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GNU_Free_Documentation_License)
• The inclusion of a logo does not express or imply the endorsement by NSF of the entities' products, services or enterprises