Computer Science Outside the Box Jeannette M. Wing Assistant Director Computer and Information Science and Engineering Computer Science Outside the Box

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


Why NSF Cares NSF support as a percentof total federal supportof academic basic research


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


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


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.


2. The World Needs Us

Societal Grand Challenges

EnergyEnvironmentClimate ChangeEconomy

Healthcare

WaterFood

Safety and security


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


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


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?


Challenges (Funding)

• Traditional high-quality versus bold high-risk

non-competitive

competitive

high riskhigh quality

• We are hypercritical. It hurts us in broader competitions.


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


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.


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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Last Word:The Future of Computing is Bright!


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.

Thank You!


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

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Computer Science Outside the Box Jeannette M. Wing Assistant Director Computer and Information Science and Engineering Computer Science Outside the Box