Transcript State of NSF and CISE Jeannette M. Wing Assistant Director

State of NSF and CISE
Jeannette M. Wing
Assistant Director
Computer and Information Science and Engineering
NSF, October 19, 2007
Outline
• NSF news
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Transformative Research
Major Research Infrastructure (MRI)
Merit Review (session later)
Broadening Participation (session later)
• CISE
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Budget and staff
FY08 initiatives
What I’ve been up to
Community support
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Transformative Research
• What is the intellectual merit of the proposed
activity?
– How important is the proposed activity to advancing
knowledge and understanding within its own field or
across different fields? How well qualified is the
proposer (individual or team) to conduct the project? (If
appropriate, the reviewer will comment on the quality of
prior work.) To what extent does the proposed activity
suggest and explore creative, original, or potentially
transformative concepts? How well conceived and
organized is the proposed activity? Is there sufficient
access to resources?
• Important Notice No. 130: Transformative
Research from Director Arden Bement was sent
on Sept 24, 2007 to Presidents of Universities
and Colleges
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Major Research Infrastructure (MRI)
• Effective FY08, the Major Research Infrastructure
(MRI) Program will require 30% cost-sharing on all
proposals.
– Title VII of the America COMPETES Act dictates this change
to NSF.
– Non PhD-granting institutions are exempt.
• Upper limit on budget per project has increased to $4M.
– Anything between $2M and $4M must be for the acquisition of a
single instrument.
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State of CISE
Federal Budget Update
• FY’08 (FY began 10/1/07)
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President’s Request for CISE $574M (+9%)
Continuing Resolution (CR) through 11/16
CR likely to be extended through 12/07
Cautiously optimistic that appropriations will be made
• FY’09 (FY begins 10/1/08)
– NSF’s Request to OMB submitted 9/07
– Pass-back at Thanksgiving
– President’s Request released 2/08
• FY10 (FY begins 10/1/09)
– Planning begins with visioning today
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NSF and CISE Funding Rate Trends
40%
Funding Rates
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30%
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15%
10%
5%
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Fiscal Year
NSF
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40%
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Funding Rate
Proposals and Awards
Funding Rates for All CISE Proposals
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1996 19971998 1999 2000 20012002 2003 2004 20052006 2007
Fiscal Year
Proposals
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Awards
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Funding Rate
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CISE Workforce
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Filling CISE Leadership Positions
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CISE of CISE Workforce
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Constant Search for Division and Program Directors
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Role of CISE AC
– Ty Znati, CNS Division Director
– Gwen Owens, CNS Operations Manager
– Searching for CCF Division Director
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89 positions allocated (IPA + federal)
Compare with ENG (140 positions) and BIO (129 positions)
CISE position allocations increasing
Positioning CISE to fill more positions if they are allocated
– Now or coming up: software foundations, bio-inspired computing,
nano/quantum computing, robotics, vision, graphics, distributed systems and
ubiquitous computing, networking, education and outreach
– Beating the Bushes subcommittee: help create a pool of viable candidates
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Reminders From May AC Meeting
• Vision: Computational Thinking For All
• 5 Deep Questions in Computing
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P = NP?
What is computable?
What is intelligence?
What is information?
How can we build complex systems simply?
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Math  Computing
Parallel and Distributed Thinking
Software for Complex Systems
Human-in-the-Loop
Understanding the Brain
• 5 Broad Themes
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CDI: Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation
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Computational Thinking for science and engineering
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Paradigm shift
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Yesterday: metal tools (transistors and wires)
Today: mental tools (abstractions and methods)
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“Algorithms” is becoming a household word, e.g., NY Times, Forbes magazine,
Harvard Business Review, Economist, …
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It’s a partnership.
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Three dimensions
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FY08: $52M agency-wide, $20M CISE
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To advance BOTH computer science and the other science/engineering
discipline.
1. Extracting knowledge from data
2. Understanding complexity in natural, built, and social systems
3. Virtual organizations
This is a big deal both for the community and for NSF.
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FY08 CISE Specific New Initiatives
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Expeditions in Computing
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Software for Real-World Systems [complexity, SCS, CPS]
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Foundations of Data and Visual Analytics [information, intelligence,
foundations, data-intensive]
– Goal: Fund teams long enough to pursue a bold vision.
– Challenge: Address “How can we build complex systems simply?”
– Challenge: Algorithms for the first step in
Data -> Knowledge -> Visualization
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[OCI lead] Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network
Partners (DataNet) [information, data-intensive]
– Challenge: Stewardship of digital data in perpetuity
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CreativeIT [intelligence, human-in-the-loop]
– Dual challenges: How can IT foster creativity and how does innovation happen in IT?
- SGER “sugars”
- Small Grants for Exploratory Research
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Education
• CISE Pathways to Revitalize Undergraduate Education (CPATH)
• Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC)
– Focus: Women, underrepresented minorities, people with disabilities
Question and Challenge for the Computing Community:
What is an effective way of teaching computational thinking to K-12?
- What concepts should we teach when?
What is our analogy to numbers in K, algebra in 7, and calculus in 12?
- We uniquely also should ask how best to integrate The Computer
with teaching the concepts.
- Hope to work with Education and Human Resources (EHR) Directorate
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What I’ve Been Doing (Across CISE)
• All-hands meeting
• Meetings with everyone in CISE
– Met one-on-one with each PD (47*) and DD (4*)
– Met with all staff (8 OAD, 37 divisional)
* including those
who left and those
who just arrived
• Three division and one cross-division reviews
• Re-affirmed mentoring of new PDs
• Starting monthly CISE-ALL meetings
• Back to science
– Encouraging clusters to do scientific strategic planning
– Started internal Science Talk Series, interleaved with external
Distinguished Lecturer Series
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What I’ve Been Doing (Across NSF)
• Getting to know Director, Deputy Directory,
fellow ADs and ODs
– OCI, MPS, ENG, BIO, GEO, OPP, EHR, …
• Getting to know National Science Board
– Lunch presentation
• Getting to know the budget process, e.g., OMB
• Getting to know the MREFC process
• Getting to know NITRD
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What We’ve Been Doing (For You)
Communicating with the Community
• Dear Colleague Letter (October 2, another to come)
– De-confusing CISE
• Networking News Item (to come)
• CRN (November 2007 issue)
– Column: 5 Deep Questions
– CDI article with Sirin Tekinay
• External talks/presentations
– ISAT, CSTB, NAE Section 5, European eScience, “European CRA” (ECCS),
Grace Hopper, technical workshops, universities and colleges (scheduled)
– CDI outreach
• Highlights
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Enlisting Community
Engagement
Back to Basics : Transformative Research
• NSF is about basic science and engineering.
Preserve CISE core.
• It’s all about good ideas and good people.
• It’s about “high risk” long term impact.
Impact may be far in the future.
Impact is long-lasting (that is real science).
Impact can create new economies and change societal
behavior.
Say “No” to incrementalism!
Promote new, emerging areas of computing.
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NSF Needs Good People
• Quality of program directors
 Affects quality of reviewers chosen on panels and ad hoc
 Affects quality of reviews PIs receive
 Affects funding decisions
 Affects the nature and content of our research
 Affects the frontiers of our discipline!
• Collective effort
• We are all part of the solution.
• We are in this together!
• CSTB, CRA, ACM, CCC, …
• Government—Academia—Industry ecosystem
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What You Can Do for NSF, for Computing
In increasing order of comfort:
• Service counts: Discuss at your institution how to include service as
part of the evaluation, promotion, and tenure process.
• Names, names, names: Have your department head/dean/lab
director send us (1) a list of qualified reviewers, (2) a list of
potential program directors, division directors, assistant directors.
• Support the field, support your colleagues: Our selfhypercriticalness hurts us when we compete at the foundation level
(e.g., MRI, PECASE, S&TCs, ERCs, IGERT, CDI).
• Most importantly: Do great research!
• Be creative, innovative, bold, visionary. As senior members of the
community, set an example for and mentor the junior members.
• Send us your good ideas!
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Engaging the AC
• Beating the Bushes Subcommittee
– Mission: To help name and recruit potential PDs, DDs, and ADs
– Volunteers?
• Education Subcommittee
– Goal: To help advise CISE on computing education programs and more
broadly engage the community on issues such as my CT K-12
Question&Challenge
– Harriet Taylor, Brian Blake, Alan Kay, Annie Anton (?)
• Broadening Participation Subcommittee
– Goal: To help CISE development its own BP plan and more broadly to
advise CISE on how to effectively invest in BP.
– Jan Cuny, Richard Ladner, Jorge Diaz-Herrera, Melissa O’Neill
• International Subcommittee
– Goal: To help advise CISE on what makes sense for CISE to do
internationally
– Suzi Iacono, Randy Bryant, Stu Feldman, Martha Pollack, Marc Snir
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Engaging Industry
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Your suggestions welcome!
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Learn from ENG report out on Industry subcommittee Oct 24
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Idea: Academia-Industry-Government “Imagine the Future” Forum
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Idea: Industry-Academia-Government Summit on the Future of Computing
Education
• ERC, I/UCRC, SBIR
– Drivers of our field come from society, technology, and science. How are we
responding in both research and education? How should we be leading (“creating
our future”)?
– Forum: 6-8 speakers from academia and industry. 30 additional participants.
One-day meeting.
– Focus on undergraduate education, meeting industry and national workforce needs
– Splash event in DC, organized by CCC?, working with CISE and CPATH, with help
from NSF Office of Legislative and Public Affairs
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Questions for You: Should CISE facilitate Visioning Forum and/or Education
Summit (say for Spring 2008)?
• Yes/Yes, but on a different topic/No/No, leave it to the CCC/Other
– I will ask this question again after the Visioning Exercise.
• If “yes” then please give us names of people who should participate
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Engaging the AC Today!
Visioning Exercise
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Goals: To inform CISE on research trends based on your visions of the
future for computing.
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Plan:
– Today
• Lunchtime: Share with your colleagues your visions for the future and what CISE
might want to do.
• 1:30-2:30: 10-minute presentation per breakout group
– Between now and the Spring AC meeting
• Prepare a short (2-5 page) write-up of each vision.
– Spring AC meeting
• Give a short presentation of each vision and what CISE might do
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Your output will feed into
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CISE’s DD retreat (November)
FY08 and FY09 spending (now)
FY10 budget planning (Spring, Summer 2008)
CCC
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Breakout Groups
• Room 1120: Brian Blake, Randy Bryant, Yolanda Gil (phone in), Rico
Malvar, Ellen Zegura
• Room 1105.09: Bill Dally (phone in), Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau, Dave
Clark, John King, Richard Ladner
• Room 1235 (this room): Dave Farber (phone in), Stu Feldman, Alan
Kay, Antonio Lopez, Martha Pollack
• Room 1105.13: Jorge Diaz-Herrera, Stephanie Forrest, Dick Karp,
David Tennenhouse, Roz Picard
• Between now and the spring AC meeting, feel free to engage:
– Al Aho, Annie Anton, Vint Cerf, Andrew Chien, Arnold Douglas, Dwight
Gourneau, Melissa O’Neill, Joe O’Rourke, Cherri Pancake, Marc Snir, Margaret
Wright
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Working with the CCC (Running List)
• Research Visioning
– Academia-Industry-Government “Imagine the Future” Forum
– Outcome of CISE AC Visioning Exercise
• Education
– Industry Summit on the Future of Computing Education
– Top 25 Universities and Educational Transformation
• <Your ideas go here>
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Thanks to CISE!
• CISE works as a team
• Debbie Crawford, Frederica Darema, Laura Gent,
Rita Koch, Joe Koss, Suzi Iacono, Gracie Narcho,
Timothy Pinkston (January), Jason Soleil, Maggie
Whiteman
• Michael Foster and all PDs and admin staff in CCF
• Ty Znati and all PDs and admin staff in CNS
• Haym Hirsh and all PDs and admin staff in IIS
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Thank You!