ACM President

Wendy Hall
Professor of Computer Science
School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS)
University of Southampton
Southampton, Hants, UK

Wendy Hall is President of ACM, elected for the two-year term beginning July 1, 2008.

Hall received a BSc with honors (Mathematics, University of Southampton, 1974); PhD (Pure Mathematics, University of Southampton, 1977); and MSc (Computer Science, City University, London, 1986). She served as Lecturer, Oxford Polytechnic (1977); Lecturer, LSU College of Higher Education (1978); and Lecturer (1984); Senior Lecturer (1990); and CS Professor (1994), University of Southampton. She’s been head of ECS since 2002.

Hall’s team developed the well-known Microcosm open hypermedia system, which was patented and spun-off into a commercial company (1994), winning an ITEA award (1995) and British Computer Society (BCS) IT award (1996). She has published over 300 journal and conference papers.

Hall was named CBE in Queen's Birthday Honours list (2000). She is an EPSRC Senior Research Fellow (1996–2002), and was a member of UK Government's Technology Foresight Panel from 1995–1998; the EPSRC council (1997–2002); member of executive of UK Computing Research Committee (2002–present); member of UK Prime Minister’s Council of Science and Technology (2004-present), member of Scientific Council of the European Research Council (2005–present), chair of UKCRC Grand Challenges Committee (2005–present). She holds Honorary DScs (Oxford Brookes University, 2002, University of Glamorgan, 2005, University of Pretoria, 2007), and Honorary Fellow University of Cardiff (2004). She received the Anita Borg Award for Technical Leadership in 2006.

She was ACM Vice President from July 2006 to June 2008, served on the ACM Publications Board from 1999 to 2005, and was program co-chair of Multimedia '96 and conference co-chair for Hypertext '97 and Multimedia '98, and chair of WWW2006. She was an executive committee member of SIGMultimedia (1998–2003) and is a member of SIGWEB and SIGMM.

Hall was President of the British Computer Society from 2003–2004, and was Vice President of Publications for BCS (1998–2002). She is Senior VP of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2005-present).  She has also been a member of IW3C2 since 1997, and is a member of several editorial boards and program committees.

ACM Vice President

Alain Chesnais
CTO
SceneCaster.com
Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada

Alain Chesnais was elected ACM Vice President for the two-year term beginning July 1, 2008.

He studied at the Universite de Paris VII, and earned a Maitrise de Mathematiques, a Maitrise Structure Mathematique de l’Informatique, and a Diplome d’Etudes Approfondies. He also studied at l’Ecole Normale Superierure de l’Enseignement Technique.

Since June 2007, Chesnais has been CTO of SceneCaster.com. Prior to that, he had been Vice President of Product Development at Tucows Inc. from July 2005 –May 2007.

Chesnais served as ACM Secretary/Treasurer from July 2006 to June 2008, ACM SIGGRAPH president from July 2002 to June 2005, and SIG Governing Board Chair from July 2000 to June 2002. A French citizen now residing in Canada, he has more than 20 years of management experience in the software industry. He joined the local SIGGRAPH Chapter in Paris some 20 years ago as a volunteer and has continued his involvement with ACM in a variety of leadership capacities since then.

ACM Secretary-Treasurer
Barbara G. Ryder
Computer Science Department Head
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, VA

Barbara Ryder was elected Secretary-Treasurer of ACM for the two-year term beginning July 1, 2008.

Dr. Ryder received an A.B. in Applied Math, Brown University (1969); M.S. in Computer Science, Stanford University (1971); Ph.D. in Computer Science, Rutgers University (1982). She was an Associate Member of Professional Staff at AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill (1971-1976). Later at Rutgers University, Ryder was Assistant Professor (1982-1988), Associate Professor (1988-1994), Professor (1994-2001), and Professor II (2001-2008).

As of fall 2008, Ryder becomes the computer science department head at Virginia Tech, the first woman to serve in that role at the nationally ranked College of Engineering.

Ryder is the recipient of a 2008 ACM Presidential Award, and was named an ACM Fellow in 1998. She was selected as a Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women's Distinguished Professor in 2004 and received ACM's Special Interest Group on Programming Languages (SIGPLAN) Distinguished Service Award in 2001. She also was voted Professor of the Year for Excellence in Teaching by the Rutgers Computer Science Graduate Student Society in 2003, received a Leader in Diversity Award at Rutgers in 2006, and a Graduate Teaching Award from Rutgers Graduate School in 2007.

Ryder has been an active leader in the ACM (ACM Council Member 2000-2008; Chair, Federated Computing Research Conference 2003; Chair, ACM SIGPLAN 1995-1997). She has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association (1998-2001). She is an editorial board member of IEEE's Transactions on Software Engineering and Software, Practice and Experience.

Ryder has also served on many program and conference committees, especially those sponsored by ACM SIGPLAN and SIGSOFT. She has been a panelist in the CRA Workshops on Academic Careers for Women, and the New Software Engineering Faculty Symposia held at the International Conference on Software Engineering.

John R. White

John R. White was appointed ACM Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer in November 1998. He has articulated and helped shape a new direction for ACM, the electronic community for information technology professionals worldwide. Under his leadership, ACM is providing a new generation of digital products and services for computing professionals.

Prior to joining ACM, Dr. White was Manager of the Computer Science Laboratory at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). He led the research group that developed DocuPrint, Xerox' series of high-end, high-speed networked printing products. As head of the Computer Science Lab, he managed research teams exploring future offerings in networked electronic document systems, services, and commerce. Prior to his tenure at Xerox PARC, Dr. White was professor of Computer Science at the University of Connecticut.

White served as ACM President from 1990-92, and substantially increased ACM's role as an international organization. He expanded ACM's involvement into public policy issues, including privacy, the underrepresentation of women and minorities in computing, K-12 education, and the protection of intellectual property. He opened the ACM Washington Office and launched ACM's US Public Policy Committee (USACM).

White received his Ph.D. and MS degrees in Computer Science, and his BA in Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has 15 refereed publications and a patent to his credit. A Fellow of the ACM, he received the ACM Outstanding Contribution award in 1994, honoring his key volunteer roles at ACM over the past two decades. He is also a recipient of the Xerox PARC Excellence in Science and Technology Award. Dr. White has served on the boards of the Computing Research Association, Computing Sciences Accreditation Board, and the Publishers International Linking Association (CrossRef).