ACM MemberNet - January 27, 2022

Welcome to the January 2022 edition of ACM MemberNet, bringing you the world of ACM and beyond. Explore the many facets of ACM with our newsletter of member activities and events. Read past issues of MemberNet online at https://www.acm.org/membership/acm-membernet-archive.

Read coverage of ACM in the news media.

January 27, 2022

TOP STORIES

AWARDS

MEMBER RECOGNITION

SIG NEWS

CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

PUBLIC POLICY

MEMBER PROGRAMS

LEARNING CENTER

ACM CAREER & JOB CENTER

EDUCATION

STUDENT NEWS

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

CHAPTERS NEWS

ACM-W NEWS

PUBLICATIONS NEWS

ACM FYI

TOP STORIES

Celebrating 75 Years of Advancing Computing as a Science and Profession

This year marks the 75th anniversary of ACM. ACM will be embarking on a variety of activities to mark this significant milestone. There’s more to come in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned.

ACM Names 2021 Fellows

ACM has named 71 contributions in areas including algorithms, computer science education, cryptography, data security and privacy, medical informatics, and mobile and networked systems ─ among many other areas. The accomplishments of the 2021 ACM Fellows have driven innovations that ushered in significant improvements across many areas of technology, industry, and personal life. The ACM Fellows program recognizes the top 1% of ACM Members for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community.

"Computing professionals have brought about leapfrog advances in how we live, work, and play," said ACM President Gabriele Kotsis. "New technologies are the result of skillfully combining the individual contributions of numerous men and women, often building upon diverse contributions that have emerged over decades. But technological progress would not be possible without the essential building blocks of individual contributors. The ACM Fellows program honors the creativity and hard work of ACM members whose specific accomplishments make broader advances possible. In announcing a new class of Fellows each year, we celebrate the impact ACM Fellows make, as well as the many technical areas of computing in which they work."

In keeping with ACM’s global reach, the 2021 Fellows represent universities, corporations, and research centers in Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, and the United States.

The contributions of the 2021 Fellows run the gamut of the computing field ─ including cloud database systems, deep learning acceleration, high performance computing, robotics, and theoretical computer science ─ to name a few.

Additional information about the 2021 ACM Fellows, as well as previously named ACM Fellows, is available through the ACM Fellows site.

Read the ACM news release.

2022 SIG Election Candidate Slate

In accordance with ACM Bylaw 6, the following SIGs will hold elections in April 2022: SIGCSE, SIGHPC, SIGIR, and SIGLOG.

ACM's Policy and Procedure on SIG Elections requires that those SIGs holding elections notify their membership of candidates for elected offices. To see the slate of candidates, please visit the 2022 ACM SIG Elections site.

In accordance with the ACM SIG Bylaws, additional candidates may be placed on the ballot by petition. All candidates must be ACM Professional Members, as well as members of the SIG. Anyone interested in petitioning must inform ACM Headquarters, Pat Ryan and the Secretary of the SIG of their intent to petition by 15 March 2022. Petitions must be submitted to ACM Headquarters for verification by 1 April 2022.

*ACM SIGGRAPH's election will commence on 15 June 2022.

2022 ACM General Election Candidate Slate

In accordance with the Constitution and Bylaws of the ACM, the Nominating Committee has submitted the slate of nominees for ACM's officers for 2022. In addition to the officers of the ACM, two Members at Large will be elected to ACM Council. In addition to considering previous leadership roles both within and outside ACM, the Committee made an effort to ensure that a diversity of perspectives will be represented.

The Constitution and Bylaws provide that candidates for elected offices of the ACM may also be nominated by petition of one percent of the Members who as of 1 November 2021 are eligible to vote for the nominee. Such petitions must be accompanied by a written declaration that the nominee is willing to stand for election. The number of Member signatures required for the offices of President, Vice President, Secretary/Treasurer and Members at Large, is 745.

The Bylaws provide that such petitions must reach the Elections Committee before 31 January 2022. Original petitions for ACM offices are to be submitted to the ACM Elections Committee, c/o Pat Ryan, COO, ACM Headquarters, 1601 Broadway, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10019, USA, by 31 January 2022. Statements and biographical sketches of all candidates will appear in the May 2022 issue of Communications of the ACM.

AWARDS

ACM Award Nomination Submission Procedures

Each year, ACM recognizes technical and professional achievements within the computing and information technology community through its celebrated Awards Program. ACM welcomes nominations for candidates whose work exemplifies the best and most influential contributions to our community, and society at large. ACM's award committees evaluate the contributions of candidates for various awards that span a spectrum of professional and technological accomplishments.

Please take a moment to consider those individuals in your community who may be suitable for nomination. Refer to the award nominations page for nomination guidelines and the complete listing of Award Subcommittee Chairs and Members. And read ACM Past President and former Awards Committee Chair Cherri Pancake's article in Communications of the ACM, "Dispelling Common Myths about ACM Awards and Honors."

The deadline for nominations for the main awards has passed. Other deadlines: ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award, March 30; Gordon Bell Prize, April 15; ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship, May 1; ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award, June 1.

MEMBER RECOGNITION

Call for ACM Senior Member Nominations

The Senior Member advanced grade of membership recognizes ACM members with at least 10 years of professional experience and at least 5 years of Professional Membership in the last 10 years, who have demonstrated performance through technical leadership, and technical or professional contributions. Nominations are accepted on a quarterly basis. The deadline for nominations is March 3.

SIG NEWS

ACM History Committee Call for Fellowship Proposals

The ACM History Committee’s call for proposals for the history fellowship program is now open. The deadline for submissions is February 15.

The ACM History Committee’s 2022 fellowship competition is for research projects on or centrally-related to ACM history. The History Committee plans to support up to four projects with awards up to $4,000. The History Committee has awarded more than 40 fellowships since the start of this fellowship program in 2009. Many of these awards have gone to scholars (graduate students to senior scholars) in the SIGs to support preservation of ACM SIGs’ history.

CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

TEI 2022, February 13 - 16

The Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interactions addresses issues of human-computer interaction, novel tools and technologies, interactive art, and user experience. This year's conference will be virtual and will focus on "Making. Things. Think." inviting participants to look into the design of the autonomous everything and the (future) impact on our (daily) life.

WSDM 2022, February 21 - 25

The ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining is one of the premier conferences on web-inspired research involving search and data mining. The program this year will be virtual and includes workshops on Federated Learning for Private Web Search and Data Mining, Decision Making for Modern Information Retrieval System, and more. Keynote speakers are Yejin Choi of the University of Washington, George Karypis of Amazon, and ACM Fellow Ricardo Baeza-Yates of Northeastern University.

FPGA 2022, February 27 - March 1

The ACM/SIGDA International Symposium on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays is a premier conference for presentation of advances in FPGA technology. Technical topics of this year's conference, which will be held virtually, are Architecture and CAD, High-Level Tools and Abstractions, Machine Learning, Applications. Keynote speakers are Zsolt Tőkei of imec and Satnam Singh of Groq.

ASPLOS 2022, February 28 - March 4

ASPLOS is the premier forum for interdisciplinary systems research, intersecting computer architecture, hardware and emerging technologies, programming languages and compilers, operating systems, and networking. The 27th edition of the ASPLOS conference will be in Lausanne, Switzerland. Keynote speakers are ACM Breakthrough in Computing Award recipient Michael Franz, Tim Harris of Microsoft, and Phillip Stanley-Marbell of the University of Cambridge.

HotMobile 2022, March 9 - 10

The Twenty-third International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications will take place in Tempe, Arizona and continues the series of highly selective, interactive workshops focused on mobile applications, systems, and environments, as well as their underlying state-of-the-art technologies. HotMobile's small workshop format makes it ideal for presenting and discussing new directions or controversial approaches.

SIGCSE 2022, March 2 - 5

The SIGCSE Technical Symposium provides a forum for educators to discuss issues related to the development, implementation, and/or evaluation of computing programs, curricula, and courses, as well as syllabi, laboratories, and other elements of teaching and pedagogy. SIGCSE TS 2022 plans to meet in person in Providence, Rhode Island, with remote participation for those who may be unable to travel to Providence.

HRI 2022, March 7 - 10

The ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction attracts researchers from around the world to present and exchange ideas about the latest theories, technology, data, and videos furthering the state of the art in human-robot interaction. This year's conference will be a fully online event. The theme of HRI 2022 is “Breaking Boundaries.”

PUBLIC POLICY

Europe TPC Marks the New Year with Comments in Two European Commission Consultations

By Adam Eisgrau, ACM Director of Global Policy and Public Affairs
In the last days of 2021 and the first of 2022, ACM’s Europe Technology Policy Committee contributed to two significant and forward-looking European Commission consultations.

Europe TPC first commented on a Draft Decision concerning the European Commission’s “Path to the Digital Decade" initiative, described by the Commission as “a concrete plan to achieve the digital transformation of our society and economy by 2030.” Key features of Europe TPC’s comments included: encouraging universal digital literacy; advancing neuromorphic computing; and realistically assessing the pros and cons of technologies intended to mitigate climate change.

The second consultation, “Civil liability – adapting liability rules to the digital age and artificial intelligence,” solicited the views of a wide range of private and public sector stakeholders on adapting rules of civil liability to “the digital age and artificial intelligence.” Europe TPC both responded to a detailed Commission questionnaire and provided supplemental comments. Key concepts endorsed by the Committee included: holding designers and deployers of AI-enabled consumer products strictly liable for harm that they cause; upon a claim being stated by an injured party, placing the burden of proof on AI system designers and users to show why they should not be liable for harm caused; and requiring AI system operators to hold suitable liability insurance.

These consultation responses were the sixth and seventh policy contributions made by Europe TPC in just the past ten months. For more information about its work and how you might contribute to it, please contact Committee Chair Chris Hankin through the ACM Policy Office at [email protected].

MEMBER PROGRAMS

Become an Ambassador for ACM—You Could Be a Grand Prize Winner!

The Ambassadors for ACM program rewards ACM members like you for encouraging new members to join. Your first-hand experience with ACM's valuable career development and continuous learning programs makes you a perfect envoy to share your ACM experiences with prospective members. The Ambassadors for ACM program offers opportunities for you to earn new prizes, rewards and bonus gifts with each referral. Submit the ACM Referral Form, and your referrals can join ACM at a special discount rate. Our members are our greatest asset. Your support of ACM is critical to our continuing efforts to advance computing as a science and a profession. Please consider becoming an Ambassador for ACM.

ACM's Discounts and Special Offers Program is our way of saying "Thanks!" to our members by providing you with discounts on the goods and services you need, want and use. Save on insurance, software/hardware, careers and conferences, magazines, books and journals, travel, financial products, and general consumer products.

ACM Academic Membership Option

The ACM Academic Department Membership option allows universities and colleges to provide ACM Professional Membership to their faculty at a greatly reduced collective cost. ACM offers a membership for academic department faculty at the cost of $49 per person, more than half off the standard ACM professional membership fee of $99 per year. Through this program, each faculty member will receive all the benefits of individual professional ACM membership, including Communications of the ACM, member rates to ACM Special Interest Group conferences, member subscription rates to ACM journals, and much more. To learn more, visit the ACM Academic Department Membership page or contact Cindy Ryan.

ACM and SocialCoder Team Up for Positive Impact through Computing

You can use your technical skills for social good and offer volunteer support on software development projects to organizations who could not otherwise afford it. SocialCoder connects volunteer programmers/software developers with registered charities and helps match them to suitable projects based on their skills, experience, and the causes they care about. Learn more about ACM's partnership with SocialCoder, and how you can get involved.

LEARNING CENTER

ACM ByteCast Interviews David Heinemeier Hansson

ACM ByteCast is ACM's series of podcast interviews with researchers, practitioners, and innovators who are at the intersection of computing research and practice. In each monthly episode, guests share their experiences, the lessons they've learned, and their own visions for the future of computing. The latest episode features David Heinemeier Hansson, cofounder and CTO of Basecamp and the creator of the open-source web framework Ruby on Rails.

Watch ACM TechTalks with Salesforce's Johnny Boursiquot and Google's Titus Winters

Watch the ACM TechTalk, The Art of Concurrency in Go, presented by Johnny Boursiquot, Platform Observability Engineer at Salesforce's Heroku. Learn more about this topic on ACM's Discourse Page.

Watch the ACM TechTalk, Software Engineering at Google, to be presented on February 3 by Titus Winters, Senior Staff Software Engineer at Google. Leave your comments and questions with our speaker now and any time before the live event on ACM's Discourse Page.

Visit the TechTalks Archive for our full archive of past TechTalks.

ACM CAREER & JOB CENTER

ACM Career & Job Center Connects You with Career Opportunities

Connecting with the right employers in computing can be a daunting task. Thankfully, the world's leading companies, colleges and universities come to the ACM Career & Job Center to find the best candidates. By creating an account on the ACM Career and Job Center, you'll gain access to a wide range of tools to help you find the perfect job:

  • Finding a Job - Use the job search tools to find a job that matches your search criteria.
  • Create and Manage Email Alerts - Stay on top of the latest job openings. Receive an email when new jobs match your search criteria.
  • Create/Post Resumes - Get noticed by employers. Create or upload a resume with our easy-to-use tools so employer can get in touch with you.
  • View Saved Jobs - Save jobs that interest you, add notes, share with friends, and track your applies to keep on top of your job search.

For any assistance with the ACM Career and Job Center, please contact ACM's Advertising Sales Manager, Ilia Rodriguez.

EDUCATION

ACM Releases Report on Integrating Computational Thinking at the PreK-5 Level

ACM recently released the report Computational Thinking in PreK-5: Empirical Evidence for Integration and Future Directions. Although research on computational thinking (CT) within K-12 has been emerging over the past few years, few studies have investigated the teaching of CT at the younger ages. The Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund co-funded this special research publication to examine empirically-based studies that focused on the integration of computational thinking at the elementary levels into a variety of learning disciplines including math, ELA, science, and computer science.
Read the ACM news release.

STUDENT NEWS

Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions: Submission Deadlines

ACM Student Research Competitions (SRCs) offer a unique forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their original research at well-known ACM sponsored and co-sponsored conferences before a panel of judges and attendees. The most recent SRC winners presented at ASE 2021. The next conferences accepting submissions are:

Learn more about competitions on the SRC submissions page and SRC guidelines for students.

Young Researchers: Apply for 9th Heidelberg Laureate Forum, September 18-23, 2022

Young researchers are invited to apply for one of the 200 coveted spots to participate in the Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF), an annual event. The HLF offers all accepted young researchers the great opportunity to personally meet the winners of the most prestigious prizes in their fields.

For one week, recipients of the ACM A.M. Turing Award and the ACM Prize in Computing (Computer Science), the Abel Prize (Mathematics), the Fields Medal (Mathematics), and the Nevanlinna Prize (Mathematical Aspects of Information Science) will engage in a cross-generational scientific dialogue with young researchers in Heidelberg, Germany.

The ninth HLF will take place September 18 to 23, 2022. This prominent and versatile event combines scientific, social and outreach activities in a unique atmosphere, and is fueled by comprehensive exchange and scientific inspiration. If meeting in person is not safely possible, a digital alternative will be developed that creates spaces for effective, sustainable interaction.

Applications must be submitted online by February 11, 2022 via the registration form. You can also nominate a candidate (on the registration form, click on the "Register as a Nominator" button at the top; you will need to enter ACM’s organization code; please email [email protected] to request this number). Successful candidates will be selected by an international committee of experts to ensure that only the most qualified candidates are invited. Those who are accepted will be notified in April.

ACM Scholarships for Women Computing Students to Attend Research Conferences

The ACM Community of Support for Women in Computing (ACM-W) provides support for women undergraduate or graduate students in computer science and related programs who wish to attend research conferences. This exposure to the computer science research world can encourage a student to continue on to the next level (Undergraduate to Graduate, Masters to Ph.D., Ph.D. to an industry or academic position). For application form, notification dates and more information, please visit the scholarships page.

Graduating Students Eligible for Special Transition Rate

ACM offers a special ACM Professional Membership for $49 USD (regularly $99) to help graduating students make the transition to professional careers, and take advantage of continuous learning opportunities, including free online books and courses and access to ACM's Career & Job Center. This one-year-only transition rate includes all the benefits of Professional Membership plus the option of purchasing a Digital Library subscription for $50. Recent graduates can access this special transition offer through ACM's convenient online renewal form, or by following the instructions on the paper renewal form. For more information, visit the Reasons to Transition to Professional Membership page.

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

About the ACM Distinguished Speakers Program

Book the speaker for your next event through the ACM Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP) and deliver compelling and insightful content to your audience. ACM will cover the cost of transportation for the speaker to travel to your event. Our program features renowned thought leaders in academia, industry and government speaking about the most important topics in the computing and IT world today. Our booking process is simple and convenient.
See ACM Distinguished Speakers in action on our flickr page.

Gernot Heiser is Scientia (distinguished) Professor and John Lions Chair of Operating Systems at UNSW Sydney and Chief Research Scientist at CSIRO's Data61. His research interest are in operating systems, real-time systems, security and safety. He is the founder and past leader of the Trustworthy Systems group, which pioneered large-scale formal verification of systems code. Gernot is a Fellow of the ACM, the IEEE, and the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE). He is, jointly with the original seL4 team, a winner of the 2019 ACM SIGOPS Hall of Fame Award.

For more information on Gernot, please visit his DSP speaker information page.

ACM, IEEE Computer Society Share Distinguished Speakers Programs

IEEE-CS and ACM are sharing their invited speaker programs, to further the dissemination of technical knowledge of computing fields that greatly benefit both memberships. IEEE-CS chapter volunteers can host a speaker from ACM's Distinguished Speakers Program (DSP), with access to top technology leaders and innovators from nearly every sector of the computing industry, by following the instructions on the DSP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an IEEE Computer Society Chapter.

IEEE-CS provides a popular offering of first-quality speakers serving its professional and student chapters. The Distinguished Visitors Program (DVP) owes its success to the many volunteers and staff members of the Computer Society who generously contribute their time and talent. Organizers of an ACM chapter, conference, or event can host a speaker from IEEE-CS's DVP by following the instructions on the DVP site. Make sure you identify yourself as an ACM chapter or event.

CHAPTERS NEWS

Welcome New ACM Chapters

Chapters are the "local neighborhoods" of ACM. The regional ACM Professional, Student, ACM-W, and Special Interest Group (SIG) chapters around the globe involve members locally in competitions, seminars, lectures, workshops, and networking opportunities. ACM welcomes new chapters that were chartered December 7, 2021 to January 13, 2022:

ACM Student Chapters:

  • BBDITM ACM Student Chapter, Lucknow, India
  • HTU ACM Student Chapter, Amman, Jordan
  • ITU ACM-W Student Chapter, Istanbul, Turkey
  • Oklahoma City University ACM Student Chapter, Oklahoma City, USA
  • Sathyabama Institute ACM Student Chapter, Chennai, India
  • UHCL ACM Student Chapter, Houston, USA
  • Western Colorado University ACM Student Chapter, Gunnison, USA

ACM Professional Chapters:

  • Port Moresby ACM Chapter, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
  • Ulaanbaatar ACM Chapter, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

ACM-W NEWS

Greek ACM-W Chapter Winter School

The Greek ACM-W Chapter, with the support of the ACM Europe Research Visibility Working Group (ACM Europe RAISE), is organizing a winter school to be held annually. The goal of the school is to offer senior undergraduate, graduate and PhD students, early-stage researchers and professionals in computer science the opportunity to learn about timely topics from top scientists from around the world. The inaugural winter school will focus on “Fairness in AI” and will take place online February 24-25.

ACM-W's Webinar Series Celebrates Women in Computing

By highlighting successful technical women who are leading diverse careers in the technology industry, ACM-W’s webinar series, “Celebrating Technology Leaders,” aims to inform students and early-career professionals about the multitude of career options open to them. Episodes have featured machine learning careers, tech returnships, tech entrepreneurship, UI/UX, data science, robotics, and cybersecurity. To watch the recorded webinars, visit the YouTube playlist.

Join ACM-W's Membership Email List

Did you know that ACM-W offers a general email distribution list for its members? This ACMW-public list is a communication channel for disseminating general information about ACM-W, bulletins and upcoming events. To join the list, visit: http://signup.acm.org/listserv_index.cfm?ln=ACM-W-PUBLIC. Also read the ACM-W Connections newsletter for updates on ACM-W programs: local celebrations, scholarships and awards, chapters, and more.

PUBLICATIONS NEWS

New Journal: Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research and Practice Now Open for Submissions

The new journal Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research and Practice (DLT) seeks to publish high quality, interdisciplinary research on the research and development, real-world deployment, and/or evaluation of distributed ledger technologies, e.g., blockchain, cryptocurrency, and smart contract. DLT will offer original research work and innovative practice-driven advancements by DLT experts and researchers from academia and public- and private-sector organizations. DLT is now accepting submissions.

Formal Aspects of Computing Now Open for Submissions

ACM and BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT co-publish the journal Formal Aspects of Computing starting this year. The journal's scope includes fundamental computational concepts, fault-tolerant design, theorem-proving support, state-exploration tools, formal underpinning of widely-used notations and methods, history of formal methods, and more. The journal which transitions to Gold Open Access status, is now accepting submissions.

ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems Goes Gold OA

As of January 2022, and for a two-year period, all papers published in ACM Transactions on Programming Languages (TOPLAS) will be published as Gold Open Access (OA) and will be free to read and share via the ACM Digital Library. During the first two years, authors will be given the option (but not required) to pay the APC. Archival content will be made open access as of January 1, 2022 as well. For those authors financially unable to pay the APC as of 2024, ACM has developed a waiver program to ensure that no accepted articles to TOPLAS go unpublished as a result of financial need.

ACM Queue Presents: "Interpretable Machine Learning: Moving from mythos to diagnostics"

The emergence of machine learning as a society-changing technology in the past decade has triggered concerns about people's inability to understand the reasoning of increasingly complex models. In their article, "Interpretable Machine Learning: Moving from mythos to diagnostics," Valerie Chen and her colleagues at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Washington explain how the field of IML grew out of these concerns, with the goal of empowering various stakeholders to tackle use cases, such as building trust in models, performing model debugging, and generally informing real human decision-making.

ACM Signs New Open Access Publishing Agreement with Swedish Consortium

ACM has signed a new five-year ACM Open publishing agreement with the BIBSAM national consortium of Sweden. The new agreement provides 24 Swedish educational institutions with access to and open access publication in all of ACM’s journals, magazines and conference proceedings on an unlimited basis. ACM Open is ACM's transformative open access publishing model for transitioning ACM to become a sustainable open access publisher with the goal of making research publications in the ACM Digital Library fully open access upon publication.

ACM FYI

What is ACM Focus?

ACM Focus is a set of high-level subject area feeds of original and curated content to provide overall awareness of relevant ACM activities, published works, people, talks and news. ACM Focus serves as a single point of discovery to help technical communities realize how much ACM has to offer and to help them stay current within their areas of focus. The ACM Focus high-level subject area feeds are curated using machine learning to understand the content and users’ interests, and provide an engaging flow of relevant content. The experience can be customized even further through interaction, enabling individuals to create feeds that are even more tailored to their interests. Please take a moment to explore ACM Focus at www.acm.org/acm-focus.

 

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