Computer Science Outside the Box Jeannette M. Wing Assistant Director Computer and Information Science and Engineering Computer Science Outside the Box Workshop NSF, November 10, 2008

2Outside the BoxJeannette 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. ideas actions people It’s all about pushing the frontiers of our field. ?

3Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing It’s a Collective Effort We are in this together! ACM, CCC, CRA, CSTB, IEEE Computer, NSF/CISE, … Academia Industry Government Ecosystem

4Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing Why NSF Cares NSF support as a percent of total federal support of academic basic research

5Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing 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

6Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing 1. Go Outside Your Box Intra- and inter-disciplinary research theory systems AI applications Computer Science Sciences (Bio, Astro, Geo, …) Engineering (EE, Mech, Civil, …) Economics, Social Sciences The Arts

7Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing 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.

8Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing 2. The World Needs Us Societal Grand Challenges Energy Environment Climate Change Economy Healthcare Water Food Safety and security

9Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing Challenges Do we value use-inspired basic research? How do we evaluate it? Pure basic research (Bohr) Pure applied research (Edison) Use-inspired basic research (Pasteur) Quest for Fundamental Understanding? Considerations of Use? Yes No In what ways do we encourage students and faculty to work with those in the social sciences, 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

10Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing 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

11Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing 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?

12Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing Challenges (Funding) Traditional high-quality versus bold high-risk non-competitive competitive high riskhigh quality We are hypercritical. It hurts us in broader competitions.

13Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing 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 about what our children choose to study, our image, …, funding priorities. parents and teachers The Media industry

14Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing 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.

15Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing 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.” ?

Last Word: The Future of Computing is Bright!

17Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing 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 A’s Anytime Anywhere Affordable Access to Anything by Anyone Authorized.

Thank You!

19Outside the BoxJeannette M. Wing 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: 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” ( The inclusion of a logo does not express or imply the endorsement by NSF of the entities' products, services or enterprises