The Computing Research Association (CRA) recently hosted a free informational webinar to help undergraduate and graduate students in computing learn about the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) — one of the most prestigious fellowships in STEM.

The session featured Erik Russell and Jeff Forbes of CRA, along with Susanne Hambrusch of Purdue University, who shared practical guidance for applicants in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) fields of study.

 This recording is especially helpful for:

• Senior undergraduate students considering research-based graduate programs
• First-year graduate students preparing a CISE GRFP submission
• Faculty and mentors supporting student applications

We encourage you to share the recording with anyone who may benefit.

Webinar Topics

Speakers covered:

• Eligibility considerations for computing fields
• Best practices for structuring Personal Statements and Research Plans
• How to demonstrate intellectual merit and broader impacts
• Common pitfalls reviewers see in computing applications
• Key deadlines and trusted resources

The session also included an extended Q&A based on attendee questions.

Key Takeaways from the Q&A

For the complete list of attendee questions and answers, see the NSF GRFP Webinar – Q&A Report.

Who is eligible?
Applicants must be U.S. citizens, nationals, or permanent residents pursuing (or planning to pursue) a full-time research-based master’s or doctoral degree program. Applicants may only apply once while enrolled in their first graduate degree program.

Are other fellowships allowed alongside/in combination with the GRFP?
Additional, non-federal, fellowships are permitted with institution approval. However, GRFP support may not be combined with another federal graduate fellowship.

Is the GRE required?
No — GRE scores are not used in GRFP review.

What experiences can be included?
List relevant experiences since starting undergraduate study — including research experiences, hackathons, internships, and technical competitions.

If I don’t have a graduate advisor yet, what do I list?
For Level 2 (first-year graduate student applicants and students enrolled in a joint bachelor’s-master’s degree program with at least three undergraduate years completed), you may list your graduate program director.

Do applicants receive feedback?
Yes. Every applicant receives reviewer comments, including those not selected or named honorable mention.

How does funding work?
GRFP provides three years of support over a five-year period to the graduate degree-granting institution:

• $37,000 annual stipend (12-month) per fellowship year
• $16,000 cost-of-education allowance to cover all tuition and mandatory fees per fellowship year. 

Disbursement follows the institution’s schedule.

Note: Please refer to the NSF GRFP website for the only official answers.

Important Deadlines

• All reference letters must be submitted by Friday, November 7, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. ET.
• Applications in the CISE field must be received by Tuesday, November 12, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. local time of applicant’s mailing address.

Resources for Applicants

Webinar Attendee Questions and Answers

• NSF GRFP Webinar – Q&A Report

Main webpage

• NSF GRFP Official Website

Application Templates & Formatting Guidance

• Templates overview page
• Graduate Research Plan template (.dotx)
• Personal Statement template (.dotx)
• Statement formatting guidance
• Submission/file-type help

Solicitation & Revision Notes

• Current solicitation (NSF 25-547) 

Stay Connected with CRA

CRA is committed to supporting the next generation of computing researchers. To ensure you receive opportunities aligned with your interests and career stage, we invite you to update your contact preferences.

By Julia Sepulveda Avalos, Program Associate, CRA-E

Each year, CRA celebrates and recognizes undergraduates who demonstrate outstanding potential in an area of computing research through the Undergraduate Research Awards (URAs). We encourage faculty to nominate undergraduate researchers who demonstrate strong interest in and commitment to contributing to the field. Award recipients will receive financial assistance of up to $1,500 to attend a research conference of their choice.

Up to 4 CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Research Awards will be granted, with additional nominees designated as runners-up, finalists, and honorable mentions. The award recipients, runners-up, finalists, and honorable mentions will receive physical certificates acknowledging their award, and will be featured on CRA’s website.

The Undergraduate Research Awards will be accepting nominations Tuesday, September 12th, 2023 through Friday, October 13, 2023. Award decisions will be announced in mid-December.

To be considered, nominees must be undergraduate students enrolled in an accredited North American college or university during the Fall of 2023. PhD-granting departments may nominate up to 4 students, and non-PhD-granting departments may nominate up to 2 students.

Microsoft Research and Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) sponsor the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers Award Program in alternate years. The 2024 award is sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) and will be managed by the CRA Education Committee.

To learn more about the award, please visit: http://cra.org/crae/awards/cra-outstanding-undergraduate-researchers/. Questions and inquiries should be directed to: undergradawards@cra.org.

CSGrad4US @ Grad Cohort for IDEALS 23′

CRA-WP and CRA-E recently celebrated the first inaugural CSGrad4US fellows at the 2023 Grad Cohort for IDEALS Workshop in Honolulu, HI. The event brought together the fellows, coaches, and program leaders, who networked and congratulated each other on their progress in their PhD programs. The 16 fellows, who had completed their first semester of graduate school, were treated to a community-building retreat aimed at enhancing their mental health and professional development.

The workshop offered a range of informative sessions that focused on helping the fellows prepare for the rigors of graduate school. Topics included how to  prepare a thesis, balancing graduate school and personal life, finding an advisor and working with them effectively, and many more! By attending the workshop with their CSGrad4US cohort, the fellows had the opportunity to establish connections and get to know each other better.

The event also provided an opportunity for fellows, coaches, and program leaders, to participate in interviews about their experiences with the program. So far, the fellowship and mentoring program has transformed the lives of over 100 participants. The CSGrad4US Fellowship and Mentoring Program is working to increase the number of domestic PhDs in the U.S. by providing graduates who went to industry an opportunity to go back to graduate school. After being selected for the fellowship by the National Science Foundation, awardees are invited to participate in CRA-WP and CRA-E’s CSGrad4US Mentoring program. The Mentoring program offers guidance on how to prepare graduate school applications and materials, choose an advisor, and select the right institution. Participants are assigned a mentor who works with them one-on-one over 12 weeks to prepare their materials. 

If you are an industry professional considering returning to graduate school and are worried you don’t have the research experience, don’t be discouraged! Fellow Jina Yoon stated in her interview “My mentor explained to me that the different experiences I had were actually what PhD programs were looking for and she uplifted me, gave me confidence that I could actually get into these programs.” You will not undertake this journey alone. 

The 2023 fellowship application is open now until June 5, 2023. Follow the link to find out more about this amazing program: https://cra.org/csgrad4us/

By Susanne Hambrusch (Purdue), Victoria Interrante (Minnesota), Borja Sotomayor (U of Chicago) 

Today, anyone exploring graduate programs at the MS level – from the BS graduate with a CS degree to the computing professional in the workforce – finds a wide range of graduate program options and choices. The question “Which program is right for me?” is often not easy to answer.

CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has published answers to Frequently Asked Questions on the types of MS programs and their relation to PhD programs. The programs discussed include Academic, Professional, Non-terminal, and Online MS programs. The answers contrast and try to clarify differences in the application process, competitiveness of the admission process, characteristics of a successful applicant, financial support options, research opportunities, teaching careers for MS graduates, possible pathways to a PhD program in a computing field, and new career options.

We hope departments will share the FAQ resource with undergraduate advisors and interested faculty. We welcome comments and suggestions on additional questions to address. Please email Grad.Programs.FAQs@cra.org. 

CRA is planning several activities at the ACM Federated Computing Research Conference (FCRC) 2023 in June in Orlando, FL. FCRC assembles a spectrum of affiliated research conferences and workshops into a week-long, co-located, meeting. CRA will host a plenary panel session in honor of its 50th anniversary, a workshop on Computing Research in Industry, an information session on UR2PhD, a program that focuses on engaging more women in computer science PhD programs, and an academic careers workshop for graduate students and post-docs considering teaching-oriented faculty positions. Details on each of the activities are below:

CRA-I: Workshop on Computing Research in Industry
June 18th, 12:30-5:15pm

Companies are increasingly investing in computer science research to support their strategic goals. This workshop will not only look at what it means to do computing research in an industrial setting, but give examples of important areas (such as Artificial Intelligence) that are currently being prioritized. The key differences of doing research in an industrial setting compared with an academic setting will be discussed and ideas will be shared for how universities might best prepare their students for a career in industrial research.

This workshop is now open to the public; register here. If you are a student interested in attending CRA-I’s workshop, please contact Helen Wright (hwright@cra.org) regarding a complimentary registration. See the full agenda here. 

Plenary Panel: Reflecting on 50 Years of Computing Research, and Future Outlook
June 20th, 4:15-5:15pm

In recognition of CRA’s 50th anniversary last year, CRA Board Member Mary Hall will moderate a plenary panel reflecting on 50 years of computing research, with an eye toward the future. 

Panelists confirmed so far are:

• Hagit Attiya, Technion
• Jack Dongarra, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, 2021 Turing Award Winner
• Mary Hall, University of Utah
• Lizy Kurian John, University of Texas at Austin
• Guy L. Steele Jr., Oracle Labs

Learn more about the featured panelists here.

UR2PhD Information Session: An undergraduate research to PhD national mentoring program
June 21st, 10-10:30 am

CRA will host a brief information session on UR2PhD (pronounced “you are 2 PhD”) to introduce the program, describe how departments–including graduate students/post-docs, undergraduate students, and faculty–can get involved, and answer questions. UR2PhD is a national, virtual program with the goal of vastly increasing the number of women engaging in CS research–from the undergraduate level to the PhD.  UR2PhD comprises three pillars: (1) early undergraduate research methods training and community, (2) research mentor training for graduate students and post-docs advising undergraduate researchers, and (3) a bridge program to support undergraduate students from their first research experience through their application to a PhD program.  

The session will explain opportunities for participation. Information on how departments can apply to become institutional partners is now available. Institutional partners will work closely with the UR2PhD program leadership beginning in the Summer of 2023 to vastly expand the number of research opportunities for women and gender-marginalized undergraduates, including those from marginalized races and ethnicities, at their institutions. The session will also provide information on how individual students can apply to participate.    

Learn more about UR2PhD here.

CRA-E: Teaching-Focused Academic Careers Workshop
June 21st, 5:30-9:30pm

Are you a graduate student or postdoc considering an academic career?
CRA-E is organizing a workshop to inform graduate students and postdocs about academic teaching career options.

Options are increasing for PhD recipients who want to pursue a career focused on undergraduate teaching. Most PhD-granting departments have introduced a teaching faculty track, often with academic rank, while many masters-granting and primarily undergraduate institutions are expanding their computer science departments. Teaching-focused faculty often pursue research in their primary technical area with undergraduates or conduct research on computer science education.

This workshop is intended for PhD students and postdocs who want to learn about academic career options with a focus on teaching and gain a better understanding of the landscape of academic positions. Experienced and successful academic leaders as well as junior faculty in different teaching-oriented positions will highlight how to best prepare for the different teaching positions and compare teaching-focused career paths.

Workshop sessions will focus on the responsibilities, benefits, challenges, and opportunities of different teaching-focused career paths, including information on what’s needed to be a competitive candidate. The workshop concludes with a networking reception where potential candidates can meet representatives from institutions with teaching focused positions.

Attending the workshop

To attend, you must register for the workshop as part of your FCRC registration AND complete the CRA-E workshop application. A box meal will be provided to registered participants. 

Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.

UR2PhD is a national, virtual program with the goal of vastly increasing the number of women engaging in CS research–from the undergraduate level to the PhD.  UR2PhD comprises three pillars: (1) early undergraduate research training and community, (2) research mentor training for graduate students and post-docs advising undergraduate researchers, and (3) a bridge program to support undergraduate students from their first research experience through their application to a PhD program.

Institutional partners will work closely with the UR2PhD program leadership beginning in the Summer of 2023 to vastly expand the number of research opportunities for women and gender-marginalized undergraduates, including those from marginalized races and ethnicities, at their institutions.

Institutional partners will receive:

• A $2K stipend for a local coordinator to help manage and organize undergraduate research activities,
• Priority access for their students to all three pillars of the UR2PhD program, including $1K stipends each for up to 10 graduate students who participate in the research mentor training program,
• Guidance and support in implementing recruiting and selection strategies that result in a high participation percentage of women and other gender-marginalized students in CS, including those from marginalized races and ethnicities,
• Regular, personalized support from experts in implementing scalable, inclusive undergraduate research programs.

Institutional partners commit to the following:  

• To expand their undergraduate research capacity by recruiting, supporting (with credit or pay), and mentoring at least 20 new researchers in Fall 2023, with at least two students working on each project so that students can receive the benefits of peer collaboration,
• To give undergraduate students credit (or pay) for participating in the virtual research methods course and their research project (pillar 2),
• To designate a local coordinator who is paid a stipend through this project to manage the local recruiting and mentoring effort,
• To have undergraduate students present their work at an on-campus, regional, or national venue,
• To use an advertising, recruitment, and selection process that is likely to result in at least 80% of the new researchers identifying as women or other gender-marginalized identities, with a disproportionate number from a marginalized race/ethnicity.

To apply to become an institutional partner, please do the following:

• Make a copy and complete the application form: UR2PhD Institutional Partner Application Form
• Obtain a letter from your department chair expressing their support for this engagement
• Upload both documents to this form: https://forms.gle/6twr6CNM6nuffKRd7

Applications will be accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis until June 15, 2023.

Information Session at ACM FCRC 2023
June 21st, 10-10:30 am

CRA will host a brief information session on UR2PhD to introduce the program, describe how departments–including graduate students/post-docs, undergraduate students, and faculty–can get involved, and answer questions.

Please contact ur2phd@cra.org with any questions.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate recently announced that applications are now being accepted for the third year of the CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship program. The 3-year fellowships support new Ph.D. students pursuing their degree in a CISE field which includes programs in Computer Science, Computer and Information Sciences, and Computer Engineering.

CSGrad4US Cohort 1 Fellows at Grad Cohort for IDEALS, 2023

This program has already changed the lives of 78 people, with 16 participants from Cohort 1 now attending CISE PhD programs and 62 participants from Cohort 2 receiving admissions offers from Ph.D. programs this spring!

Goal and Motivation
The goal is to increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields. The fellowship program, which will provide 3-year fellowship opportunities for new Ph.D. students in the computing disciplines, was released in response to the increased demand for people with a Ph.D. in CISE fields, the continued decrease of domestic students pursuing research and completing a Ph.D., and the overall small number of bachelor’s degree recipients in CS pursuing graduate school. In particular, the percentage of domestic Ph.D. students in Computer Science graduating has decreased from 69% in 1985 to 31% in 2021 [1].

NSF seeks candidates from a broad array of backgrounds and strongly encourages women, African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Native Pacific Islanders, and persons with disabilities to apply.

Benefits

• A year-long preparation program, organized by CRA-E and CRA-WP, in which individuals selected for the Fellowship will receive mentoring support in identifying a graduate program, finding a research mentor, and applying to graduate programs; during this year, the individuals will also have opportunities to form a network with one another and with faculty advisors;
• For those who enroll in a qualifying doctoral degree-granting program at an institution of higher education having a campus located in the United States, its territories or possessions, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an annual stipend of $37,000 for three years out of five; and
• Cost-of-education allowance of $16,000 per year for the three years noted above to the institution of higher education, which typically covers costs for all tuition, medical insurance, and institutional fees.

Timeline and Eligibility
To be eligible for the CSGrad4US Fellowship,  applicants must have (1) graduated with a bachelor’s degree before December 31, 2022, (2) have demonstrated CISE core competency, (3) have not been enrolled in any degree-granting program since January 1, 2023, (4) have never enrolled in and have no pending application or offer of admission for a doctoral degree-granting program in a CISE discipline; and (5) will be prepared to attend graduate school by Fall 2025.  Applications for the CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship are due June 5, 2023.

Please visit https://www.nsf.gov/cise/CSGrad4US/ for all eligibility criteria and additional details and deadlines.

Applications for the 2023 Cycle are open!

—
[1] 2021 CRA Taulbee Survey. Stuart Zweben and Betsy Bizot, 2021.

Help support this unique opportunity by…

• Forwarding this email to your faculty and alumni
• Posting information about the CSGrad4US Fellowship on Social Media
• Encourage faculty members to serve as application reviewers (reviewer application) and to mentor participants by serving as individual coaches and area-specific advisors (coach/area advisor application)

CRA is growing! We are currently recruiting talented individuals to help advance our mission. A variety of open roles are available:

• Director of Educational Initiatives
• Director of Communications
• Manager (or Senior Specialist) for Contracts and Grant Administration
• Research Associate (Data and Evaluation)
• Program Associate (Education) 
• Program Associate (to assist several teams)
• Program Assistant (Data and Evaluation)
• Program Assistant (Education)
• Accounts Payable Specialist (Operations)

CRA offers competitive pay with great benefits, flexible work arrangements, and a supportive team environment. Learn more at cra.org/careers.

Please share these opportunities widely with your contacts! 

CRA-E is organizing a workshop at the 2023 ACM Federated Computing Research Conference (FCRC) called “Teaching-Oriented Academic Careers: The Landscape is Broader than You Think.” This workshop will inform graduate students and postdocs about academic teaching career options and will be held on June 21st, 5:30-9:30 PM.

Options are increasing for PhD recipients who want to pursue a career focused on undergraduate teaching. Most PhD-granting departments have introduced a teaching faculty track, often with academic rank, while many masters-granting and primarily undergraduate institutions are expanding their computer science departments. Teaching-focused faculty often pursue research in their primary technical area with undergraduates or conduct research on computer science education.

This workshop is intended for PhD students and postdocs who want to learn about academic career options with a focus on teaching and gain a better understanding of the landscape of academic positions. Experienced and successful academic leaders as well as junior faculty in different teaching-oriented positions will highlight how to best prepare for the different teaching positions and compare teaching-focused career paths.

Workshop sessions will focus on the responsibilities, benefits, challenges, and opportunities of different teaching-focused career paths, including information on what’s needed to be a competitive candidate. The workshop concludes with a networking reception where potential candidates can meet representatives from institutions with teaching focused positions.

Attending the workshop
To attend, you must register for the workshop as part of your FCRC registration AND complete the CRA-E workshop application. A box dinner will be provided to registered participants.

Click here for more information and a tentative agenda.

CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2023 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Alejandro Velasco Dimate, from William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Alejandro (he/his) is a Ph.D student in computer Science at the College of William and Mary, currently advised by Dr. Denys Poshyvanyk. He earned both his Bachelor’s (2015) and Master’s (2019) degrees from Universidad Nacional de Colombia. His research interests lie in the domain of Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence and Deep Representation. His current research focuses on Interpretability and Explainability of Language Models trained on source code generation. During his studies at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, he was awarded with assistant professorship in both 2016 and 2017, as well as a Graduate Payment Waiver Scholarship in 2016. In 2010, he achieved an outstanding result on the ICFES exam, ranking fourth in his home country.

As an advocate in the field of Software Engineering, Alejandro has an extensive career in industry, having worked for top companies in Latin America such as Scotiabank and MercadoLibre. During his time in industry, Alejandro had the opportunity to collaborate with his alma mater by presenting state-of-the-art industry challenges and opening up opportunities for undergraduate students. This interaction between academia and industry has allowed Alejandro to stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the field and to contribute to the education of future generations of computer scientists.

As he progresses towards his goal of conducting high-quality academic research, Alejandro is eager to collaborate with talented, diverse and passionate undergraduate students who are committed to making a meaningful impact in the field of Computer Science. When he is not busy doing research, he loves to play the guitar, sing, and listen to music.

The CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program was established in 2015 to give graduate students the opportunity to contribute to CRA-E projects and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.

The Computing Research Association (CRA) announced today that it has received a $5 million grant from a philanthropic partner to support the Undergraduate Research to the PhD (UR2PhD) program. UR2PhD (read as “you are 2 PhD”) focuses on engaging more women who are U.S. citizens and permanent residents in computing PhD programs through a virtual, nationally managed approach to quality undergraduate research opportunities and to bridging the gap to PhD applications.

Project Goals

The U.S. role as a tech leader depends on both the number and diversity of PhDs graduating in computing. Researchers with computing PhDs – particularly those in the artificial intelligence/machine learning field – shape our technology, and hence society in the United States and beyond. If these researchers do not represent the society they are shaping, we not only sacrifice potential technological innovations and accompanying economic benefits, but we also risk doing irreparable harm to vast segments of our population, both through the impacts of the developed technologies and the fact that some groups are shut out of the financial stability and influence provided by these technology leadership positions. And yet, 2021 CRA Taulbee survey data indicates that only 23.3% of computer science PhDs who graduated in the 2020-21 academic year identified as women, and 68.7% of those women were nonresidents. There is an urgent need to increase the number and percentage of women who earn PhDs in computing and become leaders in technology research, especially women who are U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

To this end, UR2PhD is a new project to increase the percentage of women entering PhD programs by at least 15% per year, with even higher increases for U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

Specific objectives are to:

• increase the number of undergraduate research opportunities for women by expanding universities’ capacities for high-quality undergraduate research; and
• close the gap between a first research experience and a successful PhD application.

Proposed Activities

The UR2PhD program will meet these objectives by leveraging promising and proven successful efforts to engage women in research and vastly scaling these efforts through a virtual, nationally managed structure.

UR2PhD comprises three activities:

• Increase the capacity of computing departments to provide high-quality undergraduate research opportunities through a twice-annual (academic year and summer) virtual undergraduate research methods course and research community.
• Grow the capacity and quality of research experiences for undergraduates (REUs) through a virtual mentor training program for PhD students to serve as REU mentors that is grounded in culturally responsive mentoring practices that ensure mentors are trained to support students from all backgrounds.
• Support and retain students from REU to PhD programs through a series of online REU-to-graduate-school bridge workshops for third- and fourth-year undergraduates, keeping third-year students engaged in research, while supporting fourth-year students through the PhD application process.

CRA Collaboration

UR2PhD is a collaboration between CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) and its Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP). CRA-E addresses society’s need for a supply of well-educated computing researchers by providing resources and professional development, honoring undergraduate student research and faculty mentoring achievements, and leading activities that promote the pursuit of graduate education and research careers. CRA-WP focuses on increasing the participation of populations minoritized in tech via community building, career mentoring, information sharing, and effecting systemic change for undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, faculty, and industry and government researchers.

CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP) will conduct both formative and summative evaluations of the program’s outcomes with respect to increasing the number of women pursuing PhDs in computing. CERP will develop survey instruments, conduct surveys and focus groups, analyze data, and track the outcomes throughout the program’s timeline.

Experience Promoting Undergraduate Engagement in Computing

CRA-E and CRA-WP have experience leading large-scale projects that support and promote undergraduate engagement in computing research and continuation to graduate study. CRA-E and CRA-WP have designed and implemented the National Science Foundation’s CSGrad4US Fellowship mentoring program, which guides industry professionals through the PhD application process. CRA-WP’s Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates program matches women and other undergrads minoritized in tech with mentors for paid research internships and has been shown to increase rates of entry into PhD programs. CRA-WP’s Grad Cohort workshops have educated thousands of graduate students about how to thrive in graduate school. CRA-E provides online resources for undergraduate researchers and graduate school applicants (via the Conquer site) and annually recognizes outstanding undergraduate researchers in North America.

The four UR2PhD program leaders also have extensive experience in developing large scale programs:

Christine Alvarado is a teaching professor in the CSE department and the associate dean for the division of undergraduate education at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego). In 2014, she founded the CSE Early Research Scholars Program (ERSP), which has engaged 339 early undergraduates (~50 per year) in computing research at UC San Diego, including 200 women and non-binary students and 75 students from underrepresented racial groups. She has overseen ERSP’s expansion to seven universities.

Lori Pollock is professor of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Delaware. Since joining CRA-WP in 2001, she has been involved in the Grad Cohort program and Virtual Undergraduate Townhalls. As CRA-E co-chair, she co-created CSGrad4US. She adapted ERSP for Delaware and co-led Partner4CS, affecting state K-12 CS policy, offering teacher workshops and a course for undergraduates to support teachers.

Monique Ross is an associate professor of engineering education at The Ohio State University. Her work is focused on understanding the experiences and pathways of Latina and Black women in computing. She brings her expertise in REUs, inclusive pedagogy, and intersectional considerations. She also works on the Center for Inclusive Computing efforts to broaden participation in computing and has garnered and managed over $2 million in grant funding.

Kelly Shaw is a professor in the department of computer science at Williams College. She is co-chair of CRA-E and has served as co-chair of the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award committee. She is also a member of the development team for the CSGrad4US mentoring program. Dr. Shaw will serve as the main contact for the UR2PhD program.

About CRA

CRA represents more than 250 North American organizations active in computing research: academic departments of computer science and computer engineering; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia; and affiliated professional societies. Its mission is to catalyze computing research by joining with industry, government, and academia – a role it plays by leading the computing research community; informing policymakers and the public, and championing a diverse, welcoming, equitable, and socially responsible computing research community. For more information, see cra.org.

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2023 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. This year’s nominees are a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several are authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others have created papers for major conferences, as well as producing software, apps and algorithms.

Many of the nominees had been involved in successful summer research or internship programs, many had been teaching assistants, tutors, or mentors, and a number had significant involvement in community volunteer efforts.

CRA gratefully acknowledges the support of Microsoft Research and Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL), which sponsor the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award program in alternate years. Microsoft Research is the sponsor of this year’s awards.

2023 Selection Committee: Michael Hilton (Carnegie Mellon University), Co-Chair, Monica Anderson (University of Alabama), Co-Chair, Jonathan Bell (Northeastern University), Victoria Interrante (University of Minnesota), Evan Peck (Bucknell University), Raghu Ramanujan (Davidson College), Steve Swanson (University of California, San Diego), Matt Weinberg (Princeton University), Rahmat Beheshti (University of Delaware), and Tony Clark (Pomona College).

Thank you to those who volunteered their time to serve on the selection committee for this award.

A list of the winners, runners-up, finalists, and honorable mentions is below.

Awardees

Sílvia Casacuberta Puig

Harvard University

Sílvia Casacuberta Puig is a senior at Harvard University, majoring in mathematics and computer science, while concurrently pursuing a Master’s of Science in computer science.  Her research spans a variety of different areas, including matrix algorithms, cryptography, data privacy, algorithmic fairness, machine learning, and computational linguistics.  Her work builds on one of the most mathematically sophisticated approaches to fairness (“outcome indistinguishability”), and her investigation has led to intriguing insights where methods developed for algorithm fairness are shedding new light on classic results in computational complexity such as Impagliazzo’s Hardcore Lemma. In addition to doing great research, Sílvia gives back by being a teaching assistant in a variety of computer science courses.  In addition, she has shown great leadership by serving as co-director of academics of Harvard Women in Computer Science (WiCS), as a co-president for Harvard Gender Inclusivity in Mathematics (GIIM), and starting initiatives such as the WiCS Undergraduate Research Reaching Groups.

Carmen Strassle

Stanford University

Carmen Strassle is a senior at Stanford University, majoring in physics and mathematics, while also concurrently pursuing a Master’s Degree in computer science.  Her research interests are in the area of theory and algorithms. Her work led to improvements in the lower bounds for decision tree learning, which is a basic algorithmic task. She showed how existing results on the inapproximability for parameterized Set Cover yield qualitative improvements over the state-of-the-art decision tree learning lower bounds, but also how her technique can be combined with recently developed composition lemmas for query complexity to give lower bounds even against the much easier task of testing decision trees. In addition to this work, she has also worked on a second challenge that has shown improvements for the problem of Certification with an NP oracle. In addition to her strong research work, Carmen is a lead tutor for math and physics, as well as a course assistant for computer science and math classes.

Zineng Tang

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Zineng Tang is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is pursuing his Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and mathematics.  Zineng’s research interests are in the fields of machine learning and natural language processing. His research focuses on two main research questions: how could one perception help the learning of another, and how could different perceptions be learned jointly.  One example of this is VidLanKD, where his work explores how visual data can enhance language learning.  By using a teacher and student framework, the work improves upon previous results, and offers new insights into how language models can learn language beyond text.

Zhihan Yang

Carleton College

Zhihan Yang is a senior at Carleton College, where he is a double major in mathematics and statistics. His research is in the area of probabilistic machine learning and deep learning. Specifically, his work at Carleton uses multi-armed bandit algorithms to allocate participants to conditions in educational experiments. Using adaptive algorithms in this way offers opportunities to allocate more students to more effective conditions, which is beneficial for students participating in the experiment, but also makes it easier for teachers to conduct experiments in their classes, leading to more effective materials and helping scientists better understand how people learn. Additionally, he has done work on deep generative models for game content generation and deep reinforcement learning for partially observable problems at Northeastern University.

Runners-Up

Aparna Gupte

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Aparna Gupte is a senior at Massachusetts Institute of Technology majoring in computer science and mathematics. Her research interests are in the theoretical aspects of machine learning. Her research fits into two broad themes: the computational complexity of machine learning problems and deep learning theory. She has served as a teaching assistant and tutor at MIT and mentored high school students for a reading program on cryptography.

Ziming Mao

Yale University

Ziming Mao is a senior at Yale University, where he is pursuing degrees in computer science and philosophy. His research interests lie at the intersection of theory and systems, with contributions to natural language processing, data store, caching systems, and memory disaggregation. His research experiences have included multiple layers of the computing stack, from algorithms to applications, to operating systems and hardware. Besides research, Ziming is interested in astrophotography and runs a popular Instagram page, @the.astronomy.daily. He also helps to organize high school outreach events for students interested in computer science.

Francisco Pernice

Stanford University

Francisco Pernice is a senior at Stanford University, where he is pursuing degrees in mathematics and computer science. His research interests are in theoretical computer science, and has worked on projects in algorithmic game theory, error correcting codes for deletion channels. He has served as a teaching assistant for eight quarters and volunteered to help train new students for the role.

Fengyu Yang

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Fengyu (Fred) Yang is a senior at the University of Michigan majoring in computer science with a minor in business. His research interests are centered in computer vision, and he has worked on projects in multimodal perception, semantic segmentation, and crowd analysis. He connects his computer vision research with the real-world by building new datasets that more closely resemble the way that humans interact with the world. He is heavily involved in Model United Nations (MUN) organizations, serving as the president of multiple MUN conferences and leader of MUN classes in high schools.

Finalists

David Cao – University of California, San Diego
Kirsten Chapman – Brigham Young University
Davidson Cheng – Colorado College
Amil Dravid – Northwestern University
Michael Duan – University of Washington
Anya Ji – Cornell University
Laura Lewis – California Institute of Technology
Sizhe Li – University of Rochester
Tongtong Liu – Wake Forest University
Ayana Monroe – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Elizaveta Pertseva – University of California, San Diego
Zeyu Shen – Duke University
Chenglei Si – University of Maryland
Anikait Singh – University of California, Berkeley
Edward Sitar – University of South Carolina
Samuel Tan – Haverford College
Raul Villanueva – University of Washington
Stefan Walzer-Goldfeld – Amherst College
Rui Xin – Duke University
Samuel Yu – Carnegie Mellon University
Yifei Zhou – Cornell University

Honorable Mentions

Anas Awadalla – University of Washington
Adira Blumenthal – University of Rochester
Evelien Boerstra – University of British Columbia
Victoria Chen – Tufts University
Nathaniel Collins – University of Colorado, Boulder
Trung Dang – Purdue University
Xiang Fan – Carnegie Mellon University
Henry Fleischmann – University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
William He – Duke University
Jung Hwan (John) Heo – University of Southern California
Cynthia Hom – Harvey Mudd College
Kevin Jiang – Cornell University
Anisha Kabir – University of California, Santa Barbara
Malik Khadar – University of Minnesota
Shreyas Kharbanda – Purdue University
William Krska – Boston University
Yihe Liu – Georgia Institute of Technology
Angeline Luther – University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Rachel Ma – Brown University
Rachel Masters – Colorado State University
Malia Morgan – Harvey Mudd College
Stephen Price – Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Francis Rinaldi – Illinois Institute of Technology
Jonathan Rogers – Williams College
Elizabeth Seero – Colorado College
Jim Wang – Johns Hopkins University
Eric Xing – Western Kentucky University
Draco Xu – University of Rochester
Rem Yang – University of Illinois
Runlong (Harry) Ye – University of Toronto
Fangcong Yin – Cornell University
Sadie Zhao – Pomona College

The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Pre-Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2023. The event will be held on Wednesday, March 15, 2023 from 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM EST. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda. 2022 event information is available here.

Enrollment in CS courses and programs continues to be high. To meet this increased demand, many Ph.D. granting departments have added or are actively recruiting teaching faculty (typically with academic rank) to their faculty.  This whole-day event will focus on the professional development of teaching-track faculty (professor of practice, instructor, clinical faculty, lecturer, etc.) in Ph.D. granting departments. The event fills a crucial need as many departments have limited experience on how to mentor, evaluate, and promote this new type of faculty.  The sessions will focus on how teaching faculty can strategize their involvement in departmental as well as research activities, different forms of scholarship and leadership activities to pursue, and best practices for success, promotion, and advancement. Junior and mid-career teaching-track faculty will participate in an “unconference” format. By gathering topics of common interest, attendees will self-organize to provide peer mentoring and to collect advice for professional development rather than having pre-planned panels or sessions at the discretion of the organizers.

Apply to Attend
The number of attendants is limited, and an application is required. The application deadline is December 18. Applicants will be notified of a decision by December 30.

To apply to attend the event, please fill out the form here.

The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting nominations for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in a computing field to contribute to CRA-E projects, network with computer science education advocates on the committee, and engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students. CRA-E Fellows also promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.

CRA-E typically has two fellows with one new graduate fellow appointed each year. Fellows serve for two years in staggered appointments. They are a part of the committee, providing a graduate student voice. They attend the annual CRA-E meeting, manage the research highlights series, and contribute to the CRA-E Conquer site that provides resources for undergraduate research and graduate school.

Faculty members are invited to nominate one graduate student from their institution (but multiple nominations are permitted by distinct faculty members from the same institution) by collecting and submitting a nomination package that includes:

1. One faculty recommendation letter describing the student’s interpersonal skills and evidence of interest in mentoring undergraduates. The letter should also state that the student is at least in the third year of a Ph.D. program and making satisfactory progress towards the degree.
2. The student’s C.V. including research interests and accomplishments.
3. A one-page statement written by the student. The statement should describe the nominee’s interest in the CRA-E Fellow position, experience mentoring undergraduates, and long-term aspirations.

The application deadline is January 19, 2023.

The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award recognizes individual faculty members who have provided exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.

Eligible nominees are full-time faculty members at North American academic institutions. Faculty members include tenured and tenure-track faculty, instructors, and professors of the practice. Current members of CRA-E are not eligible to be nominated or to serve as the nominator.  A nominee must be nominated by a faculty member or a researcher in the computing field.

Nominations are due Friday, November 25, 2022, by 5 PM (ET). Winners will be notified by early February 2023. Click here to view the 2022 award winners and here to view the FAQs.

The award is given annually, and multiple recipients may be awarded. The selection committee will give appropriate consideration to different types of schools and mentors at different stages of their careers. The awardees will receive travel support to attend the meeting at which they accept the award.

Evaluation criteria
The committee will evaluate the evidence of:

• Undergraduate student mentoring during the most recent 10 years (being sensitive to the size of the program) including the details on the student career paths (e.g., students enrolling in research-oriented M.S. or Ph.D. programs or students pursuing other research-oriented career opportunities)
• Professional development provided to the students mentored
• Diversity of students
• Impact and success of the students’ research

The 2023 selection committee includes:
Denys Poshyvanyk (William & Mary), Chair
Monica Anderson (University of Alabama)
Gary Holness (Clark University)
Tijana Milenkovic (University of Notre Dame)

The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.  

Eligible nominees must be enrolled as undergraduates in a North American college or university in Fall 2022.  PhD-granting departments may nominate up to four students and other departments may nominate up to two students.

Up to four CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Research Awards will be made. Each award recipient will receive financial assistance of up to $1500 to attend a research conference of their choice.  Additional nominees will be designated as runners-up, finalists, and honorable mentions.  The award recipients, runners-up, finalists, and honorable mentions will be announced by e-mail in mid-December, will receive certificates of their awards, and will be recognized on CRA’s website.

Everything you need to submit a nomination for the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers Award, including detailed instructions and the nomination form, is available at: http://cra.org/crae/awards/cra-outstanding-undergraduate-researchers/.

Questions and inquiries about the awards should be sent to: undergradawards@cra.org. The deadline for nominations is Friday, October 14, 2022, at 9 PM ET. The nominations package will need to be submitted as one PDF file in the order specified in the instructions.

Microsoft Research and Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs  (MERL) sponsor the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers Award Program in alternate years. The 2023 award is being sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL). This award is managed by the CRA Education Committee.

Faculty members nominating a student for the CRA award are encouraged to talk to the student about the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). The required nomination materials are similar, and some can be used for both the CRA-E award and the NSF GRFP application. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based Master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions. See https://www.nsfgrfp.org/ for information for applicants, letter writers, how to sign up as a panelist, and the program solicitation.  Applications for GRFs are due the week after the CRA award nominations, on October 18, 2022.

Please share this award information with your colleagues!

 By Erik Russell, CRA Director of Programs

The National Science Foundation recently selected sixty-nine recipients of the 2022 CSGrad4US Fellowship Program. The objective of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Graduate Fellowships (CSGrad4US) is to increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields: computer science, computer engineering, or information science. CSGrad4US recipients will participate in the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program organized by the Computing Research Association with funding provided by the National Science Foundation through award #2231962. 

The goals of the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program are:

1. To guide returning students through the application process toward a successful CS Ph.D. admission and school selection.
2. To mentor them through the transition to Ph.D. graduate study during their first year in order to support their success as a student and to help position them to achieve their long-term career goals.

Specific topics include the admissions process, preparation of all components of a strong graduate application, differences between graduate programs at different institutions, how to compare programs with respect to their goals and background, and general guidelines on making a selection among admission acceptances.

The CSGrad4US Mentoring Program will provide not only general graduate application advice and guidance, but also provide a larger context and network to students returning from the workforce.  These goals are achieved through group mentoring sessions followed by individual coaching during the application and decision-making process and their first year in graduate school.

Beginning in early-September, the sixty-nine individuals in the 2022 CSGrad4US Cohort will be mentored by 22 computing researchers from academia and industry who will serve as coaches, with additional guidance provided by area advisers, coaching coordinators, and the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program Leadership Team.

The CSGrad4US Mentoring Program Leadership Team is comprised of Program Leaders: Susanne Hambrusch, Professor, Purdue University, Russ Joseph, Associate Professor, Northwestern University, Lori Pollock, Professor, University of Delaware, Kelly Shaw, Associate Professor, Williams College, Coaching Coordinators: Dorian Arnold, Associate Professor, Emory University, Lori Clarke, Emerita Professor, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Maria Gini, Professor, University of Minnesota, CRA Staff: Kristi Kelly, Senior Research Associate, Computing Research Association, Lauren Lashlee, Program Associate, Computing Research Association, and Erik Russell, Director of Programs, Computing Research Association. 

The CRA Education Committee (CRA-E) recently welcomed two new members to its board: Borja Sotomayor and Steven Swanson. Susanne Hambrusch (Purdue University) has stepped down as the committee Co-Chair, and Kelly Shaw (Williams College) has stepped into the role, serving along with Lori Pollock (Delaware). Susanne will remain a board member and continue her work in a different role. Brandon Myers will be leaving the CRA-E board in August, and CRA-E thanks him for contributions during his service on the committee.

Borja Sotomayor
Associate Senior Instructional Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago

Borja Sotomayor earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Chicago in 2010, and degree in Ingeniería en Informática (equivalent to a BS/MS in Computer Engineering) from the University of Deusto. He is an Associate Senior Instructional Professor in the Department of Computer Science, where he teaches intro CS, software development, computer networks, and distributed systems. He is also the Director of the Masters Program in Computer Science. Borja is also the faculty advisor to the CS department’s student organizations, including ACM-W and CompileHer. While he is not actively involved in research at the moment, his research has primarily focused on resource allocation on distributed systems using virtualization.

When Borja is not working, he enjoys watching movies, travelling, hiking, following US politics, cooking Spanish food, designing t-shirts, and tweeting about all of the above.

Steven Swanson
Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego

Steven Swanson is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego and the director of the Non-volatile Systems Laboratory. His research interests include the systems, architecture, security, and reliability issues surrounding heterogeneous memory/storage systems, especially those that incorporate non-volatile, solid-state memories. He has received an NSF CAREER Award, Google Faculty Awards, a Facebook Faculty Award, and been a NetApp Faculty Fellow. He is a co-founder of the Non-Volatile Memories Workshop. In previous lives, he worked on low-power co-processors for irregular applications and building scalable dataflow architectures. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2006 and his undergraduate degree from the University of Puget Sound in 1999.

By Margaret Martonosi, NSF Assistant Director for CISE

The coach application is now available on the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program webpage. The goals of the CSGrad4US Mentoring Program are:

• To guide returning students through the application process towards a successful CS PhD admission and school selection
• To mentor them through the transition to PhD graduate study in the first year towards high retention.

Specific topics include the admissions process, preparation of all components of a strong graduate application, differences between graduate programs at different institutions, how to compare programs with respect to the Fellow’s goals and background, and general guidelines on making a selection among admission acceptances.

Access the coach application here. Applications received by July 1st will be given preference.
For questions regarding eligibility, please email csgrad4us@cra.org.

Involving undergraduates in research has many benefits, including giving undergraduates a new perspective on opportunities and providing mentorship. Undergraduate research also contributes to the health of the research and PhD pipeline. Information on research and graduate school as well as a course on research methods are not available to all interested undergraduates. The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is planning to create a virtual program to fill this need.

CRA-E is asking members of the community who mentor or plan to mentor undergraduate researchers, to complete this brief survey (2 required questions). Our goal is to create a virtual program that educates undergraduate student researchers about research methods, graduate school, and research careers.  Students will be engaged in discussions with a research community of their peers, drawn from a broad range of institutions. Feedback will allow us to better adapt the program to different needs and audiences.  For your feedback to have maximum impact, please complete the survey by June 10, 2022.

Survey link: cra.org/crae/REUSurvey

Susanne Hambrusch, Purdue University, CRA-E Co-chair
Lori Pollock, University of Delaware, CRA-E Co-chair
Kelly Shaw, Williams College, CRA-E Board member

CRA’s Education Committee (CRA-E) has recently selected its 2022 CRA-E Graduate Fellow – Yasra Chandio from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Yasra (she/her) is a third-year Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMASS). At UMASS she is working with Professor Fatima M. Anwar, and Yasra’s research interests lie in the domain of extended reality (XR), embedded systems, and security. Before starting her Ph.D. at UMASS, she earned her Bachelor of Engineering focused on Software Engineering from Pakistan in 2014 and MS in Computer Science from Binghamton University (State University of New York) in 2019. Yasra is excited to be a CRA-E Graduate Fellow and serve CRA as a student ally, academic collaborator, and community mentor to encourage young students’ interest to pursue a career in science and research.

As she prepares herself for her post-PhD life as an academic, she values mentorship as an important skill. Over the years, she has served different roles of mentors as teaching assistant, guest lecturer, research mentor, K-12 engineering workshop instructor, and organizer. During her academic career, she has actively sought out mentorship and community volunteer opportunities. She was a student scholar at Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) in 2019, CRA-WP Grad Cohort (2021, 2022), N2Women, and Google CSRMP (2020). In addition to mentoring, she has been a part of competitive reviewing committees in the past including GHC (2021) and EuroSys shadow program committee (2022).

Currently, in her research, she is investigating the stealthiness of the multi-modal attack surface that is present in the mixed reality systems, by launching coordinated spatiotemporal attacks on sensor data. While she is not solving computational problems, she is either playing card games with her friends, baking bread, or cooking food from all over the world for her family and friends.

The CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program was established in 2015 to give graduate students the opportunity to contribute to CRA-E projects and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.

The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) is proud to announce two recipients of the 2022 CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award: Darko Marinov from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Jelani Nelson from the University of California Berkeley.

These outstanding individuals are being recognized for providing exceptional mentorship, undergraduate research experiences, and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of their students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.

Darko Marinov is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His main research interests are in software engineering, in particular improving software quality using software testing. He published over 100 conference papers, winning three “test-of-time” awards — two ACM SIGSOFT Impact Paper awards (2012 and 2019) and one ASE Most Influential Paper Award (2015) — and eight more paper awards – seven ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper awards and one CHI Best Paper Award (2017).

Marinov has mentored in research over 60 undergraduate students over the past 20 years at the University of Illinois and MIT. Twenty-five of his undergraduate students have already enrolled in highly competitive graduate programs, including MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Illinois, Princeton, Cornell Tech, Northwestern, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of South California, National University of Singapore, and EPFL in Switzerland. Several of these students have themselves become faculty members, including at UT Austin, UC Berkeley, Columbia, Illinois, and Imperial College London. Marinov has co-authored 30 papers with 24 undergraduate students, including papers published in premier software engineering conferences such as ICSE, ESEC/FSE, ASE, ISSTA, and ICST. His students have made innovative contributions by releasing open-source software and datasets and contributing to the existing open-source projects. Marinov’s students have been recognized by winning multiple national and departmental awards, including one NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, one national Runner-up CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award, as well as two Finalists and one Honorable Mention, and two departmental Best Undergraduate Research Project Awards. Marinov’s advising has been recognized at the University of Illinois with a prestigious Campus Award for Excellence in Guiding Undergraduate Research in 2020.

Jelani Nelson is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California Berkeley. His main research interests are in Theory. He is a winner of multiple highly prestigious awards and honors, including Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2017), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2017), ONR Young Investigator Award (2015), NSF CAREER award (2014), and the Best Paper Award at ACM Symposium on Principles of Database Systems (2010) among the others.

Nelson had advised both formally and informally many undergraduate students. Three of his students became the winners of the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award. The students that he mentored and advised over the years have enrolled into the Ph.D. programs at top universities, including MIT, Berkeley, Stanford among the others. Nelson maintains a small research group and interacts frequently and in a hands-on manner with his mentees and does not have a hierarchical structure to his group. Although he believes strongly that PhD students should identify or define their own research problems, he does initially assist undergraduates in this process. He says “I usually suggest many different broad areas first and ask them which they find most interesting, then I suggest problem directions within those areas and let them choose. Later on, I do try to encourage them to develop the skill of reading papers and finding their own problems. I also include undergraduate researchers in the reading group meetings, and I mostly treat them just as I do my graduate students (that is, I set the bar high so that they rise to it).” Nelson has also been running “AddisCoder” (see addiscoder.com), which introduced over 500 Ethiopian high schoolers to theoretical computer science (specifically algorithms), and several of his alumni have eventually enrolled in PhD programs (and one has already obtained a PhD degree in math).

The 2022 selection committee includes Monica Anderson (University of Alabama), Gary Holness (Clark University), Lenore Cowen (Tufts University), and Denys Poshyvanyk (Chair, William & Mary).

The CRA Education Committee, with support from NSF, is organizing a Pre-Symposium Event for Teaching-Track Faculty at SIGCSE 2022. The event will be held on Wednesday, March 2, 2022 from 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM EST. We are now accepting applications to the event! Click here for more information and a tentative agenda. 2021 event information is available here.

Computer Science departments have experienced significant course enrollment increases and many Ph.D. granting departments have introduced or increased the number of academic teaching faculty positions that have academic rank. The one-day event will focus on the professional development of teaching track faculty (professor of practice, instructor, clinical faculty, lecturer, etc.) in Ph.D. granting departments. It fills a crucial need as many departments have limited experience on how to mentor, evaluate, and promote this new type of faculty. The sessions will focus on how teaching faculty can strategize their involvement in departmental as well as research activities, different forms of scholarship and leadership activities to pursue, and best practices for success, promotion, and advancement. Academic leaders involved in supervising and evaluating teaching track faculty will provide their perspective and insights.

Apply to Attend
The number of attendants is limited, and an application is required. The application deadline is January 31.  Applicants will be notified of a decision by February 14.

To apply to attend the event, please fill out the form here.

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2022 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. This year’s nominees are a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several are authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others have created papers for major conferences, as well as producing software, apps and algorithms.

Many of the nominees had been involved in successful summer research or internship programs, many had been teaching assistants, tutors, or mentors, and a number had significant involvement in community volunteer efforts.

CRA gratefully acknowledges the support of Microsoft Research and Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL), which sponsor the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award program in alternate years. MERL is the sponsor of this year’s awards.

2022 Selection Committee: Michael Hilton (Carnegie Mellon University), Co-Chair, Kelly Shaw (Williams College), Co-Chair, Monica Anderson (University of Alabama), Jonathan Bell (Northeastern University), Victoria Interrante (University of Minnesota), Jelani Nelson (University of California, Berkeley), Evan Peck (Bucknell University), Raghu Ramanujan (Davidson College), Jenna Wiens (University of Michigan), Yuqing Melanie Wu (Pomona College)

Thank you to those who volunteered their time to serve on the selection committee for this award.

A list of the winners, runners-up, finalists, and honorable mentions is below.

Awardees

Amani Maina-Kilaas

Harvey Mudd College
Amani Maina-Kilaas is a junior at Harvey Mudd College, where he is pursuing a joint Computer Science and Math degree.  His research area is in AI, investigating how intention perception can benefit artificial agents in adversarial situations.  This work involves physics simulations for virtual agents and 3D visualizations between predators and prey.  Using these techniques, his work explores intention in multi-agent prey-predator interactions and adversarial two-player games, as well as the perception of intention from artifacts that an agent has left behind.  He has co-authored a total of three papers, in ICAART, CEC, and COG, for all of which he was the lead or co-lead author. Additionally, he contributes to the community via peer tutoring for introductory computer science courses.

Leena Mathur

University of Southern California
Leena Mathur is a senior at the University of Southern California, where she is pursuing a triple major in Computer Science, Cognitive Science, and Linguistics. Her multidisciplinary AI research is at the intersection of these fields. She leads a research project on multimodal ML approaches for detecting social behaviors. This research has applications for recognizing deception in people masking stress and anxiety in social interactions. She has also worked in a wide variety of other areas, including robot perception of empathy, socially assistive robot tutors for children with autism spectrum disorders, and unsupervised ML and speech processing algorithms for preserving Ladin, an endangered Italian language. She has co-authored a total of seven papers, including six of which she was the lead author, or co-lead author, one of which was nominated for a best paper award at ICMI.  Her other work has appeared at AAAI, ICASSP, MLSLP, ACII, and FG.  Additionally, she contributes to her community by designing and leading AI workshops for USC undergraduates and for Los Angeles high school students. She also leads the USC Interaction Lab’s DEI committee and has served as the President of USC’s student branch of the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society.

Ted Pyne

Harvard University
Edward (Ted) Pyne is a senior at Harvard University, where he is pursuing degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science.  His research interest is in theoretical computer science, where he works to understand the power of randomness in computation.  He focuses on the derandomization of space-bounded computation, which addresses the fundamental question of whether randomized algorithms are more powerful than deterministic algorithms.  His work includes showing the first known example of a weighted pseudorandom generator (WPRG) that is better than every pseudorandom generator (PRG). He is a co-author on six papers, including papers at ITCS, COCOON, CCC, and SOSA. He has also served as a teaching assistant, where he has received awards for high student evaluations, and is an officer for the Harvard MIT Mathematics Tournament.

Sophie Veys

University of Chicago
Sophie Veys is a senior at the University of Chicago, where she is pursuing a degree in Computer Science.  Her research interests lie at the intersection of privacy and HCI.  Her research centers on data access rights.  Her work includes the study of the usability of data downloads, which she studied both by surveying the landscape of existing practices, as well as exploring usability flaws which hinder transparency via co-design sessions.   She is a co-author on four papers at both HCI and Systems venues, including SOUPS, ConPro, USENIX, and CHI and received an honorable mention for her paper at CHI.  She also supports her community, where she has served as a tutor in the Maroon Tutor Match program, as well as serving in a leadership role for that organization.

Runners-Up

Xinyu Tan

Duke University
Xinyu Tan is a senior at Duke University majoring in Mathematics and in Computer Science.  Her research is in the areas of quantum computing and flash memory systems.  In one project on quantum benchmarking, she designed an improvement to the protocol used to estimate the average gate fidelity in a quantum computer that is used to characterize the degree of error in the environment.  In an unrelated project on flash memory, Xinyu created a method for deriving the power spectral density of constrained codes in flash memory systems, where better estimates of power spectral density can be used to improve the reliability of flash memory systems.  This work was published in the IEEE Transactions on Communications and was selected as a finalist for the Non-Volatile Memories Workshop’s Memorable Paper award.  In addition to serving as a teaching assistant for four courses, including a graduate level course in mathematics, Xinyu also co-founded the Duke Undergraduate Quantum Information Society, which organizes talks by external speakers, and has organized and taught a house course on quantum computing.

Nicholas Vadivelu

University of Waterloo
Nicholas Vadivelu is a senior at the University of Waterloo majoring in both Computer Science and Statistics.  His research has been in the area of differentially private machine learning and in multi-agent systems such as self-driving cars.  He is the co-first author on a paper at NeurIPS which presents a solution for significantly speeding up the algorithm for performing differentially private stochastic gradient descent.  His solution has been added to several commonly used libraries for machine learning including TensorFlow Privacy and the Optax library for JAX.  In a different project pursued during an internship at Uber ATG, Nicholas helped develop a neural reasoning framework for estimating and communicating errors in multi-agent self-driving perception and motion forecasting systems and is first author on the resulting paper published at CoRL.  At the University of Waterloo, Nicholas is the leader of the Data Science Club and mentors junior students through the Tech+ Mentorship organization.

Catherine Yeh

Williams College
Catherine Yeh is a senior at Williams College majoring in Computer Science and earning a concentration in Cognitive Science.  Her work is in an area of Human-AI called explainable AI, where the goal is to help everyday users of AI based systems understand the limitations and flaws of the decisions or recommendations made by those systems and allow users to modify their use of those systems accordingly.  In one project, Catherine created interactive explainables for understanding Bayesian Knowledge Tracing, which is an algorithm used in learning analytic systems for predicting skill mastery.  For her senior thesis, she is designing a visualization-based explainable that evaluates how non-expert users’ understanding of the Bayesian Knowledge Tracing algorithm affects users’ trust in the system and decision-making process.  Her work has been presented at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing and at the VISxAI conference.  In another project while at Microsoft Research, Catherine developed a machine learning algorithm to automatically categorize open-ended qualitative survey responses in a longitudinal work-from-home diary study; results from that project will appear in an ACM Queue article.  Catherine has served as a teaching assistant for four different Computer Science courses, is a board member for the Underrepresented Identities in Computer Science group and the Computer Science Student Advisory Committee, and is an active member of the Women in Computer Science group.

Tianwei Yin

University of Texas at Austin
Tianwei Yin is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin where he is completing majors in Computer Science and Mathematics.  He has participated in research related to using machine learning with respect to visual information, especially for 3D vehicle detection and tracking.  In one project published at CVPR, he developed a novel 3D detection pipeline that is faster than other state-of-the-art models.  In follow-up work, Tianwei created a new approach for detecting small objects when there is a limited number of 3D measurements available for those small objects, enabling autonomous vehicles to see a larger number of small objects at larger distances; this work received the most innovative detection submission award at ICRA and will be presented as a paper at NeurIPS.  His work has had a strong impact; in particular, his detector work has been adopted by two self-driving companies into their self-driving systems. Just recently, Tianwei has won the Best Paper Award at Machine Learning for Health Conference 2021. Tianwei has also served as a teaching assistant for a course on neural networks and does community outreach explaining 3D computer vision and autonomous driving.

Finalists

Zoe Baker – Colorado School of Mines
Shiye Cao – Johns Hopkins University
Joe Connolly – Yale University
Shanley Corvite – University of Michigan
Grady (Max) Daniels – Northeastern University
Alexander Elliott – Georgia Institute of Technology
Louis Golowich – Harvard College
John Guibas – Stanford University
Kelvin Jiang – University of Waterloo
Jacob Kelly – University of Toronto
Jessica Lam – University of California, San Diego
Jiaju Ma – Brown University
Arvind Mahankali – Carnegie Mellon University
Joseph McCalmon – Wake Forest University
HyunJi Alex Nam – Stanford University
Aesha Parekh -University of California, Santa Barbara
Amey Pasarkar – Columbia University
Naveen Raman – University of Maryland
Ohad Rau – Georgia Institute of Technology
Winnie Xu – University of Toronto

Honorable Mentions

Vatsal Agarwal – University of Maryland, College Park
Ben Agro – University of Toronto
Rahul Arya – University of California, Berkeley
Timothy Baer – University of Illinois
Vishnu Banna – Purdue University
Shriya Bansal – University of Chicago
Sourav Biswas – University of Waterloo
Landon Brown – Colorado School of Mines
Madeline Burbage – Williams College
Jerry Cao – University of Washington
Yida Chen – Bucknell University
Yu-Hsi Cheng – University of California, Los Angeles
Jonathan Conroy – Tufts University
Will Culpepper – Colorado School of Mines
Chengzhang Dong – University of Alberta
Amina El-Ashry – University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Nick Eliopolous – Purdue University
Tiana Fitzgerald – Princeton University
Oliver Flatt – University of Utah
Henry Fleischmann – University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Rachel Guo – Harvard College
Mike He – University of Washington
Benjamin Holmgren – Montana State University
Samhita Honnavalli – University of California, Santa Barbara
Crescentia Jung – University of Wisconsin – Madison
Megan Jung – Cornell University
Mandar Juvekar – University of Rochester
Simran Kadadi – Purdue University
Levi Kaplan – Northeastern University
Joongwon (Daniel) Kim – University of Pennsylvania
Nathaniel R. Krasner – George Mason University
Xiuyu Li – Cornell University
Tony Lian – University of California, Berkeley
Zhengyao Lin – University of Illinois
Jerry Liu – Duke University
Shicheng Liu – University of Chicago
Yuzhe Lu – Vanderbilt University
Cora Meador – Kennesaw State University
Alexander Moreira – Stanford University
Vivek Myers – Stanford University
Andy Nguyen – University of Oregon
David Park – Carnegie Mellon University
Luna Phipps-Costin – University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Emma Pinegar – University of Utah
Wasu Piriyakulkij – Brown University
Daisy Reyes – Loyola University Chicago
Naomi Sagan – University of California, Berkeley
Kris Satya – Georgia Institute of Technology
Daniel Schaffer – Carnegie Mellon University
Ana Selvaraj – University of California, San Diego
Zeyu Shen – Duke University
Noah Singer – Harvard University
Akash Singh – University of Texas at Austin
Charlie Snell – University of California, Berkeley
Shixin Song – University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Koriann South – University of Utah
Nichole Starr – Colorado School of Mines
Vikram Subramanian – University of Waterloo
Shangyin Tan – Purdue University
Man To Tang – Purdue University
Zineng Tang – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Mia Taylor – Harvey Mudd College
Nitya Thakkar – Brown University
Vale Tolpegin – Georgia Institute of Technology
Yunjin Tong – Dartmouth College
Jessica Tweneboah – Cornell University
Maggie Van Nortwick – Northeastern University
Xingyao Wang – University of Michigan
Yi Ru Wang – University of Toronto
Yu Xin – University of Washington
Lance Ying – University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Eleanor Young – New College of Florida
Abhay Zala – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Peter Zhong – Northwestern University
Naitian Zhou – University of Michigan
Chuning Zhu – University of Pennsylvania
Jay Zou – Northwestern University

Dr. Tracy Camp

Nationally Known Computer Scientist and Diversity Advocate to Lead CRA’s Next Chapter

The Computing Research Association (CRA) today announced Dr. Tracy Camp will become the organization’s fourth Executive Director in its 50 year history. Camp, currently the Department Head of Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines (Mines), brings to the role strong experience as a leader in the computing research community at the national level, a history spearheading diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in computing, and a detailed vision for leading the organization into the future. She will assume the role on July 1, 2022.

As Executive Director, Camp will seek to build upon CRA’s existing leadership role in the computing research community and work to help the community pursue bold research visions, practice and advocate for socially responsible computing research, encourage the participation of diverse populations in research, and continue to make the case for strong federal support of science and technology.

“We are excited to bring on board someone of Tracy’s exceptional caliber,” said CRA Board Chair Nancy Amato. “She is a proven leader with an impressive breadth and depth of experience and accomplishment, both nationally and at her institution. As the Founding CS Department Head at Mines, she oversaw a major expansion of the faculty and student enrollments, while simultaneously increasing diversity.”

“Tracy possesses a broad and inclusive view of computing, a deep understanding of the funding mechanisms and reward structures that affect computing research, and excellent management capabilities and experience,” Amato continued. “She is the ideal leader for CRA’s next phase and I could not be more thrilled she said ‘yes’ to this role.”

Camp has previous experience with CRA having served for many years in various volunteer capacities. She is a current board member of the CRA Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research, where she served as co-chair from 2011 to 2014. Camp was also an influential member of the CRA Board of Directors from 2012 to 2016. She led the committee that produced the 2017 report Generation CS: CS Undergraduate Enrollments Surge Since 2006.

“I’m extremely excited to become the next CRA Executive Director, following in the footsteps of three impressive former CRA leaders,” said Camp. “Several major issues exist in the computing research world today, which has created many opportunities for positive transformative change. I look forward to working with CRA’s exceptional staff, board members, and broader community for the benefit of computing research and society at large.”

“CRA has been instrumental in my career advancement and can and should be instrumental in the career advancement of everyone involved in computing research.”

In her new role, Camp will lead an organization with strong ties to other leading organizations in computing. Leaders in those organizations today expressed support for her appointment.

My congratulations go out to Tracy on her new role as CRA Executive Director. I look forward to collaborating with her to further extend the work of both of our organizations in bringing an ever more diverse community together in the computing professions. – Melissa Russell, Executive Director, IEEE-Computer Society

On behalf of USENIX, we are thrilled to learn of Tracy Camp’s appointment as CRA’s Executive Director. Dr. Camp is an incredibly distinguished leader in our field with an exceptional record of service and innovation–often in combination with one another. Her particular dedication to increasing representation in computing will serve CRA particularly well in its next chapter. – Casey Henderson, Executive Director, USENIX

I’m very excited to hear that Dr. Tracy Camp is joining the CRA as the new Executive Director. AAAI and CRA have worked well together on our many shared interests. We look forward to further collaborations in these exciting times for AI and computing in general.  – Bart Selman, President, AAAI

We at ACM are delighted that Tracy Camp will be joining CRA as Executive Director. Through the years, Tracy has shown her commitment to the research community, serving in leadership roles for many of the leading conferences and journals in her field. She has also worked tirelessly to broaden the participation of women in computing through her involvement with CRA-W, ACM-W and NCWIT. Tracy’s appointment is certainly in keeping with the tenor of the times, and we look forward to working with her in her new role. – Vicki Hanson, CEO and Executive Director, ACM

SIAM is excited to welcome Dr. Camp as the new executive director of CRA!  We look forward to her leadership as we work together to advance computing research and make positive impacts on our society. – Suzanne L. Weekes, Executive Director, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

As Canada’s voice of Computer Science, CS-Can|Info-Can looks forward to working with Tracy Camp in her new role as Executive Director of CRA. Dr. Camp’s success in increasing the participation of women and students from under-represented groups majoring in Computer Science and her impressive and influential research track record will serve CRA well in its mission to represent the computing research community and to effect change that benefits both computing research and society at large. – Adele Newton, Executive Director, CSCan-InfoCan

Camp joins CRA from Colorado School of Mines, where she has been a member of the faculty since 1998, and department head of Computer Science at Mines since 2016. Camp’s research interests are in wireless networking. She is most known for improving the credibility of wireless networking simulation studies. More than 4,000 researchers in 88 countries/regions have downloaded at least one of the twelve software packages developed by her research group (as of June 2021) and her research articles have been cited 14,794 times (per Google Scholar, as of June 2021).

Camp has received over 20 grants from the National Science Foundation, including a prestigious CAREER award. In total, her projects have received over $20 million dollars in external funding.

Camp is an ACM Fellow, an IEEE Fellow, and an ACM Distinguished Lecturer. She was a Fulbright Scholar in New Zealand in 2006, and a Distinguished Visitor at the University of Bonn in Germany in 2010. She earned her B.A. in mathematics at Kalamazoo College, M.S. in computer science from Michigan State University, and Ph.D. in computer science from the College of William and Mary.

Camp will be the first woman to serve as Executive Director at CRA. She succeeds Andrew Bernat, who served CRA for nearly 20 years before retiring in September, 2021. Peter Harsha, CRA’s Director of Government Affairs, will continue to serve as CRA’s Interim Executive Director until July 1, 2022.

About CRA
CRA represents more than 200 North American organizations active in computing research: academic departments of computer science and computer engineering; laboratories and centers in industry, government and academia; and affiliated professional societies. Its mission is to catalyze computing research by joining with industry, government and academia – a role it plays by leading the computing research community; informing policymakers and the public, and championing a diverse, welcoming, equitable, and socially responsible computing research community. For more information, see cra.org.

Members of the CRA-Education Committee hosted a webinar titled “The Ph.D. in CS: Getting There and Being Successful.” The webinar is designed to help undergraduates evaluate whether a Ph.D. program is right for them, and how to determine which program is a great fit. The following topics were addressed:

• What is a Ph.D. in CS and why should I consider it?
• Timelines
• How a Ph.D. differs from a Master’s degree in CS
• Preparing a strong application
• Making a smooth transition
• The first few years
• The research apprenticeship
• Beyond the Ph.D.

The webinar recording and slides are at the links below:

• Webinar: https://youtu.be/Qn7eUeNw6vI
• Slides: https://conquer.cra.org/…/ThePhDinComputing_CRAEWebinar…

Please share these resources with your colleagues and students.

The Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E) is now accepting nominations for the CRA-E Graduate Fellows Program. The program provides opportunities for Ph.D. candidates in a computing field to contribute to CRA-E projects, to network with computer science education advocates on the committee, and to engage in advocacy for mentoring undergraduate students and promote computer science research and undergraduate education at the national level.

CRA-E typically has two fellows and appoints one new graduate fellow per year with each fellow serving for two years in staggered appointments. Fellows serve as part of the committee, providing a graduate student voice. They attend the annual CRA-E meeting, manage the research highlights series, and contribute to the CRA-E Conquer site that provides resources for undergraduate research and graduate school.

Faculty members are invited to nominate one graduate student from their institution (but multiple nominations are permitted by distinct faculty members from the same institution) by collecting and submitting a nomination package that includes:

1. One faculty recommendation letter describing the student’s interpersonal skills and evidence of interest in mentoring undergraduates. The letter should also state that the student is at least in the third year of a Ph.D. program and making satisfactory progress towards the degree.
2. The student’s C.V. including research interests and accomplishments.
3. A one-page statement written by the student. The statement should describe the nominee’s interest in the CRA-E Fellow position, experience mentoring undergraduates, and long-term aspirations.

More information is available at  http://cra.org/crae/activities/fellows/.

Please nominate a graduate student and encourage your colleagues to do so, too!

The CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award honors faculty members in computing who have made a significant impact on students they have mentored. It recognizes those who have provided exceptional mentorship and undergraduate research experiences and, in parallel, guidance on admission and matriculation of these students to research-focused graduate programs in computing.

Eligible nominees are full-time faculty members at North American academic institutions. Faculty members include tenured and tenure-track faculty, instructors, and professors of the practice. Current members of CRA-E are not eligible to be a nominee or to serve as a nominator.  Nominations must be submitted by a faculty member or researcher in the computing field.

Nominations are due Monday, November 22, 2021, by 5 PM (ET). Winners will be notified by early February 2022. Click here to view the 2021 award winners and here to view the FAQs.

The award is given annually, and multiple recipients may be awarded. The selection committee will give appropriate consideration to different types of schools and mentors at different stages of their careers. The awardees will receive travel support to attend the meeting at which they accept the award.

Evaluation criteria
The committee will evaluate the evidence of:

• Undergraduate student mentoring during the most recent 10 years (being sensitive to the size of the program) including the number of students enrolling in research-oriented M.S. or Ph.D. programs
• Professional development provided to the students mentored
• Diversity of students
• Impact and success of the students’ research

The 2022 selection committee includes:
Denys Poshyvanyk (William & Mary), Chair
Monica Anderson (University of Alabama)
Gary Holness (Clark University)
Lenore Cowen (Tufts University)

The Computing Research Association (CRA) is pleased to announce the annual CRA Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers, which recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. The award is a wonderful way to recognize your best student researchers and your department.  

Eligible nominees must be enrolled as undergraduates in a North American college or university in Fall 2021.  PhD-granting departments may nominate up to four students and other departments may nominate up to two students.

Up to four CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Research Awards will be made. Each award recipient will receive financial assistance of up to $1500 to attend a research conference of their choice.  Additional nominees will be designated as runners-up, finalists, and honorable mentions.  The award recipients, runners-up, finalists, and honorable mentions will be announced by e-mail in mid-December, will receive certificates of their awards, and will be recognized on CRA’s website.

Everything you need to submit a nomination for the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers Award, including detailed instructions and the nomination form, is available at: http://cra.org/crae/awards/cra-outstanding-undergraduate-researchers/.

Questions and inquiries about the awards should be sent to: undergradawards@cra.org. The deadline for nominations is Friday, October 15, 2021, at 9 PM ET. The nominations package will need to be submitted as one PDF file in the order specified in the instructions.

Microsoft Research and Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs  (MERL) sponsor the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers Award Program in alternate years. The 2022 award is being sponsored by Microsoft Research. This award is managed by the CRA Education Committee.

Faculty members nominating a student for the CRA award are encouraged to talk to the student about the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). The required nomination materials are similar, and some can be used for both the CRA-E award and the NSF GRFP application. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based Master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions. See https://www.nsfgrfp.org/ for information for applicants, letter writers, how to sign up as a panelist, and the program solicitation.  Applications for GRFs are due the week after the CRA award nominations, on October 19, 2021.

Please share this announcement with your colleagues!