Raluca Ada Popa, University of California, Berkeley, is the recipient of the 2021 ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award for the design of secure distributed systems. The systems protect confidentiality against attackers with full access to servers while maintaining full functionality. Popa’s research provides confidentiality guarantees where servers only need to store encrypted data, processing it without decrypting. Thus, hackers see only encrypted data. Computing on encrypted data, possible in theory, has been prohibitively inefficient inpractice. Popa addresses this by replacing generality with building systems for a broad set of applications with common traits, and developing encryption schemes tailored to these application archetypes.

Xavier Leroy, Collège de France; Sandrine Blazy, University of Rennes 1, IRISA; Zaynah Dargaye, Nomadic Labs; Jacques-Henri Jourdan, CNRS, Laboratoire Méthodes Formelles; Michael Schmidt, AbsInt Angewandte Informatik; Bernhard Schommer, Saarland University and AbsInt Angewandte Informatik GmbH; and Jean-Baptiste Tristan, Boston College, receive the ACM Software System Award for the development of CompCert, the first practically useful optimizing compiler targeting multiple commercial architectures that has a complete, mechanically checked proof of its correctness.

Avrim Blum, Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago; Irit Dinur, Weizmann Institute; Cynthia Dwork, Harvard University; Frank McSherry, Materialize Inc.; Kobbi Nissim, Georgetown University; and Adam Davison Smith, Boston University, receive the ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award for their fundamental contributions to the development of differential privacy. Their separate but related work formed a definition of differential privacy which captures the kind of privacy needed in statistical settings, where individual information must be protected while still allowing for discovery of common trends.

Carla Gomes of Cornell University receives the ACM - AAAI Allen Newell Award for establishing and nurturing the field of computational sustainability and for foundational contributions to artificial intelligence. Gomes is a leader in AI, particularly in reasoning, optimization, and the integration of learning and reasoning. She is the driving force behind the new subfield of computational sustainability, embodying the values of multidisciplinary research and social impact. Her research advances core computer science and AI while establishing rich connections to other disciplines.

ACM President Gabriele Kotsis has recognized Dame Wendy Hall for her technical contributions that have significantly influenced the development of the Semantic Web and the field of Web Science, her leadership and impact in shaping technology policy and informatics education internationally, and her committed and inspired work to strengthen ACM’s geographically diverse footprint by fostering regional councils to promote ACM activities in China, India, and Europe.

ACM has named Éva Tardos of Cornell University as the 2022-2023 Athena Lecturer. Tardos is recognized for fundamental research contributions to combinatorial optimization, approximation algorithms, and algorithmic game theory, and for her dedicated mentoring and service to these communities. Tardos is one of the most influential leaders in the field of theoretical computer science and an outstanding educator, mentor, and leader in her scientific community.

Mark Allen Weiss, a Professor at Florida International University, receives the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award for advancing the art and science of computer science (CS) education through his textbooks, research, and curriculum design, which have affected thousands of instructors and students worldwide.

Erik Altman receives the ACM Distinguished Service Award for leadership in the computer architecture communities, and for contributions to ACM organizational development. He has demonstrated excellence both as a computer architecture research scientist at IBM and as a driver of positive change within the Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Society.

Judy Brewer receives the ACM Policy Award for her leadership of the Web Accessibility Initiative and development of multiple web accessibility standards, which have been adopted globally and improved accessibility for millions worldwide. Brewer leads the development of standards and strategies for inclusive web design, providing web developers with tools necessary to bring the power and the promise of the World Wide Web to millions of people.

ACM named Northeastern University’s Carla E. Brodley recipient of the inaugural ACM Frances E. Allen Award for Outstanding Mentoring. Brodley is recognized for significant personal mentorship and leadership in creating systemic programs that have increased diversity in computer science by creating mentoring opportunities for thousands at Northeastern and other universities across the US. An internationally recognized leader in the fields of machine learning, data mining, and artificial intelligence, Brodley has shown a deep commitment to mentoring and increasing diversity in computer science throughout her academic career.

ACM has named Jack J. Dongarra recipient of the 2021 ACM A.M. Turing Award for pioneering contributions to numerical algorithms and libraries that enabled high performance computational software to keep pace with exponential hardware improvements for over four decades. Dongarra is a University Distinguished Professor of Computer Science in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Tennessee. He also holds appointments with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Manchester.

ACM has named Pieter Abbeel of the University of California, Berkeley and the Co-Founder, President and Chief Scientist at Covariant the recipient of the 2021 ACM Prize in Computing for contributions to robot learning. Abbeel pioneered teaching robots to learn from human demonstrations (“apprenticeship learning”) and through their own trial and error (“reinforcement learning”), which have formed the foundation for the next generation of robotics. Abbeel’s groundbreaking research has helped shape contemporary robotics and continues to drive the future of the field.

Ruth Lennon, current chair of ACM-W Europe, has been appointed the next Global Chair of ACM-W. Ruth is the director of Craobh Technology Consulting, an organization that provides personalized solutions to industry problems. She is also a lecturer with 20 years of experience in the Department of Computing at Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Ireland, and has been a member of ACM for over 20 years.

ACM has opened the articles published during the first 50 years of its publishing program, from 1951 through the end of 2000, These articles are now open and freely available to view and download via the ACM Digital Library. ACM’s first 50 years backfile contains more than 117,500 articles on a wide range of computing topics. In addition to articles published between 1951 and 2000, ACM has also opened related and supplemental materials including data sets, software, slides, audio recordings, and videos. Read the news release.

Yiran Chen is a Professor at Duke University and Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) AI Institute for Edge Computing Leveraging the Next-Generation Networks (Athena). His research interests include new memory and storage systems, machine learning, neuromorphic computing, and mobile computing systems. His honors include the IEEE Computer Society Edward J. McCluskey Technical Achievement Award, the ACM SIGDA Service Award, and being named an ACM Fellow for his contributions to nonvolatile memory technologies. Chen is the Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Design Automation (SIGDA).

Twenty-five ACM members have been elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in recognition of their efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications in service to society. Congratulations to: Ruzena Bajcsy, Eric Brewer, Claire Cardie, Susan Davidson, Rina Dechter, Paul Dourish, Kathleen Fisher, Michael J. Franklin, Juliana Freire, Simson Garfinkel, Mark Hill, Ayanna Howard, Somesh Jha, Yann LeCun, Robin Murphy, Elizabeth Mynatt, Rafail Ostrovsky, David A. Padua, David Parkes, Jignesh M. Patel, Yong Rui, Tuomas Sandholm, Michael Scott, Padhraic Smyth, and Tandy Warnow!

ACM has named 71 members 2021 ACM Fellows for significant contributions in areas including algorithms, computer science education, cryptography, data security and privacy, medical informatics, and mobile and networked systems, among other areas. The ACM Fellows program recognizes the top 1% of ACM Members for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community.

Six ACM Fellows have been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Congratulations to: Luiz André Barroso, Google Inc.; Dina Katabi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Oyekunle Olukotun, Stanford University; Adi Shamir (IHM), Weizmann Institute of Science; Leslie G. Valiant, Harvard University; and George Varghese, University of California, Los Angeles.

Although research on computational thinking (CT) within K-12 has been emerging over the past few years, few studies have investigated the teaching of CT at the younger ages. The ACM and the Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund co-funded this special research publication to examine empirically-based studies that focused on the integration of computational thinking at the elementary levels into a variety of learning disciplines including math, ELA, science, and computer science.

By highlighting successful technical women who are leading diverse careers in the technology industry, ACM-W’s webinar series, “Celebrating Technology Leaders,” aims to inform students and early-career professionals about the multitude of career options open to them. Visit https://women.acm.org/celebrating-technology-leaders/ to view on-demand.

TechBriefs is a series of short technical bulletins by ACM’s Technology Policy Council that present scientifically-grounded perspectives on the impact of specific developments or applications of technology. Designed to complement ACM’s activities in the policy arena, the primary goal is to inform rather than advocate for specific policies. The new edition focuses on the concept of Smart Cities and how to deploy information and communication technology (ICT) to create such cities without compromising security, privacy, fairness, and sustainability

The ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks is the leading ACM and SIGSAC conference dedicated to all aspects of security and privacy in wireless and mobile networks and their applications, mobile software platforms, Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems, usable security and privacy, biometrics, and cryptography. Keynote speakers this year are William Enck (North Carolina State University), Srdjan Capkun (ETH Zurich), and Gabriela F. Ciocarlie (The University of Texas at San Antonio). This year’s conference will be held in-person in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

Learning @ Scale investigates large-scale, technology-mediated learning environments that typically have many active learners and few experts on hand to guide their progress or respond to individual needs. Workshops will address Educational Nonlinear Stories with Twine, Learnersourcing: Student-generated Content @ Scale, and the Third Annual Workshop on A/B Testing, Platform-Enabled Learning Research, and more. President Martha Pollack will keynote. This will be a hybrid event, and will be held at Cornell Tech, Roosevelt Island campus adjacent to New York City.

The ACM Special Interest Group (SIG) on Management Information Systems (MIS) promotes best-practice and research in the management of information systems and technologies in management commerce. This year's program includes discussions on IT workers returning to their former employers, the influence of workplace social support on IT professionals’ turnover, diversity in management, and more. The conference will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

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