Abstract

This is a pivotal and exciting time for computing research and for computing researchers. Our underlying technologies have exploded in the past decade, so that computing, communication, and information resources are faster, cheaper, interconnected, smaller, embedded ... everywhere. Our field is critical to scientific progress, to economic development, indeed to the daily lives of each of us. Moreover, as dramatic as the changes in past decade have been, we cannot yet imagine what our world will be like in another decade.

In this talk, I will first set the stage by giving a brief history of the National Science Foundation and the CISE directorate. (CISE stands for Computer and Information Science and Engineering.) Second, I will describe the Cyberinfrastructure Initiative, a new NSF-wide program that is currently being developed with leadership from the CISE directorate. This initiative has the potential to revolutionize the conduct of science and engineering research. Finally, I will describe the motivation for and nature of the pending reorganization of CISE, including what it means to computing researchers.