ACM People in the News 2021

"Study Shows How ML Could Improve COVID-19 Predictive Models"
Brown University, December 1, 2021
George Karniadakis (ACM Gordon Bell Prize and SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering recipient) said nine prominent COVID-19 prediction models were incorrect and ineffective because they treated key parameter values as fixed over time.

Media Coverage of 2021 ACM Gordon Bell Prize:
South China Morning Post
XinhuaNet
HPCWire
The Next Platform
Gaming Deputy

Media Coverage of 2021 ACM Gordon Bell Special Prize for High Performance Computing-Based COVID-19 Research:
HPCWire
Asahi Shimbun

"JPMorgan bankers learn to work with expanding AI team"
efinancialcareers.com, November 4, 2021
Speaking at ACM's ICAIF conference, JP Morgan's Managing Director for AI research Sameena Shah said the team is hiring and that students with an interest in AI should absolutely get in touch.

"It’s Time to Open the Black Boxes"
Inside Higher Ed, November 3, 2021
As remote testing becomes pervasive, colleges should ask some fundamental and wide-ranging questions, ACM USTPC Chair Jeremy Epstein and Christopher Kang write.

"Next Steps on the U.S. AI Bill of Rights"
Washington Spectator, November 2, 2021
Past ACM global Technology Policy Council Chair Lorraine Kisselburgh and Marc Rotenberg of the Center for AI and Digital Policy outline why a set of basic rights and responsibilities for the use of AI is important.

"Rice Web Server Helps Identify COVID-19 Drug Candidates"
Rice University News, November 1, 2021
ACM Athena Lecturer Lydia Kavraki and multi-institutional colleagues have posted a "user-friendly" Web server for screening drug candidates virtually in relation to known protein-binding pockets on the pathogen.

"Advancing Your Tech Career Through Industry Groups and Clubs"
Dice.com, October 27, 2021
ACM is recommended as a valuable career resource.

"Delta to Roll Out Facial Recognition in Atlanta Domestic Terminal"
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 26, 2021
The ACM global Technology Policy Council last year warned facial recognition "has often compromised fundamental human and legal rights of individuals to privacy, employment, justice, and personal liberty." However, Council Chair James Hendler wrote that Delta's implementation "makes it clear where and how it is being used," offers an opt-out process, and has human backup for when the system malfunctions.

"Data Mining Conference Honors Best Papers on COVID-19, Disaster Work Zones, More"
HPCwire, September 30, 2021
ACM's Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (SIGKDD) named three of 2,200 submitted papers to receive the SIGKDD Best Paper Awards for advancing basic understanding of knowledge discovery in data and data mining.

"Digital Sky Survey Receives SIGMOD Award"
FermiLab, September 20, 2021
ACM Special Interest Group on Management of Data recognizes astronomy project with its Systems Award for its "early and influential demonstration of the power of data science to transform a scientific domain."

"Foster et al. Receive Most Influential Paper Award for Network Programming Language"
Cornell Chronicle, September 10, 2021
ACM SIGPLAN's International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP) named research from 2011 co-authored by Cornell University's Nate Foster the Most Influential Paper for its creation of a network programming language.

"Professor awarded Test of Time award for paper on data privacy"
Penn State News, July 23, 2021
A 2011 paper on data privacy co-authored by Dan Kifer, professor of computer science and engineering at Penn State, received the 2021 ACM SIGMOD Test of Time Award.

"Computer Science Professor Wins 'Test of Time' Award for Influential Paper"
USC Viterbi News, July 20, 2021
Shang-Hua Teng honored with SIGACT's Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC) Test-of-Time Award.

"James Hendler Named Chair of ACM Technology Policy Council"
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, July 7, 2021
ACM global tech policy group's new Chair hopes to generate policy papers on wide-ranging topics, including AI, autonomous vehicles, social media, data sharing, and privacy protection.

"Reddy’s Wager: So, How Long Before Babel Fish Becomes a Reality"
Analytics India, July 7, 2021
ACM Turing Award laureate Raj Reddy posits that in 10 years, there will be a 21st-century version of Babel fish, an earpiece that can translate hundreds of languages in real time. (The device was a prop in the sci-fi blockbuster "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.")

"Recognition for NoSQL Pioneers"
IProgrammer, July 5, 2021
The three creators of Berkeley DB, an early exemplar of the NoSQL movement, were recognized with the 2020 ACM Software System Award.

"What draws private sector tech execs to government?"
CIODive, June 30, 2021
ACM Journal on Digital Government: Research and Practice co-Editor-in-Chief Beth Simone Noveck says, "What's kept me going back [to the public sector] is this chance to really make a difference in terms of people's lives."

"WWW Code That Changed the World Up for Auction as NFT"
Reuters, June 15, 2021
Computer scientist and ACM A.M. Turing Award laureate Tim Berners-Lee's original source code for what would become the World Wide Web now is part of a non-fungible token (NFT) that Sotheby's will auction off, with bidding to start at $1,000.

Media Coverage of Ayanna Howard, 2021-2022 ACM Athena Lecturer:
MIT Technology Review
Robotics 24/7
HPC Wire

"Researchers' Algorithm Designs Soft Robots that Sense"
MIT News, March 22, 2021
ACM Fellow Daniela Rus of MIT says, "Automating the design of sensorized soft robots is an important step toward rapidly creating intelligent tools that help people with physical tasks."

"An existential discussion: What is the probability of nuclear war?"
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 18, 2021
ACM A.M. Turing Award laureates Martin Hellman and Vint Cerf discuss National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine project seeking to answer the question of whether the US should use quantitative methods to assess the risks of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism.

"ACM SIGIR Academy to recognize contributions to information retrieval"
EurekAlert!, March 2, 2021
ACM’s Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval announces SIGIR Academy to honor and recognize individuals who have made significant, cumulative contributions to the development of the IR field.

"Australian Media Law Raises Questions About 'Pay for Clicks'"
AP News, February 18, 2021
At a recent Australian Senate committee hearing, ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient Tim Berners-Lee said, "Specifically, I am concerned that that code risks breaching a fundamental principle of the Web by requiring payment for linking between certain content online."

"Experts Discuss Challenges of Voting in An Electronic Age"
Government Technology, February 17, 2021
ACM USTPC convened panel, “Technology & Trust: Voting in the Electronic Age," which included voting experts from government, research and academia. Watch video here.

"Sensor Takes Guesswork Out of N95 Decontamination"
University of Michigan, February 16, 2021
Researchers created a wireless sensor platform that monitors temperature, humidity, and time to ensure ideal conditions for sanitizing N95 facemasks using moist-heat decontamination. The research received an award in a special session on COVID-19 Response Research at ACM's Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems.

"Shafi Goldwasser Wins L'Oréal-UNESCO Award"
MIT News, February 12, 2021
Shafi Goldwasser, the RSA Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and winner of the 2012 ACM A.M. Turing Award, has been named the laureate for North America in the 2021 L'Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science International Awards.

"Edmund Melson Clarke, Creator of Model Checking, Dies at 75"
IEEE Spectrum, January 11, 2021
Clarke, E. Allen Emerson, and computer scientist Joseph Sifakis were named recipients of the 2007 ACM A.M. Turing Award for their role in developing model checking into a highly effective verification technology that has been widely adopted in the hardware and software industries.

"He Created the Web. Now He's Out to Remake the Digital World"
The New York Times, January 10, 2021
World Wide Web creator and 2016 ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient Tim Berners-Lee hopes to bring the Web back to his original vision of a decentralized marketplace through personal online data stores (pods), with users controlling their data in individual vaults.

"Leading Computer Scientists Debate the Next Steps for AI in 2021"
VentureBeat, January 2, 2021
ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient Judea Pearl said AI systems require world knowledge and common sense to use the data they receive most efficiently.