Tuesday, July 11, 2023
Context: In my role as division director of IIS, I’m sending out a short message to the IIS mailing list on the Second Tuesday Every Month (STEM). Here’s the installment for July 2023.
I hope you are having a great summer. Even if it’s not free and easy, maybe there’s at least a change of rhythm that can be a nice break in the routine. I’m going to keep this month’s message short(ish) because the two people I usually ask to look things over to avoid saying something NSF will regret are both out this week.
First, I wanted to alert you to an upcoming webinar for a program called CIRC, which stands for Community Infrastructure for Research in Computer and Information Science and Engineering. The program used to be called CCRI, a name I found really confusing because, where I come from, that’s the Community College of Rhode Island, which is distinct from RIC, Rhode Island College. But, in fact, the reason the name was changed was to avoid confusion with another NSF program, CRII (Computer and Information Science and Engineering Research Initiation Initiative), IIRC. (Kinda makes me want to CRI.)
Anyway, the seminar is Wednesday, July 19, 2:00 – 3:00pm (East Coast time). You can register at
https://new.nsf.gov/events/cise-circ-program-webinar/2023-07-19 .
The submission deadline is September 8, 2023: see https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2023/nsf23589/nsf23589.htm . I want to put in a plug for you to think about community infrastructure for IIS research. Lots of academic disciplines (especially physics and astronomy and geology) get tremendous benefit from working together to argue for large-scale research infrastructure. Traditionally, computing hasn’t really needed anything like a super collider, but large-scale computational systems are becoming more and more central to the field. Getting NSF to help fund the computing, algorithmic, and data platforms to power our efforts could be a game changer for IIS-related academic research. It’s worth some thought.
So, back in update #2, I talked a bit about Wendy Nilsen, the IIS deputy division director. It was very well received. This time, I thought I’d say something about one of IIS’s many talented program directors, Jim Donlon. Jim’s been in the spotlight for the last few years in his role leading the AI Institutes program, a half-billion dollar program (so far!) with complex partnerships that reach almost every state in the entire country. (His co-lead until a month or so ago was Rebecca Hwa, but she has rotated out and her replacement hasn’t started yet.) Jim’s own path is complex and interesting. Back in the day, he served in the US Army as a paratrooper (jumping out of planes on purpose). He attended graduate school and studied artificial intelligence, with a focus on knowledge-based systems, and went on to direct the Knowledge Engineering Group for the Army in the early 2000s. That is, he transitioned from military, to science, to military+science. In the early 2010s, he became involved in military+science+funding, working as a program manager at DARPA. There, he supervised the Mind’s Eye computer vision program and other relevant efforts. By the mid 2010s, Jim dropped the “military” part and started doing science+funding for the NSF, achieving 6 of the 8 combinations (only non-military, non-science funding and non-science military funding remain on his bucket list). In my first week at NSF, a higher-ranked-than-me NSF person described Jim as a “national treasure”, and I have come to see the truth in that description. His dedication to the NSF and the scientific community is only rivaled by his depth of knowledge about the field and of how to make positive things happen within the NSF bureaucracy (something that occasionally involves stunts that seem as scary as jumping out of a plane on purpose).
One last item is that, before the STEM #6 update comes out next month, a new requirement will kick in for many of us. As you are probably aware, NSF insists that each institution that applies for funding has a training and oversight plan for responsible and ethical conduct of research. The training applies to undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers and stems from the America COMPETES Act, passed in 2007. Well, the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022 expanded the requirement to include faculty, and to cover research security training. So, if you get an announcement telling you that you need to do some extra training, that’s some of the backstory. For more information, see the relevant section of the latest NSF proposal guide (the PAPPG): https://new.nsf.gov/policies/pappg/23-1/ch-9-recipient-standards#b-responsible-and-ethical-conduct-of-research-recr-9c7 . Note that Congress requires NSF to require your institution to require you to do the training (!). So, if you have specific questions about what you need to do, please address them to your institution’s office of sponsored research---your requirements come most directly from them.
Until next time!
-Michael