Session 2: 11:10 AM – 12:10 PM
ADVANCING Women in Computer Science
Location: Royal Palm 1, 2, & 3
Panel: Lisa M. Frehill (Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology), Dr. Joan Peckham (University of Rhode Island), Dr. Debra Richardson (UC Irvine), Dr. John L. King (University of Michigan), Alice Hogan (National Science Foundation), Dr. Desh Ranjan (New Mexico State University)
In 2001 the National Science Foundation initiated a new program to address gender disparities in women’s representation and advancement in academic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Nine institutions were awarded funds in the 2001-2002 academic year, another ten institutions won awards in 2003, and 8-10 more are expected to join the ADVANCE community in 2006. These awards are revolutionary approaches that focus attention not on “fitting women in” to existing structures, but, instead, determining how we might be able to change the structure and culture of institutions of higher education to better accommodate women’s needs. In this panel, computer science scholars from several ADVANCE-funded institutions will discuss issues related to increasing women’s participation in computer science and the ADVANCE efforts at their institutions.
Challenges Faced by Female Technical Leaders
Location: Sunrise Conference Room
Panel: Kristina Soderberg Browder (Silicon Laboratories), Romelia H. Flores (IBM), Diana Gomez (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers), Michele Lezama (GEM)
Companies implement diversity initiatives intended to bridge the workplace and marketplace to ensure success with multiple customer demographic groups. This discussion is intended to examine the experiences & challenges faced by female technical leaders. The panel consists of technical leaders from multiple enterprise and small businesses and examines career challenges that technical leaders from diverse backgrounds have experienced and the impact diversity initiatives have had on them. Panelists will share information and advice regarding their experiences as technical leaders in the IT industry and how their cultural biases have impacted their work behavior and approaches as technical leaders.
The intended audience for this discussion is employers and managers wanting to understand challenges faced by diverse technical leaders. This session provides sample experiences and advice. Panelists will provide a 10 minute summary of their background and experiences, as well as insight on advice for the diversity group they represent. A question and answer session will follow.
Invited Technical Speaker: Yuanyaun Zhou
Applying Medical Practices on Large Software
Location: Royal Palm 4, 5 & 6
Presenter: Yuanyaun Zhou, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Your Web browser quits and interrupts your blissful surfing; After you spend 30 minutes filling out your address and credit card information to purchase a dream vacation package, the computer suddenly crashes… Software bugs bite. Just as the practice of medicine is as much an art as a science, so is computer programming. A computer program with buggy code is like a sick patient and should be treated as such. Because software bugs account for as much as 40% of computer system failures and cost the U.S. economy an estimated $59.5 billion annually (about 0.6% of the gross domestic product), healthy programs are crucial. Unfortunately, identifying and fixing bugs in large program is extremely labor intensive, especially in commercial software, so it is important to automate as much of this process as possible.
One of our recent research focuses is to make software robust. Not only are our efforts directed toward detecting, diagnosing and fixing bugs, but we are also exploring techniques that allow software to survive in the presence of bugs. To efficiently detect bugs in large software, we draw upon simple psychological observations on how programmers write code to illuminate common sources or reasons for how and why bugs are introduced. Based on these observations, we derive methods to automatically infer programmers’ intent and scan for mismatches in programmers’ implementations. To handle bugs that inevitably escape from software health exams into production runs, we perform an avoidance therapy to survive online software failures by treating bugs as allergies. To automatically diagnose an occurring software error, we follow a doctor-like top-down protocol to triage the defect, providing useful information for programmers to find root causes and derive cures.
Feedback and Dynamics in Nature
Location: Towne Conference Room
Panel: Jean Carlson (UC Santa Barbara), Naomi Leonard (Princeton), Richard Murray (CalTech), Linda Petzold (UC Santa Barbara), John Doyle (CalTech)
The opportunities to apply modeling and analysis tools from dynamical and feedback system theory are exploding, particularly in scientific fields. New technology is allowing us to explore complex biological systems—from cells to insects to ecosystem at levels that were unimagined just a few years ago. The role of feedback as a mechanism for managing uncertainty is a central feature. In the physical sciences, applications include geophysical systems where multiscale dynamic analysis is required to understand complex phenomena such as forest fires and earthquakes.
The objective of this panel is to highlight some of the advances in fields related to dynamics and feedback in nature while providing a view of some of the exciting challenges that are at the forefront of this exciting area. We are targeting researchers in the sciences at all levels who have an interest in learning more about analyzing complex, networked, multi-scale systems that occur in ecological, biological and geophysical systems.
The panel will consist of 3-6 speakers who will present their views of the successes and challenges in this area and take questions from participants in the session regarding what is needed to make progress on a broad variety of fronts.
Split Session
Location: Golden West Conference Room
-
On Program Security
Presenter: Hongxia Jin, IBM Almaden Research Center
Hackers can reverse engineer programs to understand or even modify existing programs. Consequently, competitors may learn trade secrets or copy algorithms to reuse in competing products. They can also remove protections and redistribute the pirated program for a profit. The general problem of program protection is widely thought to be impossible. Program protection is an important, wide-open problem. This session will give an overview on current practices in this field. Advantages and disadvantages of various competing protection techniques will be discussed.
-
Shifting the Tide of Network Security: Being Safe, Being Aware, and Being Active
Presenter: Nicole A Pauls, TriGeo Network Security
Many of us think of network security tools as necessary evils of prevention. The truth is that we just can’t protect ourselves from everything. Software holes can be exploited before patches can be deployed, “trusted” users can become dangerous by opening the wrong email at the wrong time, and everything happens so quickly that we might not even know until it’s too late.
This presentation will explore defense in-depth network security strategies, including architecture, monitoring, and active defenses.
Priming the Pipeline: Girls Speak Out About Pre-College Computer Science
Location: Sunset Conference Room
Panel: Robb Cutler, Moderator (CSTA), Michelle Hutton (CSTA), Amy Wu (Stanford University), Sarah Fingerhood (The Harker School), Hann-Shuin Yew (The Harker School), Alexis Chuck (Mountain View High School), Sophie Keller (The Girls Middle School)
Waves start as small ripples far from the shore, building over time to become impressive natural displays. In the same way, early exposure to computer science, along with mentoring and positive reinforcement can help girls stay interested and help solve the pipeline problem. By observing the effects of early exposure to computer science and by listening as girls articulate their needs, we can help them be successful over the long term.
This panel will offer insight into the current experience of pre-college girls with respect to computer science. The girls on the panel all have taken computer science at the pre-college level in either middle or high school. They will discuss their experiences and address strategies that supported them as well as those they feel would be successful in recruiting other girls — such as mentoring, early exposure to computer science concepts, and reducing barriers to entry in computer science.
