Research Community and Action in a Time of Upheaval

The Non-Paper Session will take place at Room Auditorium.

It is a time of unprecedented upheaval in the U.S. science and engineering research community, with global consequences for our field. Federal science agencies face budget and programmatic cuts, and the disbanding of community advisory committees; international students and researchers face a myriad of visa concerns; and the narratives surrounding the very value of federally funded fundamental research are being questioned. Our institutions and research community are imperiled. What can we do - individually and collectively - to preserve, reshape, and evolve those aspects of our institutions and community that are most important?

This session will provide a moderated forum (with panelists, followed by an open discussion) for the SIGCOMM community to brainstorm both individual and community actions. It’s important to note that it is not a venue for “venting” or partisan politics; it is a venue for emphasizing the importance of community and sense of belonging, and for strategizing about individual and community actions that we can take to help each other and our research enterprise.

Panelists:

• Tracy Camp, Executive Director and CEO, Computing Research Association
• Serge Fdida, Professor, Sorbonne U.
• Jennifer Rexford, Provost and Professor, Princeton University
• Ellen Zegura, Acting Assistant Director for the US National Science Foundation Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering and Professor, Georgia Inst. Tech.