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ACM Elects New Leaders Committed to Expanding International Initiatives
NEW YORK, Jun 09, 2010 (ASCRIBE NEWS via COMTEX) --
The Association for
Computing Machinery (ACM) today announced the election of
Alain Chesnais as president for a two-year term beginning
July 1. Chesnais, who heads Visual Transitions, a
Toronto-based consulting company, said his goal as president
is to strengthen ACM's presence in China and India and to
expand its online presence to serve the needs of the next
generation of computing practitioners, educators,
researchers, and students. Also elected to two-year terms
were Vice President Barbara Ryder, of Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, and Secretary-Treasurer
Alexander L. Wolf of Imperial College London UK. In
addition, Members-at-Large elected to four-year terms
include Vinton Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet
Evangelist at Google, and Salil Vadhan, the Vicky Joseph
Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, and
Director of the Center for Research on Computation and
Society at Harvard University.
The new officers elected by ACM professional members
represent the more than 97,000 computing professionals and
students who comprise ACM's international membership. They
pledged to continue ACM's increasing involvement in
initiatives aimed at ensuring the health of the computing
discipline and advancing the profession worldwide. Within
the past year, ACM's leaders established councils in Europe
and India to strengthen ties in these regions and raise
awareness of its many benefits and resources among the
public and local decision-makers. ACM also led federal and
state initiatives to establish the first Computer Science
Education Week (http://www.csedweek.org/), and formed a
partnership with WGBH, funded by a National Science
Foundation grant, to attract young college-bound women to
computing, known as Dot Diva (http://www.dotdiva.org/).
Chesnais, a French citizen now residing in Canada, has
made international expansion a priority for ACM during his
term, with an emphasis on changes to the chapters program
designed to increase ACM's worldwide presence. First
introduced to ACM through the annual SIGGRAPH conference
more than 20 years ago, he joined the local SIGGRAPH chapter
in Paris, and volunteered for a variety of responsibilities
with SIGGRAPH and ACM through the years. As president, he
plans to apply his experience with social networking sites
to expand ACM's online presence and facilitate the exchange
of ideas and information among members.
Chesnais has more than 20 years of management experience
in the software industry, with a recent focus on 3D social
media. He founded Visual Transitions, which specializes in
computer graphics and social networks. Formerly chief
technology officer at SceneCaster, he served as director of
engineering at Alias|Wavefront on the team that received a
technical award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences for developing the Maya 3D software package. Prior
to his election as ACM president, he was vice president from
July 2008 - June 2010 as well as secretary/treasurer from
July 2006 - June 2008. He also served as president of ACM
SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and
Interactive Techniques) from July 2002 - June 2005, and as
SIG Governing Board Chair from July 2000 - June 2002.
Barbara Ryder, Head of the Department of Computer Science
in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, indicated
her determination to maintain ACM's strong voice on
technology issues affecting public policy worldwide. She
urges expanded support for computing education from K-12
through college and postgraduate levels, and advocated
additional support for the Special Interest Groups and more
meetings outside of North America. Ryder, who was ACM
secretary/treasurer from 2008-2010, chaired the Federated
Computing Research Conference in 2003, and ACM's Special
Interest Group on Programming Languages (SIGPLAN). She was
named a Fellow of ACM in 1998 for her seminal contributions
to interprocedural compile-time analysis. The first woman
to serve as a department head in the nationally ranked
College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, Ryder was
previously a professor of computer science at Rutgers
University.
In his recent roles as chair of the ACM SIG Governing
Board and ACM Council member, Alexander Wolf, a professor of
computing at Imperial College London, has helped to reshape
ACM as a key player in advancing the computing
discipline. He was instrumental in nurturing the formation
of conferences and SIGs that represent new areas of
computing, helping ACM members enhance computing's role in
driving innovation. Named an ACM Fellow in 2006, Wolf is a
Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society and holds a
UK Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award. He currently
serves on the newly formed ACM Europe Council, and chairs
the ACM Software System Award Committee.
About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery
(http://www.acm.org/), is the world's largest educational
and scientific computing society, uniting computing
educators, researchers and professionals to inspire
dialogue, share resources and address the field's
challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession's
collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the
highest standards, and recognition of technical
excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its
members by providing opportunities for life-long learning,
career development, and professional networking.
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