ACADEMIA

The awards committee of the 2005 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference is seeking nominations for the Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science, and Diversifying Computing. The award will be presented at the Tapia 2005 conference to be held Oct. 19-22, 2005, in Albuquerque. For more information about the Tapia 2005 conference, visit its Web site. The Tapia award recognizes an individual with outstanding achievements in scientific scholarship, a strong civic presence within the scientific community, and a dedication to the attainment of true ethnic diversity in computing and related disciplines. The ideal recipient will be devoted to the principle of equity in both theory and practice, and will have demonstrated leadership in applying creative solutions to the difficult social, cultural, technical and political problems of diversifying computing. The deadline for submitting nominations is Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005. Nomination letters should be submitted via email to Tapia 2005 Conference Chair Pamela Williams at pwillia@sandia.gov. To receive careful consideration, nomination letters should contain the following information: • Nominee's name • Nominee's affiliation • A summary of the nominee's scientific contributions (300 words) • A summary of the nominee's civic contributions (300 words) • A summary of the nominee's leadership in diversifying computing (300 words) • Nominator's name, affiliation, e-mail address and contact phone number The Tapia conference series and award honors the significant contributions of Richard A. Tapia, a mathematician and professor in the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is internationally known for his research in computational and mathematical sciences and is a national leader in education and outreach programs. Tapia has authored or co-authored two books and more than 80 mathematical research papers. His current positions at Rice are Noah Harding Professor of Computational and Applied Mathematics; Associate Director of Graduate Studies, Office of Graduate Studies; and Director of the Center for Excellence and Equity in Education. In addition to the extensive technical program, the 2005 Tapia conference is aimed at providing a supportive networking environment for under-represented groups across the broad range of computing and information technology, from science to business to the arts to infrastructure. Tapia 2005 is co-sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Society, in cooperation with the Computing Research Association. The 2005 conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Albuquerque. For information about hotel and local travel arrangements, go to its Web site. The Tapia conference series enjoys the support of a number of academic, research and business organizations: the National Science Foundation (NSF), Google, the Engaging People In Cyberinfrastructure (EPIC) collaboration, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Sandia National Laboratories, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Texas A&M University, Auburn University, the University of Texas at Austin, Purdue University, Indiana University, the Computer Science Department at UI Urbana-Champaign, and the Ohio Supercomputer Center have already committed support for Tapia 2005. For more information about the different levels of support and the associated benefits, go to: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Conferences/Tapia2005/benefits.html.