INDUSTRY

Dynamic keynote and plenary speakers from industry, academia, and research have been scheduled for the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing 2005 conference, which will take place October 19-22 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Early-bird registration at reduced rates is open until Sunday, Sept. 18. In the conference’s keynote address, Mark E. Dean, IBM fellow and vice president of IBM’s Almaden Research Center, will highlight "Opportunities in the 21st Century Computing Industry." Drawing on his more than 25 years of experience in the information technology field, Dean will discuss where he believes the fast-paced, ever-changing computing industry is headed, focusing on several areas where innovations are needed or are likely to occur, as well as an emerging business domain within the industry where many skilled workers will be particularly needed. Plenary speakers include: * Fran Berman, director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Berman will discuss "Data and the Next Generation," exploring some of the key issues involved in developing the data cyberinfrastructure critical for enabling the next generation of discoveries and discoverers. * Janice Cuny, program director of the Broadening Participation in Computing initiative at the National Science Foundation. Cuny will discuss "Changing the Places Where We Work: Diversifying Computing," covering NSF’s efforts to increase diversity in computing. * Thomas M. Guerrero, an assistant professor at the University of Texas’ M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Guerrero will discuss the potential for new methods to image the functioning lung to improve cancer treatment and broadly impact the practice of medicine. The conference program also includes two days of technical presentations, a poster session featuring more than 20 research projects, and a number of panel discussions aimed at increasing the number and success of students from underrepresented groups in all areas of computing. The Tapia conference honors the contributions of Dr. Richard A. Tapia of Rice University to the growth of diversity in computing and related disciplines and is co-sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Society, in cooperation with the Computing Research Association. The Tapia conference series enjoys the financial support of 25 academic, research and business organizations at several levels: * Platinum Supporter: the National Science Foundation (NSF). * Gold Supporter: the Rice-Houston Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) Program. * Silver Supporters: the Engaging People In Cyberinfrastructure (EPIC) collaboration, Google, IBM Research, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Microsoft, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, the Computer Science Department at Texas A&M University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. * Bronze Supporters: Auburn University, Hewlett-Packard, Indiana University, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Information Technology at Purdue University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. * Contributors: the University of North Texas, the Computer Science Department and the College of Science at Purdue University, the Computer Science Department at UI Urbana-Champaign, and the Ohio Supercomputer Center. For more information about the different levels of support and the associated benefits, go to: its Web site. For full information on the conference, including a schedule and information on all the technical papers, panels, birds-of-a-feather sessions, and the doctoral consortium, see its Web site.