Oxford, Mississippi, that is. Home of Ole Miss, and the location of the ACM Southeast Conference, the longest-running regional ACM conference. Should be a fun trip, kicking off with a meeting with the Ole Miss supercomputer center team. In planning our logistics, one theme kept popping up: where were we going to get BBQ? I love that the end users know the relative merits of Memphis airport BBQ, compared to local fare (Memphis is the closest airport to Oxford).
The conference is full of great papers from professors and students alike, ranging from database research to gesture-based computing work that crosses from computer science into biology and back again. I’m honored to be a keynote speaker along with Nell Dale, one of the first women to receive a PhD in Computer Science. It’s a big weekend at Ole Miss as well, with the Ole Miss Women’s Council presenting an award to Leigh Anne Tuoy tomorrow. Yes, that Leigh Anne, from The Blind Side, in real life.
I’m fond of saying that old and large institutions change slowly, like a cruise ship turning in the ocean. It’s planned, it’s careful and it involves a lot of people. The OMWC captures this idea perfectly in explaining their charter. It’s also the inverse of what I’ll be talking about – how do we keep computer science from becoming a “large institution”, and ensure it changes quickly, adapts to its environment (which is now cross-science, cross-discipline and definitely global in nature) and remains fun? What better place to have that discussion than at a revered school seriously considering Admiral Ackbar for its mascot?
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