Robert J. Simmons: Home →

ACM XRDS

As a member of the editorial board of XRDS, the Association for Computational Machinery's student magazine from 2010-2012, I interviewed and profiled a half-dozen people with interesting stories and careers in the field of computer science. I think these profiles paint an interesting (though obviously incomplete) picture of the amazing range of opportunities that computer science and computer scientists have to make a positive impact on the world.

• Leah Busque: herding TaskRabbits.
  Founder and Chief Product Officer at TaskRabbit. For the issue on "The Role of Academia in the Startup World", Summer 2012. [HTML] [ACM DL] [ACM Free]
• Dickie George: looking back on 40 years at the NSA.
  Former technical director of the National Security Agency's Information Assurance Directorate. For the issue on "The legacy of Alan Turing: Pushing the Boundaries of Computation", Spring 2012. [HTML] [ACM DL] [ACM Free]
• Cameron Wilson: ACM's man in Washington.
  ACM's Director of Public Policy. For the "Computer Science in Service of Democracy" issue, Winter 2011. [HTML] [ACM DL] [ACM Free]
• Ed Boyden: The synthetic neurobiologist.
  Leader of the Synthetic Neurobiology Group and associate professor at MIT's Media Lab. For the "Neuroscience and Computing: Technology on the Brain" issue, Fall 2011. [HTML] [ACM DL] [ACM Free]
• Rob Bernard: Microsoft's green commitment.
  Microsoft's first Chief Environmental Strategist. For the "Green Technologies: From Pollution to Pixels" issue, Summer 2011. [HTML] [ACM DL] [ACM Free]
• Luis von Ahn: ReCaptcha, games with a purpose.
  Carnegie Mellon professor and MacArthur fellow. For the "Comp-YOU-ter" issue, Winter 2010. [HTML] [ACM DL] [ACM Free]

Validation is like typechecking your webpage! XHTML, CSS