Grace A. Lewis
IEEE Computer Society
2024 First Vice President Nominee
I am a Principal Researcher and lead of the Tactical and AI-Enabled Systems (TAS) initiative at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute. I am currently running for First Vice President for 2024 and would appreciate your votes. I am very passionate about the Computer Society mission and invite you to read about my background and my plan of action if I was elected. Thank you!
Position Statement
The vision of the IEEE Computer Society Strategic Plan is “to be the leading provider of technical information, community services, and personalized services to the world’s computing professionals.” I can contribute to this mission by:
- Identifying and executing activities targeted at leveraging the success and energy of our student chapters and early career professionals so that they continue to engage with the Society after graduation as they build their careers.
- Identifying mechanisms and incentives for increasing industry participation in all the Society’s activities, and in particular our conferences, to create awareness and synergies between researchers and practitioners, which is much needed for both parties for innovation and impact.
- Leveraging my experience in working with emerging technologies to create better paths for integrating these into our portfolios and keeping our communities vibrant and up to date on advances in all fields of computing.
- Continuing activities targeted at improving diversity and inclusion at all levels of the Society, leveraging the collaboration infrastructure that we were forced to develop due to the pandemic, to reach communities that are still underrepresented in the Society.
- Finally, as a more personal goal, creating stronger links between the Society and Latin America (Region 9), a community full of vibrant and enthusiastic researchers and practitioners that simply do not have the resources that other countries have.
Biography
Grace Lewis is a Principal Researcher at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) where she conducts applied research on how software engineering and software architecture principles, practices and tools need to evolve in the face of emerging technologies.
She is the principal investigator for the Automating Mismatch Detection and Testing in Machine Learning Systems project that is developing toolsets to support these two activities, in addition to other projects that are advancing the state of the practice in software engineering for machine learning (SE4ML). Grace is also the lead for the Tactical and AI-Enabled Systems (TAS) applied research and development team at the SEI that is creating and transitioning innovative solutions, principles, and best practices for
- architecting and developing systems to support teams operating at the tactical edge in resource-constrained environments
- engineering AI software systems
- using AI/ML at the edge for improved capabilities and mission support
She is currently Second Vice President of the IEEE Computer Society, VP of the IEEE Computer Society Technical & Conference Activities Board (T&C), Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Vice-Chair for the IEEE Computer Society Technical Community on Software Engineering (TCSE), Alternate Representative for IEEE-CS on the ABET CSAB Board of Directors, as well as an ABET Evaluator for Computer Science undergraduate programs. Grace holds a B.Sc. in Software Systems Engineering and a Post-Graduate Specialization in Business Administration from Icesi University in Cali, Colombia; a Master in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University; and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
My professional career has spanned industry, academia and government. In my current position at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI), a federally-funded research and development center, I perform and transition research from academia to government and industry. As such, I bring expertise in bridging these communities, which are all IEEE stakeholders. As an Initiative Lead my job is to maintain an active pipeline of projects from research to transition to ensure continued results and impact, which is useful experience to bring to the IEEE CS leadership. Finally, as a female Hispanic engineer, I bring a perspective that would help to ensure that IEEE activities are inviting to all minorities and underserved communities.
I have worked with Dr. Lewis on multiple impactful initiatives of the IEEE Computer Society during the past four years and have seen firsthand how much she cares about the success of the IEEE Computer Society community in general and its conferences in particular. She worked tirelessly during the COVID period to ensure conferences could occur virtually, studying and implementing sustainable approaches for the execution of virtual conferences that provided a positive experience for the attendees while mitigating the additional load on the organizers. Dr. Lewis is committed to delivering fairness, diversity, and inclusion. She was instrumental in creating financial support for conference organizers, providing venues across the IEEE CS conferences with the resources to create a more diverse community of attendees and speakers. Dr. Lewis is also a role model and a mentor for many of us. On several occasions, I have asked her for advice, and she has always been keen to provide constructive feedback. I strongly endorse her for the position of 1st VP of the IEEE Computer Society. Dr. Lewis will be a strong voice and committed representative of all of us at the IEEE Computer Society.
Michela Taufer, Dongarra Professor at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, IEEE CS Treasurer, and former Chair of the IEEE-CS Technical Meeting Request Committee (TMRC) for the Technical & Conference Activities Board I have known Dr. Grace Lewis for many years and admire her for her outstanding leadership, being highly organized, and getting things done. She is an outstanding leader in the software engineering community and has served IEEE Computer Society in many different roles. With her exceptional organizational skills, she has orchestrated many highly successful conferences and workshops. I have seen her orchestrate various software engineering conferences and worked with her at IEEE Computer Society boards and committees. She has served on the ExCom of IEEE CS Technical Council on Software Engineering (TCSE), IEEE CS Technical & Conference Activities Board (T&C), and as 2nd VP for IEEE CS. She is an IEEE diversity and inclusion (D&I) champion and currently Vice President of the T&C Board overseeing the operations and budgets of over 250 financially and technically co-sponsored CS conferences and over 30 CS technical communities. In her engagements and activities, she has been highly successful in forging connections between academia, industry and government. It is a great honour for me to enthusiastically recommend Dr. Grace Lewis for the position of 2023 IEEE Computer Society 1st Vice President.
Hausi Muller, Professor at University of Victoria, Co-Chair of the IEEE Quantum Initiative, IEEE Computer Society Past VP of Technical and Conference Activities (T&C) I have worked with Grace since January 2021 when I joined the CS Board of Governors. Grace Lewis was the VP for the Technical & Conference Activities Board (T&C), and she had previously served as Treasurer for the Technical & Conference Activities Board (T&C) in 2020. Grace asked me to replace her as Treasurer and to join the T&C ExCom for 2021 and later reappointed me to that position for 2022 and 2023. From the beginning, it was clear that Grace brought innovative data and reporting to the treasury and was able to work with the Computer Society staff to improve understanding, tracking, and management of T&C budget and expenses. I learned a tremendous amount from Grace about T&C and the Computer Society. I was immediately impressed by Grace’s organizational, leadership, and communication skills. She provided guidance, and training and set ambitious goals for a volunteer organization. In her tenure as VP of T&C and 2nd VP of the Computer Society, Grace and her T&C ExCom realized important changes for the heart of the computer society, its Technical Communities, and conferences. In fact, one of the first things that Grace did was to change the name of Technical Committees to Technical Communities. While this may seem small it reflects Grace’s commitment to community involvement.
As 2nd Vice President in 2023, Grace set goals to Empower, Motivate and Celebrate TC Chairs, Benchmark the Conference Approval Process, and Improve D&I in T&C Activities. She and her board made substantial and visible progress against all of these goals.
Grace is passionate, organized, and a leader who motivates and educates communities. She understands and connects with all levels of the Computer Society and if elected will significantly advance the society. I wholeheartedly endorse her for 1st Vice President in the upcoming IEEE Computer Society election.
Terry Benzel, Associate Director of the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) of the University of Southern California and Director of the Networking Cybersecurity Research Division at ISI, IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors (2021-2023), IEEE Computer Society T&C Treasurer I have known Dr. Lewis for a number of years as a researcher and we have worked quite intensively together in the IEEE CS environment. I am the current chair of the Conference Activities Committee, a subcommittee of the Technical & Conference Activities Board (T&C) that is now headed by Dr. Lewis. Dr. Lewis has done a great job in all her many volunteer functions at the computer Society. Grace is an IEEE Senior Member and currently 2nd Vice President of the Computer Society. As a Member-at-Large and later the IEEE CS T&C Executive Committee’s Treasurer she led an ad-hoc committee on ethics, diversity and inclusion (EDI). The resulting EDI statement, and an associated code of conduct, have been propagated to all TCs and conference organization committees. Her steps from appointment to appointment inside the Computer Society show clearly the important and essential contributions she has made to the Computer Society, the Technical Communities and their conferences. She has been able to move the activities of those committees much closer to the wider CS membership by establishing monthly (virtual) meetings of the Chairs of the Technical Communities and therefore to the conferences and other activities these communities organize. I fully support her candidacy for 1st Vice President in the upcoming IEEE Computer Society election. She will continue to make essential contributions to the Computer Society, its organization and of course most importantly to its members as those are a big concern for her.
But we should not forget that next to all her CS related activities, she is also a great and internationally well-known scientist. She has worked on many security aspects of computer systems and has lately concentrated on the very important issue of IoT security and safety. These small devices that are all around us have to be safe and secure, otherwise they would open a door to all intrusion aspects of our worldwide connected computing environment.
To repeat again I support without any reservations her candidacy for 1st Vice President.
Erich Neuhold, IEEE Computer Society T&C Conference Activities Committee Chair Grace Lewis has been serving the IEEE Computer Society in many different volunteering roles as well as chairing a number of highly topical ad-hoc committees. She knows the structure and operation of the Computer Society well, and has had a lasting impact on several improvements to policies and procedures that ultimately benefited the CS as a whole. Based on my role as the chair of the Technical Activities Committee, I have had regular interactions with Grace on a diverse topic of subject matters, ranging from budgets and spending, to D&I activities, membership rallies, and awards. She has perpetually demonstrated her extraordinary management skills, professionalism, and passion. She is a role model, and I support her candidacy for the role of the IEEE CS 1st Vice President without hesitation.
Andreas Reinhardt, Professor for Energy Informatics @ TU Clausthal, IEEE Computer Society T&C Technical Activities Committee (TAC) ChairIEEE Computer Society Activities
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