FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 20, 2003
CONTACT: Portia Eley, Boston's Community Medical Group, Pme89@hotmail.com

RICHARD TAPIA CELEBRATION OF DIVERSITY IN COMPUTING 2003 CONFERENCE ANNOUNCES PLENARY SPEAKERS
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Conferences/Tapia2003/

The Coalition to Diversify Computing, in cooperation with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Computing Research Association (CRA), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Computer Society (IEEE-CS), announces the plenary speakers for this year's Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing 2003 conference, which will take place October 15-18, 2003 in Atlanta, Georgia.

According to Bryant York, Portland State University, Tapia 2003 co-chair, "This year's theme of 'Building Diverse Leadership in Computing' is well reflected in our slate of plenary speakers, each of which is an outstanding leader in their discipline." The plenary speakers and their talks include:

• Peter Freeman, Assistant Director, Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, National Science Foundation, "Revolutionizing Science and Engineering with Cyberinfrastructure."
• Jose Munoz, Acting Director of Simulation and Computer Science, National Nuclear Security Administration, DOE, "Technology Challenges in High-end Computing."
• Eloy Rodriguez, James A. Perkins Endowed Chair in Environmental Biology and Studies, Cornell University, "'Computers! I Don't Need No Stinking Computers' - Famous Last Words From a Tropical Medicine Drug Explorer."
• Valerie Taylor, Stewart and Stevenson Professor and Head, Department of Computer Science, Texas A&M University, "Computational Grids: Analyzing the Performance."
• Warren Washington, Senior Scientist and Head, Climate Change Research Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research; Chair, National Science Board, "Issues and Problems with Diversity."
• Margaret Wright, Silver Professor and Chair, Computer Science Department, New York University, "Seeking, and Sometimes Finding, the Best in Work and in Life."

The conference honors the contributions of Dr. Richard A. Tapia of Rice University to the growth of diversity in computing and related disciplines. The conference will include technical papers, panels, birds of a feather, and a doctoral consortium, which is a full-day event that provides an opportunity for Ph.D. students to present, discuss, and explore their research interests and career objectives with a panel of established researchers.

For more information on the conference, please visit: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Conferences/Tapia2003/
Registration and hotel information can be found at http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Conferences/Tapia2003/hotel.html
The conference early registration deadline is September 12, 2003.

The Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing 2003 conference is being planned by the Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC) - http://www.cdc-computing.org - whose mission is to increase the visibility of people of color in computing research. CDC is a joint organization of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Computing Research Association (CRA), and the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS). Tapia 2003 is sponsored by the ACM and CRA in cooperation with IEEE-CS. It is supported by Platinum Supporter the National Science Foundation; Silver Supporters ACM, AGEP Program at Rice University, Hewlett-Packard Company, Microsoft, Inc., National Center for Supercomputing Applications, National Computational Science Alliance, Sandia National Laboratories, HPCWire, DSstar, and GridToday; and Bronze Supporters AAAI, Argonne National Laboratory - Mathematics and Computer Science Division, EOT-PACI, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Texas A&M University Computer Science Department, University of Kentucky Center for Computational Sciences; and Contributors Georgia Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, Portland State University, Purdue University, Ohio Supercomputer Center, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center.