EAPLS Board members elections 2015

The 2015 elections for new EAPLS board members were held in March and April of 2015. We had five candidates. EAPLS members were able to vote for their favorite candidate. The following candidates could be elected:

Anya Helene Bagge

University of Bergen
http://www.ii.uib.no/~anya/

To me, EAPLS has been a sponsor of conferences and events (like ETAPS), and a convenient place for reading and sharing announcements of jobs, events and such. This is useful work, and should continue. But to increase its relevance in the modern research community, I think EAPLS should start sponsoring or publishing an open access journal (like EASST does), possibly in cooperation in another association. With its current board and membership already being heavily involved in the editorial staff of major closed journals, it should be possible to pull together a strong board for a (new) top journal for EAPLS researchers.

Dr Tom Crick

Senior Lecturer in Computing Science
Department of Computing & Information Systems
Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK
http://drtomcrick.com
Twitter: @DrTomCrick

Dr Tom Crick is a Senior Lecturer in Computing Science at Cardiff Metropolitan University (UK), having completed his PhD and post­doctoral research at the University of Bath (UK). Tom’s research interests sits at the hardware/software interface and the performance of each: compilers, optimisation, high performance computing, verification and reproducibility. He is the Nesta Data Science Fellow, a 2014 Fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute (EPSRC) and a member of HiPEAC, the European FP7 Network of Excellence on High Performance and Embedded Architecture and Compilation. His research and knowledge activities have been funded by the EPSRC, European Commission, Welsh Government, Innovate UK, HPC Wales and Google, with support from Research Councils UK and the Wellcome Trust. Tom’s wider interests bridge research and science policy, having worked with the UK Research Councils, Welsh and UK Governments on computer science research capability (as well a linking to wider digital economy objectives e.g. Digital Agenda for Europe), along with knowledge transfer activities with Microsoft Research Cambridge, HP and ARM. He was selected for the 2014 Welsh Crucible, a programme of personal, professional and leadership development for the future research leaders of Wales; he is also a 2014 HEA National Teaching Fellow for his work in computer science education. He is a Trustee and Fellow of BCS, The Chartered Institute of IT, as well as a Professional Member of the ACM.

There is a significant opportunity to rejuvenate the activities of EAPLS: building networks for early career researchers, sponsoring new events/initiatives, engaging with the major conferences and journals in our field, encouraging better knowledge transfer activities with industry, as well as raising the profile of the wider research areas in both UK and EU funding streams. We can also be more active in the policy space, by highlighting the educational and economic impact of the wider research areas of programming languages and systems. I would thus like to stand as a candidate for the EAPLS Board to help realise some of these short and medium­term objectives.

Jurriaan Hage

Utrecht University
http://foswiki.cs.uu.nl/foswiki/Hage/WebHome

I agree that the EAPLS is not as so visible as it could and should be. And that is clearly important for such an institution. When I look at the list of activities proposed for EAPLS on the EAPLS website, they all seem perfectly good activities for EAPLS. But on the other hand, I personally do not see ``results’’ of any activities that may be going on. Assuming they do take place an awareness must be created among the general audience and the EAPLS members in particular what is being achieved.

When I think of what I would like to contribute to as a board member, the following comes to mind:
* in line with the above, an increased visibility and awareness of EAPLS in the field
* a large, visible network of researchers in Europe on programming language research, whatever their favorite programming paradigm may be. It would be good to exploit existing (research) social network infrastructure. This should improve the chances of programming language researchers setting up consortia for larger EU proposals.
* foster programming language research by providing inducements and awards (like, e.g., ACM’s Student Research Competition).
I do know that EAPLS already provides inducements by handing out EAPLS Best Paper Awards and the like, but I wonder to which extent this has led to a major take­up. The importance of awards should not be underestimated. In particularly to outsiders, including those outsiders that decide on approving EU projects, it can be helpful in highlighting the excellence in the field, and for the field itself even crucial in maintaining visibility within computer science as a whole.
* as a researcher, I am very interested in the usability of programming technology, in helping the programmer get the most out of his favorite language, whatever his preferred paradigm or language may be. I’d like to see this topic getting more attention in the field.

Tijs van der Storm

Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI)
http://www.cwi.nl/~storm

EAPLS unites most programming language researchers in Europe. What I would like to achieve is increased visibility of EAPLS, both in Europe and elsewhere, for instance by strengthening collaboration with SIGPLAN. Furthermore EAPLS should play a discussion on open access publication.

Anton Wijs

Eindhoven University of Technology
http://www.win.tue.nl/~awijs

In my opinion, it is important that EAPLS is in touch with the current trends in research on programming languages in Europe, raises awareness on the activities in the community, and promotes excellent research in the field. If I would join the EAPLS board, I would strive to achieve an online presence of EAPLS that will more effectively help researchers in finding relevant literature, and pointing them to workshops and conferences that are topic­wise specifically related to their interests.