The Center for Research on Computation and Society (CRCS, commonly pronounced "circus") is a research center at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

that focuses on

interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, economi ...

research combining

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

with

social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

. It is based in

Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering school within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering degrees in engineering and applied sciences to graduate students admitted ...

. It is currently directed by

Milind Tambe Milind Shashikant Tambe is an Indian-American Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from India. The terms Asian Indian and East Indian are used to avoid confusion with Native Americans in the United St ...

History

The center was officially founded in 2005, although there are appearances of CRCS affiliation back in 1996. The center name mimics the name of the centers for Internet and Society such as Stanford's or Harvard's.The Privacy Tools Project was one of the most important efforts led by CRCS. It received funding from multiple sources from 2009 throughout 2020 in order to research and build tools to enhance privacy, in a common effort with Harvard's Berkman Klein Center, Harvard's Data Privacy Lab, and

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

Libraries. The CRCS founding director was Stuart M. Shieber. After him, the center was directed by

Greg Morrisett John Gregory Morrisett is a computer science scholar who has been serving as dean and vice provost of Cornell Tech in New York City since June 2019. Previously he served as dean for computing and information science at Cornell University in Itha ...

and later by

Salil Vadhan Salil Vadhan is an American computer scientist. He is Vicky Joseph Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University. After completing his undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Computer Science at Harvard in 1995, he ...

until 2015, when

Margo Seltzer Margo Ilene Seltzer is an American computer scientist. She is currently the Canada 150 Research Chair in Computer Systems and the Cheriton Family Chair in Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. Previously, Seltzer was the Herchel ...

was named new director. In 2018, after her departure to

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, she was replaced as director by

Jim Waldo Jim Waldo is an American computer scientist and the Chief Technology Officer of Harvard University. He is the Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Professor of Tec ...

. When Milind Tambe joined Harvard in September 2019 he became the new center director. The center has a yearly fellowship program, and relevant past fellows include

Simson Garfinkel Simson L. Garfinkel (born 1965) is an American computer scientist. He is the Chief Scientist and Chief Operating Officer of BasisTech in Somerville, Massachusetts. He was previously a program scientist at AI2050, part of Schmidt Futures. He ...

Ariel Procaccia Ariel D. Procaccia () is an Israeli-American computer scientist. He is the Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University. He was previously an associate professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. He is known f ...

. It also hosts regular public talks ("seminars") with distinguished invited speakers, which are usually video recorded. Some speakers include Susan Crawford,

Bruce Schneier Bruce Schneier (; born January 15, 1963) is an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer. Schneier is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Berkman ...

or Megan Price.

Research

The center has covered a broad spectrum of research lines within computer science, typically with social aspects. These include social computing, privacy-enhancing technologies, encryption and data security, misinformation, machine learning fairness, internet of things, or a citizen-science platform.

References

{{authority control Research institutes in Massachusetts Computing and society Research institutes established in 2005 2005 establishments in Massachusetts Harvard University Computer science institutes in the United States Scientific organizations established in 2005 Information technology research institutes

History

Research

See also

References