Grace A. Lewis
IEEE Computer Society
2025 President-Elect 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 President-Elect for 2025 and would appreciate your votes. I am very passionate about the Computer Society vision, mission, and strategic goals and invite you to read about my background and my plan of action if I am elected. Thank you!
Position Statement
The vision of the IEEE Computer Society is “to be the leading provider of technical information, community services, and personalized services to the world’s computing professionals.” I will use my experience as the current IEEE CS First Vice President, past Second Vice President, past Vice President of Technical Activities and Conferences (T&C), and past Board of Governors member, to contribute to this mission and the Society’s Strategic Plan by
- Identifying and executing activities that leverage the success and energy of our student chapters and early career professionals so that they continue to engage with the Society after graduation and as they build their careers
- Identifying mechanisms and incentives for increasing industry participation in all the Society’s activities to bridge the gap between research and practice, which is much needed for real and balanced innovation and impact.
- Leveraging my experience in working with emerging technologies to create better paths for integrating these into our portfolios and keeping our technical communities vibrant and up to date on advances in the field of computing.
- Continuing and starting new activities to improve diversity and inclusion in all areas of the Society, leveraging the collaboration infrastructure that we developed during the pandemic, to reach communities that are still underrepresented.
- Developing a pipeline to increase our volunteer base, including recruitment, training, growth, and recognition.
- Identifying areas of improvement for operation of the Society so that staff can do their jobs more effectively, while promoting, growing, and supporting all our activities and programs.
- Ensuring that the value of being an IEEE and IEEE Computer Society member and volunteer is clearly articulated and known to all existing and potential members such that they join and continue to be active members throughout their career and lifetime
- Developing and supporting events that provide members transparency of Society goals and activities, as well as opportunities to shape these goals and activities.
- 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).
She 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
Grace is currently First Vice President of the IEEE Computer Society, Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Chair of the IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Computer Society Representative to the AI Coalition Future Directions Committee, and an ABET Evaluator for Computer Science undergraduate programs. She 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 and strategic pipeline of projects from research to transition to ensure continued results and impact, which is useful experience to bring to the IEEE CS leadership. As an active volunteer of the IEEE Computer Society, I am known for “getting things done.” In addition to VP duties, I have led several adhoc committees that have resulted in actions and deliverables that have made a difference. 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 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 worked with her at IEEE Computer Society boards and committees with the same success. She has served on the ExCom of IEEE CS Technical Council on Software Engineering (TCSE), IEEE CS Technical & Conference Activities Board (T&C), 2nd VP for IEEE CS, and currently 1st VP for IEEE CS. She is an IEEE diversity and inclusion (D&I) champion and currently serves as the D&I Committee Chair for CS with the goals of fostering an inclusive environment, and coordinating and promoting activities to engage underrepresented groups in computer science and engineering. 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 2025 President-Elect!
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) Since joining the Computer Society Board of Governors in 2021, I witnessed Grace's extraordinary leadership firsthand. As Technical Communities and Conferences (T&C) VP and later 2nd VP, and now 1st VP, she spearheaded key innovations including empowering TC chairs, optimizing conference approval, and boosting D&I. As her T&C Treasurer, I saw her ambitious goals translate into real impact for the Society's technical communities and conferences. Grace provided strong leadership for the volunteer board. Grace is now the 2024 1st VP and I serve as T&C VP. Her leadership and vision extend beyond individual contributions, shaping the very core of the Computer Society.
Grace stands out as a leader in a large volunteer organization. She held successive positions of increasing responsibility on the IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors. Drawing on her professional experience, Grace identifies challenge areas, recruits, and organizes teams, and applies a data-driven approach to solutions. Grace’s impact on the 28 Technical Communities, and 189 conferences central to the Computer Society, empowers volunteer organizers to build communities, with better oversight of reserves, spending, and conference portfolios and use innovative approaches to diversity, and inclusion across the Computer Society.
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 President-Elect 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). 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 1st Vice President of the Computer Society. As a Member-at-Large, and later the IEEE CS T&C Executive Committee’s VP, 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 President-Elect 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 President-Elect.
Erich Neuhold, Hon. Prof. at the University of Vienna, IEEE Computer Society T&C Conference Activities Committee ChairIEEE Computer Society Activities
Committees and Boards
Technical Activities and Conferences (T&C)
Qualifications
Major Accomplishments
Testimonials