In Memoriam: Former CRA Board Member William Wulf

The below post was originally published in the CRA Bulletin. Bill Wulf was a friend and supporter of the CCC during his many years in the computing research community. His wife, Anita Jones, was a Founding Member of the CCC and remained on the Council until 2014. She has continued to be an avid supporter of postdocs in the community, and was a key member of the Steering Committee for the recent CIFellows programs.     

CRA was sad to learn of the loss of former Board member William A. Wulf. He was an outstanding leader in the computing research community and will be greatly missed.

Wulf served on the CRA Board of Directors from 1990-1993 and received the CRA Distinguished Service Award in 1994. In 2002, Wulf was an organizer – along with his wife Anita Jones –  of CRA’s “Grand Research Challenges” conferences, a series of workshops that sought “out-of-the-box” thinking to expose some of the exciting, deep challenges yet to be met in computing research.

In addition to CRA service, Wulf was a past Chair of the National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, former President of the National Academy of Engineering, and past Assistant Director of NSF CISE. Wulf was a major supporter of initiatives to broaden participation in computing, and a passionate advocate in DC for computing and all of the STEM fields.

We are grateful for Bill’s involvement in CRA and his deep engagement with and service to the computing research community. Our thoughts are with Anita, his family, and all those that had the pleasure of knowing him.