James Allan Elected Chair of the CRA Board of Directors
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Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) Professor and Associate Dean of Research and Engagement James Allan has been elected chair of the Computing Research Association (CRA) Board of Directors. He will begin a two-year term on July 1, 2025.
Founded in 1972, the CRA seeks to guide the computing research community by fostering collaboration and advocating on behalf of researchers. The Board of Directors addresses issues affecting the broader realm of computing research and shapes responses to policy and technological challenges. As chair, Allan will work with the Board to direct strategic initiatives in partnership with academia, industry, and government, aligning with the CRA’s mission to support and strengthen computing research throughout North America.
“We’re at a pivotal moment for our field—one that calls for collaborative innovation, shared responsibility, and a commitment to advancing computing in ways that benefit all,” says Allan. “I’m eager to build on the Board’s strong foundation and expand its efforts, ensuring that our research community remains a powerful engine of discovery and opportunity.”
Allan joined the computer science faculty at UMass Amherst in 1994 after earning a doctorate in computer science from Cornell University. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), was elected to the ACM SIGIR Academy in 2021, and has received several honors, including the ACM SIGIR Test of Time Award in 2016. He joined the CRA Board in 2018 and has served on the Executive Committee and as treasurer since 2019. He will vacate his current role as treasurer upon assuming the position of chair.
Allan’s research focuses on methods for improving how information is searched, organized, and evaluated, including applications in event detection, cross-language retrieval, and developing methods to understand the traditionally opaque inner workings of large language models. He also serves as Director of the UMass Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval (CIIR).
