ACM Awards

Axel Huebl of Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (Technical University of Dresden) and Johann Rudi of The Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (The University of Texas at Austin) have been named recipients of the 2016 ACM/IEEE George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship. The Fellowships will be formally presented at SC16 in November.

The 2016 Donald E. Knuth Prize will be awarded to Noam Nisan of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for contributions to theoretical computer science in areas including communication complexity, pseudorandom number generators, interactive proofs, and algorithmic game theory. It will be presented at the Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2016) in October.

ACM has named 45 Distinguished Members for their individual contributions to computing. Their achievements have advanced the science, engineering and education of computing, and highlight its growing role in the major technological advances shaping society today. The ACM Distinguished Member program recognizes members based on professional experience as well as significant achievements in the computing field.

The 2015 ACM Software System Award honors Richard Stallman, founder and President of the Free Software Foundation, for development and leadership of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection), which has enabled extensive software and hardware innovation, and has been a lynchpin of the free software movement.

Brent Waters of the University of Texas at Austin has been named the recipient of the 2015 Grace Murray Hopper Award for the introduction and development of the concepts of attribute-based and functional encryption. His innovations enhance security efforts at a time when greater volumes of highly confidential data are moving to the cloud.

ACM's Council on Women (ACM-W) has recognized Jennifer Rexford of Princeton University for her contributions to data networking. Her innovations in advancing network efficiency have greatly enhanced the stability and flow of Internet transmissions, and make data networks easier to design, understand and manage. The Athena Lecturer is invited to present a lecture at an ACM event.

Qualcomm Technologies Vice President of Technology Michael Luby will receive ACM’s 2015 Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award for groundbreaking contributions to erasure correcting codes, which are essential for improving the quality of video transmission over a variety of networks, including mobile, broadcast and satellite channels.

Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research is the recipient of the 2015 ACM – AAAI Allen Newell Award for groundbreaking contributions in artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction, encompassing both theoretical innovations and important practical applications. He is best known for his pioneering research in developing principles and models of computational intelligence and action.

UC Berkeley professor Armando Fox has been named the recipient of the 2015 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award for leadership in online computing education through creation of innovative courses, tools, and inexpensive textbooks used worldwide, providing access to quality software engineering education.

Oxford e-Research Centre visiting professor Ron Perrott will receive the 2015 ACM Distinguished Service Award for providing vision and leadership in high-performance computing and e-science, championing new initiatives and advocating collaboration among interested groups at both national and international levels.

Chris Stephenson, Head of Computer Science Education Programs at Google Inc., was recognized for creating the Computer Science Teachers Association, an international organization dedicated to supporting teachers and pursuing excellence in CS education for K-12 students.

Gerhard Schimpf, who serves as Chair of ACM Europe’s Council of European Chapter Leaders, was recognized for helping to establish ACM Europe, advocating ACM’s involvement in the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, and enlightening students and professionals throughout Europe to the value of ACM membership.

Julian Shun has received ACM's 2015 Doctoral Dissertation Award for work on scalable parallel programs. Honorable Mentions went to Aaron Sidford of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for work on linear programming, and Siavash Mirarab of the University of Texas at Austin for an algorithm to analyze large-scale biological sequence data efficiently and accurately.

Swarnendu Biswas, Thomas Degueule, Christopher Theisen and Jeevana Priya Inala were the 2016 Grand Finals winners of ACM’s Student Research Competition. The SRC Grand Finals are the culmination of a year-long competition that involved more than 300 computer science students presenting research projects at 22 major ACM conferences.

The first-ever winners of the ACM/CSTA Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing were announced on March 19 at the Living Computer Museum. Bestowed by ACM and the Computer Science Teachers Association, the award recognizes computer science talent in high school students and comes with a $10,000 prize.