Latest from ACM Awards

Career-Long Contributions

Early-to-Mid-Career Contributions

Specific Types of Contributions

Student Contributions

Regional Awards

SIG Awards

How Awards Are Proposed

Karlstrom Educator Award Goes to Dan Garcia and Brian Harvey,

Dan Garcia, Teaching Professor, UC Berkeley, and Brian Harvey, Teaching Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley, receive the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award for their advocacy of and advances in education to bring the beauty and joy of computing to all students, especially those from historically underrepresented communities. Together Garcia and Harvey have been instrumental in expanding computer science education, most notably through the development of the Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC) curriculum, which began as a national pilot for the CSforALL movement. 

Dan Garcia and Brian Harvey

Ilias Diakonikolas Receives ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award

Ilias Diakonikolas, a Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is the recipient of the 2024 ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award. He is cited for making contributions to the field of algorithmic robust statistics by introducing new techniques to robustly estimate high-dimensional distributions along with a surprising variety of algorithmic applications. The new paradigms that Diakonikolas developed changed the way we think about what is possible for efficient algorithms that process high-dimensional data.

2024 Grace Murray Hopper Award recipient Ilias Diakonikolas

ACM Honors Manish Parashar with Distinguished Service Award

Manish Parashar, Professor, University of Utah, receives the ACM Distinguished Service Award for service and leadership in furthering the transformative impact of computer and computational science on science and engineering. Parashar’s record of service includes leadership at the National Science Foundation (NSF), where he developed NSF’s strategic vision for a national cyberinfrastructure, as well as at the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), where he developed the Future Advancement Computing Ecosystem Strategic Plan (FACE). 

Manish Parasha

Maja Matarić Receives 2024 ACM Eugene L. Lawler Award

Maja Matarić, Professor, University of Southern California, receives the ACM Eugene L. Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics for pioneering socially assistive robotics (SAR) for improving wellness and quality of life for users with special needs. Over the past two decades, Matarić has been the leading figure in the field of socially assistive robotics. These robots are designed to gain insights into the drivers of human behavior related to overcoming challenges. 

Maja Matarić

ACM Recognizes Judith Gal-Ezer for Outstanding Contributions

Judith Gal-Ezer, Professor Emerita, Open University of Israel, receives the Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award in recognition of her sustained contributions to computer science education policy and research and, more broadly, to the ACM Europe Council.Gal-Ezer has been an internationally recognized leader in computing education. For her accomplishments, she has received the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award as well as the ACM SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education. Gal-Ezer has been very active in the ACM Europe Council and its sub-committees.

Judith Gal-Ezer

Software System Award Goes to Developers of MPICH

William Gropp, University of Illinois; Pavan Balaji, Meta; Rajeev Thakur, Yanfei Guo, Kenneth Raffenetti, and Hui Zhou (all of Argonne National Laboratory), receive the ACM Software System Award for MPICH , which has powered 30 years of progress in computational science and engineering by providing scalable, robust, and portable communication software for parallel computers. The development of the MPICH software system began in 1992 as proof-of-concept for the emerging Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard. 

William Gropp, Pavan Balaji, Rajeev Thakur, Yanfei Guo, Kenneth Raffanetti, and Hui Zhou

ACM Names Cordelia Schmid 2025-2026 Athena Lecturer

ACM has named Cordelia Schmid, Research Director at Inria, the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology, as the 2025-2026 ACM Athena Lecturer. Schmid is recognized for outstanding contributions to computer vision in image retrieval, object recognition, and video understanding. Her work has helped computers understand, perceive, and interact with the visual world. In keeping with the Athena Lecturer Award’s goal of honoring both technical and service contributions, Schmid is recognized for building an active research community. Her skills in mentorship and supervision are also renowned among her peers.

2025-2026 ACM Athena Lecturer Cordelia Schmid

ACM, AAAI Recognize Peter Stone for Significant Contributions to AI

Peter Stone, Professor, University of Texas at Austin and Chief Scientist, Sony AI, receives the ACM - AAAI Allen Newell Award for significant contributions to the theory and practice of artificial intelligence (AI), especially in reinforcement learning, multiagent systems, transfer learning, and intelligent robotics. As a leading figure in AI research, Stone has fundamentally advanced how autonomous agents learn, plan, and collaborate. His groundbreaking work on reinforcement learning algorithms has enabled robots to acquire skills through experience.

Peter Stone

Hugo Krawczyk Receives Kanellakis Award

Hugo Krawczyk, Senior Principal Scientist, Amazon, receives the ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award for pioneering and lasting contributions to the theoretical foundations of cryptographically secure communications, and to the protocols that form the security foundations of the Internet. Krawczyk’s most high-profile contribution is his work on the SIGMA authenticated key-exchange protocol. SIGMA has become a cornerstone of the most widely used communication protocols on the Internet. It is now implemented in billions of devices and web browsers, making it a fundamental component of online security.

Hugo Krawczyk

ACM Breakthrough in Computing Award Goes to Jason Cong

ACM has named Jason Cong, the holder of the Volgenau Chair for Engineering Excellence at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, as the recipient of the 2024 ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award. Cong is recognized for fundamental contributions to the design and automation of field-programmable systems and customizable computing. During his career in both academia and industry, Cong developed an extraordinary array of tools to automate integrated circuit design FPGAs.

2024 ACM Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award recipient Jason Cong

Rachid Guerraoui Receives 2024 ACM Barroso Award

ACM has named Rachid Guerraoui the recipient of the inaugural ACM Luiz André Barroso Award for theoretical and applied contributions to distributed computing and impactful work on promoting computer science in Africa. He has made groundbreaking contributions that have shaped the landscape of distributed computing, provided new insights into managing transactions in concurrent environments, and has provided tools and frameworks for understanding and optimizing transaction performance. Guerraoui is a Professor in the School of Computer and Communications Sciences at EPFL, where he is also Director of the Distributed Computing Laboratory. The award was established to recognize researchers from historically underrepresented communities who have made fundamental contributions to computer science.

2023 ACM Fran Allen Award Recipient Margaret Martonosi

Torsten Hoefler Receives 2024 ACM Prize in Computing

ACM has named Torsten Hoefler, Director of the Scalable Parallel Computing Laboratory at ETH Zurich, as the recipient of the ACM Prize in Computing for fundamental contributions to high-performance computing and the ongoing AI revolution. Hoefler developed many of the core capabilities of modern supercomputers and defined key aspects of the algorithms for distributing AI models on them. The work of Hoefler and his colleagues to scale network design in supercomputers has revolutionized the capabilities of these large systems. Hoefler is also the Chief Architect for AI and Machine Learning at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS).

2024 ACM Prize recipient Torsten Hoefler

Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton Receive 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award

Andrew G. Barto and Richard S. Sutton received the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award for developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning. In a series of papers beginning in the 1980s, Barto and Sutton introduced the main ideas, constructed the mathematical foundations, and developed important algorithms for reinforcement learning—one of the most important approaches for creating intelligent systems. Barto is Professor Emeritus of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Sutton is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Alberta, a Research Scientist at Keen Technologies, and a Fellow at Amii (Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute).

2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award recipients Andrew G. Barto and Richard S. Sutton

ACM Names 2024 Distinguished Members

ACM has named 56 Distinguished Members for outstanding contributions to the field. All 2024 inductees are longstanding ACM members and were selected by their peers for significant technical achievements as well as volunteer service to their professional community. The ACM Distinguished Member program recognizes up to 10 percent of ACM worldwide membership based on professional experience and significant achievements in computing.

ACM Distinguished Members

ACM Names 2024 Fellows

ACM has named 55 members ACM Fellows for significant contributions in areas including computer graphics, cybersecurity, human-computer interaction, data management, machine learning, artificial intelligence, algorithms, visualization, and many more. The ACM Fellows program recognizes the top 1% of ACM Members for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community.

David A. Padua Recognized with Ken Kennedy Award

ACM has named David A. Padua, Donald Biggar Willett Professor Emeritus of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the recipient of the 2024 ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. The Ken Kennedy Award recognizes groundbreaking achievements in parallel and high performance computing. Padua is cited for innovative and usable contributions to the theory and practice of parallel compilation and tools, as well as service to the computing community. The award will be formally presented at The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC24).

2024 Ken Kennedy Award recipient David A. Padua

ACM Announces 2024 ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship Recipients

Ke Fan of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Daniel Nichols of the University of Maryland are the 2024 ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship recipients.The George Michael Memorial Fellowship honors exceptional PhD students throughout the world whose research focus is high-performance computing (HPC) applications, networking, storage, or large-scale data analytics. The Fellowships will be formally presented at the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC24).

IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowships Recipients Ke Fan and Daniel Nichols

Wen-mei Hwu Receives 2024 Eckert-Mauchly Award

Wen-mei Hwu, a Senior Distinguished Research Scientist at NVIDIA and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is the recipient of the ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award. Hwu is recognized for pioneering and foundational contributions to the design and adoption of multiple generations of processor architectures. His fundamental and pioneering contributions have had a broad impact on three generations of processor architectures: superscalar, VLIW, and throughput-oriented manycore processors (GPUs).

 

2024 Eckert-Mauchly Award recipient Wen-mei Hwu

Doctoral Dissertation Award Recognizes Young Researchers

Nivedita Arora is the recipient of the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for demonstrating wireless and batteryless sensor nodes using novel materials and radio backscatter in her dissertation “Sustainable Interactive Wireless Stickers: From Materials to Devices to Applications.” Honorable Mentions for the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award go to Gabriele Farina, whose PhD was earned at Carnegie Mellon University, for his dissertation “Game-Theoretic Decision Making in Imperfect-Information Games”; and William Kuszmaul, whose PhD was earned at MIT, for his dissertation “Randomized Data Structures: New Perspectives and Hidden Surprises.”

Nivedita Arora, Gabriele Farina, William Kuszmaul

ACM Honors John M. Abowd with Policy Award

John M. Abowd, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University, and Chief Scientist, United States Census Bureau (retired), receives the ACM Policy Award for transformative work in modernizing the US Census Bureau’s processing and dissemination of census and survey data, which serves as a model for privacy-aware management of government collected data. Abowd’s work has transformed the government’s capacity to improve the accuracy and availability of vital statistical and data resources, while at the same time, enhancing citizens’ privacy.

John Abowd

ACM President Honors Anand Deshpande With 2023 Presidential Award

ACM President Yannis Ioannidis has recognized Anand Deshpande, Managing Director, Persistent Systems, with the ACM Presidential Award for long-standing contributions to the broader computing community and to ACM. Deshpande has been a major asset of the computing ecosystem of India, having a tangible, technological, economic, and intellectual impact in his country. He has made significant contributions to the local innovation and educational environments through think tanks and professional support foundations, but has also contributed to technology policy issues, advising the Indian government on critical topics.

ACM Awards image

ACM President Honors M. Tamer Özsu With 2023 Presidential Award

ACM President Yannis Ioannidis has recognized M. Tamer Özsu, Professor, University of Waterloo with the ACM Presidential Award for long-standing contributions to the broader computing community and to ACM. Özsu is known for his research work on large-scale distributed data management and his emphasis on system building targeting grand societal challenges. In addition, Özsu has truly dedicated himself to the education of the younger generation, nurturing and inspiring young researchers and practitioners.

M. Tamer Özsu

Margaret Martonosi Receives ACM Fran Allen Award

ACM named Princeton University's Margaret Martonosi the recipient of the 2023 ACM Frances E. Allen Award for Outstanding Mentoring. Martonosi is recognized for outstanding and far-reaching mentoring at Princeton University, in computer architecture, and to the broader computer science community. Martonosi, the Hugh Trumbull Adams ’35 Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University, is a leader in the design, modeling, and verification of power efficient computer architecture. She also recently served as the National Science Foundation Assistant Director leading the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering.

2023 ACM Fran Allen Award Recipient Margaret Martonosi

ACM, CSTA Announce Cutler-Bell Prize Student Recipients

ACM and the Computer Science Teachers Association have announced the 2023-2024 recipients of the ACM/CSTA Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing. The award recognizes computer science talent in high school students and comes with a $10,000 prize, which they will receive at CSTA's annual conference in July. The recipients are Shobhit Agarwal, Reedy High School, Frisco, Texas; Franziska Borneff, Hidden Valley High School, Cave Spring, Virginia; Daniel Mathew, Poolesville High School, Poolesville, Maryland; and Kosha Upadhyay, Bellevue High School, Bellevue, Washington

2023-2024  Cutler Bell recipients  Shobhit Agarwal, Franziska Borneff, Daniel Mathew, Kosha Upadhyay,

2023 Gordon Bell Climate Modelling Prize Awarded

A 19-member research team was awarded the ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling for their project, "The Simple Cloud-Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model Running on the Frontier Exascale System,” proving that by using exascale supercomputers along with a new algorithmic model they have introduced, the longstanding challenge of developing efficient and accurate simulations of deep convective clouds can be accomplished. The award was bestowed during the SC23 conference.

ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling

2023 Gordon Bell Prize Awarded

An eight-member team drawn from American and Indian institutions was named the winner of the 2023 ACM Gordon Bell Prize for the project, “Large-Scale Materials Modeling at Quantum Accuracy: Ab Initio Simulations of Quasicrystals and Interacting Extended Defects in Metallic Alloys,” which presented a framework that combines the accuracy provided by QMB methods with the efficiency of Density-Functional Theory (DFT) to access larger length scales at quantum accuracy. The award was bestowed during the SC23 conference.

2022 Gordon Bell Prize Awarded

List of ACM Awards

Career-Long Contributions

Early-to-Mid-Career Contributions

Specific Types of Contributions

Student Contributions

Regional Awards

SIG Awards

How Awards Are Proposed