About ACM Athena Lecturer Award

This award celebrates women researchers who have made fundamental contributions to Computer Science.  Each year ACM honors a preeminent woman computer scientist as the Athena Lecturer. The recipient gives an invited talk at a major ACM conference of her choice. A video of the talk is made available on the ACM website.  The award carries a cash prize of $25,000.  Financial support for the Athena Lecturer Award is provided by Two Sigma.

 

Recent Athena Lecturer Award News

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

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