ACM Recognizes Leaders Who Have Raised Awareness of Computer Science

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The Association for Computing Machinery
Advancing Computing as a Science & Profession

Contact: Virginia Gold
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NEW YORK, April 14, 2010 – The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) www.acm.org today announced the winners of two awards honoring significant contributions to the computing and information technology field. These awards recognize dedicated professionals whose creativity and commitment to innovation have raised awareness of computer science and its role in changing the way the world lives and works. The recipients will be honored at the ACM Awards Banquet on June 26, in San Francisco, CA.

The awards include:

The Distinguished Service Award to Edward Lazowska for his wide-ranging service to the computing community and his long-standing advocacy for this community at the national level.

Lazowska served as co-chair of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) from 2003-2005, where he championed the importance of computing in achieving federal priorities. He served for six years on the National Research Council’s (NRC) Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) and made major contributions to NRC and CSTB studies involving the information technology innovation ecosystem; the role of information technology in improving learning and countering terrorism; and the management of university intellectual property.

Lazowska also chaired the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association (CRA), the National Science Foundation’s CISE (Computer and Information Science & Engineering) Advisory Committee, and the DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Information Science and Technology (ISAT) Study Group. Recently, he was instrumental in creating and chairing the Computing Community Council (CCC), an NSF-sponsored effort to engage the computing research community in envisioning more audacious research challenges.

Lazowska holds the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a Fellow of ACM, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award to Moshe Y. Vardi for his leadership in restructuring ACM’s flagship publication, Communications of the ACM, into a more effective communications vehicle for the global computing discipline, and for organizing an influential, systematic analysis of offshoring that helped reinforce the case that computing plays a fundamental role in defining success in a competitive global economy.

Vardi’s leadership in redefining Communications created a publication that reflects the best aspects of computing research, education, and practice. As Editor-in-Chief, he added new features that have enabled the activities, contributions and insights in computing to be communicated through a variety of perspectives and contexts. He assembled an editorial board populated with distinguished computing professionals who oversee specific areas including research highlights, practice, contributed and review articles, and news and viewpoints. The result is a publication of interest to practitioners, researchers, educators and the educated public.

As the principal driver of the widely circulated report on Globalization and Offshoring of Software, Vardi worked with Frank Mayadas and William Aspray to assemble a 30-person international taskforce that analyzed the forces underpinning job migration in the computing community. His contributions helped to debunk myths about the future health of the computing field. They also underscored the importance of investing in computing research for innovation, the critical role of computer science skills in the competitive 21^st century, and the need for strong educational systems that incorporate computation as a fundamental component.

Vardi is the Karen Ostrum George Professor in Computational Engineering and Director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice University. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2000 Gödel Prize for outstanding papers in the area of theoretical computer science, the 2005 ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award, and the 2008 ACM SIGMOD E. F. Codd Innovations Award. Vardi is also an ACM Fellow.

About ACM

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery www.acm.org, is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.