ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award

Overview

ACM established the Doctoral Dissertation Award program to recognize and encourage superior research and writing by doctoral candidates in computer science and engineering. The award is presented each June at the ACM Awards Banquet and is accompanied by a prize of $20,000 plus travel expenses to the banquet.  As of January 1, 2014 all winning dissertations are published exclusively in print and electronic formats as part of the ACM Books Series, which includes distribution through the ACM Digital Library.  Honorable Mention(s) may also be awarded, with a prize of $10,000 shared among recipients.  Financial sponsorship of the award is provided by Google.

Eligibility

Only a Ph.D. student’s advisor may nominate a dissertation.  For each year’s award cycle, a nominated dissertation must have been successfully defended (not deposit date) by the department between October 2018 through (and including) September 2019.  The dissertation submitted should be a finalized version; if a student or advisor thinks a dissertation will be more competitive after revision, the dissertation defense should be postponed if necessary.  Nominations are welcomed from any country, but only English language versions will be accepted.  Only one nomination may be submitted per institution.  If an institution granted more than 10 PhD’s in that year, two dissertations may be nominated.

Next Deadline

October 31, 2019  - End of Day, Anywhere on Earth (AoE), UTC -12

Selection Criteria

Dissertations will be reviewed for technical depth and significance of the research contribution, potential impact on theory and practice, and quality of presentation.

Submissions

Nominations for the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award should be submitted using the online nomination form.  Make sure to select the Doctoral Dissertation Award in the dropdown box at the top.  Submitted materials should explain the contribution in terms understandable to a non-specialist.   Each nomination involves several components:

• Name, address, phone number, and email address of the nominator (the student’s thesis advisor) 

• Name, address, and email address of the candidate (person being nominated).  Affiliation should be the name of the school.

• Suggested citation if the candidate is selected.  This should be a concise statement (maximum of 25 words) describing the key technical or professional accomplishment for which the candidate merits this award.  Note that the final wording for awardees will be at the discretion of the Award Committee.

• Nomination statement (200-300 words in length) addressing why the candidate should receive this award.  This should address the significance of the dissertation, not simply repeat the information in the abstract.

• Copy of the dissertation, together with a copyright transfer form http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/copyright-and-license-forms filled out by the candidate and assigning exclusive publication rights to ACM (select either the copyright or license form).  Copyright will revert to the author if it is not selected for publication.  The copyright form can be attached as the last page of the dissertation in your pdf upload.

• Endorsement letters.  The nomination must include an endorsement letter from the department head.  In addition, at least 3, and not more than 5, supporting letters should be included from experts in the field who can provide additional insights or evidence of the dissertation’s impact.  (The nominator/advisor may not write a letter of support.)  Each letter should include the name, address, and telephone number of the endorser.  The nominator should collect the letters and bundle them for submission.  The endorsement letter and supporting letters can be combined in one file in your pdf upload.

For questions on the above, please contact us at acm-awards@acm.org, or Jade Morris, ACM Awards Committee Liaison.  ACM's conflict-of-interest guidelines apply to all award nominations.