This award is presented to an individual or individuals who have made significant and lasting research contributions to the theory or practice of software engineering.
In addition to the typical awards benefits, recipients are invited to give a keynote presentation at the ICSE conference in the year in which the award is made.
Consult the main SIGSOFT Awards page for key dates, nomination and eligibility instructions, and a link to the submission portal.
If you have questions about this award, please contact sigsoft-research-award (at) acm (dot) org.
Winners
- 2025 Martin Rinard, MIT, for fundamental contributions in pioneering the new fields of program repair and approximate computing.
- 2024 Tsong Yueh Chen, Swinburne University of Technology, for contributions to software testing through the invention and development of metamorphic testing.
- 2023 Gail Murphy, University of British Columbia, for pioneering contributions to recommenders for software engineering and program comprehension that have impacted both theory and practice
- 2022 Lionel Briand, University of Ottawa and Centre for ICT Security, Reliability, and Trust (SnT), University of Luxembourg, for contributions in software testing, software quality assurance, and context-driven software engineering research, notably in exemplary collaborations with industry
- 2021 Prem Devanbu, UC Davis, for profoundly changing the way researchers think about software by exploring connections between source code and natural language
- 2020 Michael Ernst
- 2019 Mark Harman
- 2018 Andreas Zeller
- 2017 Daniel Jackson
- 2016 James Herbsleb
- 2015 Carlo Ghezzi
- 2014 Alexander Wolf
- 2013 David Notkin
- 2012 Lori Clarke
- 2011 David Garlan and Mary Shaw
- 2010 Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides (posthumously)
- 2009 Richard N. Taylor
- 2008 Axel van Lamsweerde
- 2007 Elaine J. Weyuker
- 2006 David Harel
- 2005 Jeff Kramer and Jeff Magee
- 2004 Nancy Leveson
- 2003 Leon J. Osterweil
- 2002 Gerard Holzmann
- 2001 Michael Jackson
- 2000 Victor Basili
- 1999 Harlan Mills (one-time posthumous)
- 1999 Niklaus Wirth
- 1998 David Parnas
- 1997 Barry Boehm
Committee
2025
- Lionel Briand, University of Ottawa, Canada and LERO, University of Limerick, Ireland (chair)
- Benoit Baudry, University of Montreal, Canada
- Domenico Bianculli, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
- Jialun Cao, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China
- Paola Spoletini, Kennesaw University, USA
- Jun Sun, SMU, Singapore
- Lin Tan, Purdue University, USA
- Yang Liu, NTU, Singapore
- Andrea Zisman, Open University, UK
- Marsha Chechik, University of Toronto, Canada (SIGSOFT chair, non-voting)
- Claire Le Goues, Carnegie Mellon University, USA (SIGSOFT award chair, non-voting)
2024
- Walid Maalej, University of Hamburg, Germany (chair)
- Filippo Lanubile, University of Bari, Italy (deputy chair)
- Lionel Briand, University of Ottawa, Canada and University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
- Katsuro Inoue, Nanzan University, Japan
- Barbara Paech, Heidelberg University, Germany
- David Shepherd, Louisiana State University, USA
- Paola Spoletini, Kennesaw State University, USA
- Sebastian Uchitel, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Thomas Zimmermann, Microsoft Research, United States (SIGSOFT chair, non-voting)
- David Lo, Singapore Management University, Singapore (SIGSOFT award chair, non-voting)
2023
- Andrea Zisman, Open University, United Kingdom (chair)
- Walid Maalej, University of Hamburg, Germany (deputy chair)
- Paris Avgeriou, University of Groningen, Netherlands
- Luciano Baresi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
- Daniela Damian, University of Victoria, Canada
- Prem Devambu, UC Davis, United States
- Zhenjiang Hu, Peking University, China
- Robyn Lutz, Iowa State University, United States
- Thomas Zimmermann, Microsoft Research, United States (SIGSOFT chair, non-voting)
- David Lo, Singapore Management University, Singapore (SIGSOFT award chair, non-voting)
2022
- Marsha Chechik, University of Toronto, Canada (chair)
- Daniela Damian, University of Victoria, Canada
- Prem Devanbu, UC Davis, United States
- Mark Harman, Facebook and UCL, United Kingdom
- Jon Whittle, CSIRO’s Data61, Australia
- Tao Xie, Peking University, China
- Andrea Zisman, Open University, United Kingdom
- Thomas Zimmermann, Microsoft Research, United States (SIGSOFT chair, non-voting)
- David Lo, Singapore Management University, Singapore (SIGSOFT award chair, non-voting)
2021
- Marsha Chechik (Chair)
- Mark Harman
- Jane Cleland-Huang
- Massimiliano Di Penta