ACM SIGHPC Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award

How To Nominate

Current Deadlines & Nomination Form

Nominations open: March 15, 2024

Nominations close: April 26, 2024

Winners announced: August 2024

Nominators can begin the process at the online nomination form

Nomination Guidelines

To be considered for the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, a nomination must meet the following requirements for eligibility:

For this award, HPC refers to the study or application of computational capabilities delivering much higher performance or larger scales than could be accomplished with a desktop or simple server system  in order to solve large problems. Examples include: libraries or languages to support parallelism; software tools for HPC environments; techniques or systems to support large-scale computation (including high-performance networks, computers, and data management systems); techniques or systems for large-scale visualization or analytics; tools for improving the performance of HPC systems; techniques or tools to manage HPC workloads.

Nominations will be evaluated on technical depth, the significance of the research contribution, the potential impact on theory and practice, and overall quality of work.

In accordance with ACM policies on conflict-of-interest, the following are ineligible to serve as nominators or endorsers:  

Don't forget to read the FAQs for helpful information. 

What the Nominator Provides

The nominator must complete the online form, providing basic information and a statement addressing why the candidate's dissertation should be recognized with this award, and how it fits into the field of HPC. The nominator will also provide a suggested citation should the nomination be accepted. 

Once the nominator has submitted the appropriate information, they will be directed to contact the candidate and provide them with the URL to the candidate information form shown upon successful completion of the nomination form. It is the nominator's responsibility to provide this information to the candidate; there is no automated system. 

Nominators can begin the process at the current online form.

What the Candidate Provides

The candidate will complete the form at the URL provided to them by the nominator. Candidates may not self nominate, and they must get this URL from their nominator. As part of completing this form the candidate will be asked to upload (a) a curriculum vitae, and (b) the dissertation itself. Only PDF files will be accepted. 

Once the candidate has submitted the appropriate information, they will be directed to contact their endorser(s) and ask them to email their endorsement(s) (PDF files preferred) to dissertation@sighpc.org. The candidate is responsible for making this contact themselves and following up with endorser(s) to ensure they submit before the deadline; there is no automated system. Applications must have a minimum of one endorsement, and may have up to three (3) endorsements.

What the Endorser Provides

Each endorser (minimum of 1, maximum of 3) provides basic information indicating how they know the candidate and expressing what they find to be the impact and relevance of the candidate’s dissertation work. Endorsements are limited to a maximum of one page each, and may be emailed to the committee at dissertation@sighpc.org. PDF files are preferred.