In honor of our late colleague and friend, Dr. Frank Anger, the ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering has joined together with the ACM Special Interest Group on Embedded Systems to present the Frank Anger Memorial Award. Dr. Frank Anger, an outstanding national leader in the field of software engineering, died in a tragic automobile accident on July 8, 2004. One of Frank’s primary goals was supporting the crossover of ideas between research communities engaged in software. As an outstanding scientist and recognized national leader in computer science, he worked toward this goal until his untimely death.

In the spirit of Frank’s work and legacy, the Executive Committees of SIGBED and SIGSOFT, with support from the US National Science Foundation, have established a student travel award in his name. The award provides $2000 stipends for two students, one named by each SIG, to cover travel expenses to attend the flagship conference of the other SIG. The award is meant to improve the mutual awareness of the two research communities to the opportunities and challenges emerging in complementary research areas.

If you have questions about this award, please contact sigsoft-angermemorial-award (at) acm (dot) org.

Rules and Applications

The award provides a student member of SIGSOFT a stipend of up to $2000 to cover travel expenses to attend a flagship conference of SIGBED.

Eligibility

To qualify, the student:

1. must be a member of SIGSOFT
2. must be undertaking graduate research in a relevant field in an accredited college or university

The Application Process

To submit a nomination for the award, please use the awards nomination portal. Please note that:

• An intent to nominate must be submitted in the nomination system by October 16, 2023. The intent submission is very lightweight and only requires: (1) full name and affiliation of the nominated student, (2) contact information of the nominator, and (3) some metadata. If no intent is received by the deadline, the nomination will be deemed late and not considered for this round of award selection.
• A single PDF containing the nomination package must be submitted through the portal to complete the submission by October 30, 2023. The PDF should contain the following:
  1. Full name and affiliation of the nominated student
  2. Membership number (ACM/SIGSOFT)
  3. A synopsis of an original research proposal that the student is pursuing (2 page limit)
  4. A proposal discussing the potential for crossover in ideas between the student’s current field of research and research in the fields covered by SIGBED (1 page limit)
  5. A curriculum vitae or resume listing the student’s publications
  6. A letter from the student’s research advisor confirming that the student is in good standing and pursuing the research as described in the proposal. The letter must include the following sentence: “To the best of my knowledge, the candidate I am endorsing has not committed any action that violates the ACM Code of Ethics and ACM’s Core Values.

Selection Process

Recipients of the SIGSOFT Frank Anger Memorial Award will be selected by the selection committee from those who have applied. The selection committee shall have the option to decline to make an award in a given year, if no suitable nominations are presented. The SIGSOFT recipient will be recognized at an awards ceremony at the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE).

This award is a unique opportunity to help promote cross-discipline research. All eligible applicants are encouraged to apply. If you have questions about this award, please contact sigsoft-dissertation-award (at) acm (dot) org.

Winners

Committee

2024

• Myra B. Cohen, Iowa State University, United States (chair)
• Gordon Fraser, University of Passau, Germany (deputy chair)
• Aldeida Aleti, Monash University, Australia
• Kelly Blincoe, University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Gregory Gay, Chalmers and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Cindy Rubio-Gonzalez, UC Davis, United States
• Rachel Tzoref-Brill, IBM, Israel
• Shin Yoo, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea
• Lingming Zhang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
• Thomas Zimmermann, Microsoft Research, United States (SIGSOFT chair, non-voting)
• David Lo, Singapore Management University, Singapore (SIGSOFT award chair, non-voting)

2023

• Natalia Juristo, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain (chair)
• Grace A. Lewis, Carnegie Mellon University, United States
• Shahar Maoz, Tel Aviv University, Israel
• Ignacio Panach, Universitat de Valencia, Spain
• Birgit Penzenstadler, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
• Federica Sarro, University College London, United Kingdom
• Francisco Servant, Universidad de Malaga, Spain
• Ayse Tosun, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
• Tao Xie, Peking University, China
• Thomas Zimmermann, Microsoft Research, United States (SIGSOFT chair, non-voting)
• David Lo, Singapore Management University, Singapore (SIGSOFT award chair, non-voting)

2022

• Christian Bird, Microsoft Research, United States (chair)
• Paolo Tonella, Universita della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland
• Jeff Huang, Texas A&M University, United States
• Lingming Zhang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
• Shing-Chi Cheung, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China
• Dan Hao, Peking University, China
• Natalia Juristo, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
• Myra B. Cohen, Iowa State University, United States
• Lin Tan, Purdue University, United States (non-voting)
• Thomas Zimmermann, Microsoft Research, United States (SIGSOFT chair, non-voting)
• David Lo, Singapore Management University, Singapore (SIGSOFT award chair, non-voting)

2021

• SIGSOFT Executive Committee

Dr. Frank Anger Biography

Dr. Frank Anger, an outstanding national leader in the field of software engineering at the National Science Foundation, died in a tragic automobile accident on July 8, 2004.

Born and raised in suburban Chicago, he attended Glenbard High School in Glen Ellyn. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in mathematics from Princeton University. He then studied in Germany for a year as a Fulbright Scholar before earning his doctorate in mathematics at Cornell. A world-class fencer, Frank captained the Cornell team, was a two-time All-American in epee and NCAA Fencer of the Year in 1961, competed on two Pan-American teams, and was on the U.S. Olympic team in 1964. After earning his doctorate in mathematics at Cornell, Frank taught at the University of Puerto Rico, during which time he married Rita Rodriguez.

Frank served as a faculty member in the departments of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Kansas, the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and the University of Puerto Rico. Frank and Rita moved to Florida, where Frank served as a professor of computer science at the Florida Institute of Technology. Frank earned a second PhD, this time in Computer Science, at the University of Florida, and later served on the Computer Science faculty at the University of West Florida. In 1995, Frank joined the National Science Foundation in Washington.

At NSF, Frank directed the Software Engineering and Languages (SEL) Program for 5 years and played a key role in the Information Technology Research (ITR) Program. He co-chaired the Software Design and Productivity inter-agency committee. He advocated for a higher standard of scientific discipline in software engineering research, including emphasis on credible empirical research and practical use of formal methods and of fundamental models of software processes and products. He served as Deputy Division Director of the Computer-Communications Research Division of NSF’s CISE Directorate. One of Frank’s primary goals was supporting the crossover of ideas among research communities engaged in software research and development. As an outstanding scientist and recognized national leader in computer science, he worked toward this goal until his untimely death in 2004.