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. For nomination package details and general guidance on writing a strong nomination, see the Awards Guidelines page.
If you have questions about this award, please contact sigsoft-research-award (at) acm (dot) org.
Evaluation criteria
High-level criteria considered for the Outstanding Research Award are described below. Note: excellent candidates rarely have an equally strong case across all of these criteria. We encourage you to focus the nomination statement on the criteria where the case is strongest, rather than attempting to thinly cover all of them. Moreover, not all outstanding contributions will fit perfectly under these headings, and nominators are encouraged to identify the ways a nominee’s research contributions stand out, even if they do not fit neatly into the categories below.
Focus on the key contributions or those in which the nominee had the most meaningful impact; avoid attempting to provide an exhaustive list, as the CV serves that purpose. A strong nominating statement helps the committee identify and contextualize the most important or impactful activities.
- Research impact and significance. List the nominee’s most important research contributions and the impact they have had on the field of software engineering. Where possible, provide concrete evidence such as adoption of their ideas by other research groups, influence on research directions, or other indicators of lasting impact.
- Practical impact. Describe any ways in which the nominee’s work has influenced software engineering practice. Examples include but are not limited to adoption of tools, techniques, or methodologies in industry, contributions to standards, technology transfer, and influence on practitioner communities. If the nominee’s contributions are primarily theoretical or academic, this dimension can describe potential for or trajectory toward practical influence.
- Innovation and novelty. Describe how the nominee’s work has opened new research areas, introduced new methods or frameworks, or shifted how the community thinks about a problem.
Nomination package
A senior awards nomination package consists of the following.
- The nominee’s name, affiliation, and contact information.
- The nominee’s CV.
- A proposed citation of up to 25 words.
- A nomination statement of 500-1000 words. Consult the awards’ description for evaluation criteria to use to focus the nomination.
- Names and contact information of up to three individuals who would be willing to support the nomination, each accompanied by a brief note of one or two sentences explaining the person’s relationship to the nominee and what perspective they could offer.
For senior awards, supporters do not write traditional letters of recommendation. The committee may contact them directly via email with a small set of questions. The intention is that these will benefit from concise answers, on the order of a paragraph or two. When inviting someone to serve as a supporter, nominators can reassure them that the time burden is expected to be quite modest if and when the committee reaches out. Whether the committee does so is not indicative of the strength or potential success of the nominee. The committee may also gather additional information from sources beyond the supporters suggested by the nominator.
Winners
- 2026 Tao Xie, Peking University/Fudan University, for outstanding research contributions on software testing and software analytics that have broadly impacted industrial practices. Nominated by Lu Zhang, Peking University.
- 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
2026
- Lionel Briand, University of Ottawa, Canada and LERO, University of Limerick, Ireland (chair)
- Sepideh Ghanavati, University of Maine, USA
- Jun Sun, SMU, Singapore
- Foutse Khomh, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
- Qinghua Lu, CSIRO, Australia
- Domenico Bianculli, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
- Dan Hao, Peking University, China
- Marsha Chechik, University of Toronto, Canada (SIGSOFT chair, non-voting)
- Claire Le Goues, Carnegie Mellon University, USA (SIGSOFT award chair, non-voting)
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