SIGDA Service Award
SIGDA recognizes exceptional service and leadership within the electronic design automation community through two annual service awards. These awards honor individuals whose sustained efforts have significantly advanced ACM SIGDA programs, events, and community initiatives.
Distinguished Service Award
The SIGDA Distinguished Service Award is presented to individuals who have dedicated many years of their careers to extraordinary service in promoting, leading, or creating ACM SIGDA programs or events. This award recognizes long-term, sustained contributions that have had a lasting impact on the SIGDA community.
In any given year, up to two Distinguished Service Awards may be presented.
Meritorious Service Award
The SIGDA Meritorious Service Award recognizes individuals who have provided professional service above and beyond traditional expectations in promoting, leading, or creating ACM SIGDA programs or events. This award acknowledges impactful service contributions that may be more focused in scope or duration but are exceptional in commitment and impact.
In any given year, up to four Meritorious Service Awards may be presented.
Nomination Requirements
Nominations for SIGDA Service Awards must include the following materials:
- The specific award type for which the nominee is being nominated
- Name, address, phone number, and email address of the nominator
- Name, affiliation, address, email address, and phone number of the nominee
- A nomination statement of 200 to 500 words explaining why the nominee deserves the award, emphasizing service that goes above and beyond traditional expectations
- Up to two additional letters of support, including the name, affiliation, email address, and phone number of each letter writer
- Supporters of multiple candidates are strongly encouraged to compare candidates within their letters
The nominator and letter writers must be active SIGDA volunteers.
Schedule
The nomination deadline for SIGDA Service Awards is March 15 each year (with the exception of 2019).
The 2025 nomination cycle has closed.
Please stay tuned for the call for nominations for the 2026 SIGDA Service Awards, which will be announced through SIGDA communication channels.
Distinguished Service Awards
| 2023 | Tulika Mitra, National University of Singapore “For her leadership in major SIGDA conferences such asgeneral chair for ICCAD and ESWEEK“. |
| Patrick Groeneveld, Stanford University “For his multi-year significant contribution to the EDA community, such as DAC finance chair among many other“. | |
| 2022 | Vijay Narayanan, The Pennsylvania State University “For Extraordinary Dedication and Leadership to SIGDA“. |
| Harry Foster, Siemens EDA “For Extraordinary Dedication and Persistence in Leading DAC during Pandemic“. | |
| 2021 | Deming Chen, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign “For distinguished contributions to the design automation and reconfigurable computing communities“. |
| Evangeline F. Y. Young, Chinese University of Hong Kong “For outstanding leadership in promoting diversity in the ACM/SIGDA community“. | |
| 2020 | Sri Parameswaran, University of New South Wales “For leadership and distinguished service to the EDA community“. |
| 2019 | Naehyuck Chang, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology “For many years of impactful service to ACM/SIGDA in various leadership positions“. |
| Sudeep Pasricha, Colorado State University “For a decade of outstanding service to ACM/SIGDA in various volunteer positions“ | |
| 2018 | Chuck Alpert, Cadence Design Systems “For significant contributions to DAC”. |
| Jörg Henkel, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology “For leading SIGDA efforts in Europe and DATE”. | |
| Michael ‘Mac’ McNamara, Adapt-IP “For sustained contributions to the design automation community and DAC”. | |
| Michelle Clancy, Cayenne Communication “For sustained contributions to the community, especially DAC”. | |
| 2016 | Steven Levitan “In recognition of a lifetime of devoted service to ACM SIGDA and the Electronic Design Automation community.” |
| 2015 | Tatsuo Ohtsuki, Waseda University Hiroto Yasuura, Kyushu University Hidetoshi Onodera, Kyoto University “For their distinguished contributions to the Asia and South Pacific Design automation Conference (ASPDAC) as well as their many years of dedicated service on the conference’s steering committee” |
| Massoud Pedram, University of Southern California “For his many years of service as Editor in Chief of the ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES)” | |
| 2014 | Peter Marwedel, Technical University of Dortmund “For his muiltiple years of service starting and maintaining the DATE PhD Forum” |
| 2012 | Joe Zamreno, Iowa State University |
| Baris Taskin, Drexel University | |
| 2011 | Peter Feldman, IBM |
| Radu Marculescu, CMU | |
| Qinru Qiu, Syracuse University | |
| Martin Wong, UIUC | |
| Qing Wu, Air Force Rome Labs | |
| 2010 | Alex K. Jones “For dedicated service to ACM/SIGDA and the Design Automation Conference as director of the University Booth” |
| Matt Guthaus “For dedicated service as director of SIGDA CADathlon at ICCAD program and Editor-in-Chief of the SIGDA E-Newsletter” | |
| Diana Marculescu “For dedicated service as SIGDA Chair, and contributions to SIGDA, DAC and the EDA Profession” | |
| 2009 | Nikil Dutt “For contributions to ACM’s Special Interest Group on Design Automation during the past fifteen years as a SIGDA officer, coordinator of the University Booth in its early years, and most recently, as Editor-in-Chief of the ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems” |
| 2008 | SungKyu Lim “For his contributions to the DAC University Booth.” |
| 2007 | Richard Goering “For his contributions as EE Times Editorial Director for Design Automation for more than two decades” |
| Gary Smith “For his contributions as Chief EDA Analyst at Gartner Dataquest for almost two decades.” | |
| Daniel Gajski Mary Jane Irwin Donald E. Thomas Chuck Shaw “For outstanding contributions to the creation of the SIGDA/DAC University Booth, on the occasion of its 20th edition.” | |
| Soha Hassoun Steven P. Levitan “For outstanding contributions to the creation of the SIGDA Ph.D. Forum at DAC on the occasion of its 10th edition.” | |
| Richard Auletta “For over a decade of service to SIGDA as University Booth Coordinator, Secretary/Treasurer, and Executive Committee Member-at-Large.” | |
| 2006 | Robert Walker “For dedicated service as SIGDA Chair (2001 – 2005), and over a decade of service to SIGDA, DAC and the EDA profession.” |
| 2005 | Mary Jane Irwin “For dedicated service as Editor in Chief of ACM Journal, TODAES (1998 – 2004), and many years of service to SIGDA, DAC, and the EDA profession.” |
| 2004 | James P. Cohoon “For exemplary service to SIGDA, to ACM, to DAC, and to the EDA profession as a whole” |
| 2003 | James Plusquellic “For exemplary service to ACM/SIGDA and the Design Automation Conference as director of the University Booth program” |
| 2002 | Steven P. Levitan “For over a decade of service to ACM/SIGDA and the EDA industry — as DAC University Booth Coordinator, Student Design Contest organizer, founder and promoter of SIGDA’s web server, and most recently, Chair of ACM/SIGDA from 1997 to 2001.” |
| Cheng-Kok Koh “For exemplary service to ACM/SIGDA and the EDA industry — as Co-director of SIGDA’s CDROM Project, as SIGDA’s Travel Grants Coordinator, and as Editor of the SIGDA Newsletter.” | |
| 2001 | Robert Grafton “For contributions to the EDA profession through his many years as the Program Director of NSF’s Design, Tools, and Test Program of the computer, Information Sciences & Engineering Directorate. In this position, he provided supervision, mentorship, and guidance to several generation of EDA tool designers and builders funded by grants from the National Science Foundation.” |
| 2000 | Massoud Pedram “For his contributions in developing the SIGDA Multimedia Series and organizing the Young Student Support Program” |
| Soha Hassoun “For developing the SIGDA Ph.D. Forum” | |
| 1999 | C.L. (Dave) Liu “For his work in founding our flagship journal ACM/TODAES” |
Meritorious Service Awards
| 2023 | Robert Wille, Technical University of Munich “For his leading positions in major ACM SIGDA conferences, including Executive Committee of DATE, ICCAD and Chair of the PhD Forum at DAC and DATE“. |
| Lei Jiang, Indiana University Bloomington “For his leadership and contribution to SIGDA student research forums (SRFs) at ASP-DAC“. | |
| Hui-Ru Jiang, National Taiwan University “For her continuous contribution to SIGDA PhD Forum at DAC and many other events“. | |
| Jeyavijayan (JV) Rajendran, Texas A&M University “For his leadership in co-founding and organizing Hack@DAC, the largest hardware security competition in the world“. | |
| 2022 | Jeff Goeders, Brigham Young University “For Chairing System Design Contest @ DAC for the Past 3 Years“. |
| Cheng Zhuo, Zhejiang University “For the Leading Efforts to the Success of SRC@ICCAD and SDC@DAC as Chairs for the past5 years, and the Sustained Contributions to the EDA Community in China“. | |
| Tsung-Wei Huang, University of Utah “For Chairing CADathlon and CAD Contests at ICCAD for Three Years. These Activities Have Engaged Hundreds of Students into CAD Research“. | |
| Yiyu Shi, University of Notre Dame “For Outstanding Services in Leading SIGDA Educational Efforts“. | |
| 2021 | Bei Yu, Chinese University of Hong Kong “For service as SIGDA Web Chair from 2016 to 2021, SIGDA Student Research Competition Chair in 2018 and 2019, and other SIGDA activities“. |
| 2020 | Aida Todri-Sanial, LIRMM/University of Montpellier “For service as Co-Editor-in-Chief of SIGDA e-Newsletter from 2016 to 2019 and other SIGDA activities“. |
| Yu Wang, Tsinghua University “For service as Co-Editor-in-Chief of SIGDA e-Newsletter from 2017 to 2019 and other SIGDA activities”. | |
| 2019 | Yinhe Han, Chinese Academy of Sciences “For outstanding effort in promoting EDA and SIGDA events in China“ |
| Jingtong Hu, University of Pittsburgh “For contribution to multiple SIGDA education and outreach activities“ | |
| Xiaowei Xu, University of Notre Dame “For contribution to the 2018 System Design Contest at ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference“ | |
| 2015 | Laleh Behjat, University of Calgary “For service as chair of the SIGDA PhD forum at DAC” |
| Soonhoi Ha, Seoul National University Jeonghee Shin, Apple “For their service as co-chairs of the University Booth at DAC” | |
| 1998 | Jason Cong Bryan Preas Kathy Preas Chong-Chian Koh Cheng-Kok Koh “For contributions in producing SIGDA CD ROM’s – Archiving the knowledge of the Design Automation Community” |
| 1997 | Robert Walker “For his hard work as Secretary/Treasurer and University Booth Coordinator” |
| 1996 | Debbie Hall “For serving as ACM Program Director for SIGDA for the past 6 years” |
Following are some awards no longer being given:
Technical Leadership Awards
| 2013 | Jarrod Roy Sudeep Pasricha Sudarshan Banerjee Srinivas Katkoori “for running CADathlon” |
| 2012 | Cheng Zhuo Steve Burns Amin Chirayu Andrey Ayupov Gustavo Wilke Mustafa Ozdal |
| 2011 | Raju Balasuramanian Zhuo Li Frank Liu Natarajan Viswanathan |
| 2010 | Cliff Sze “For contributions to the ISPD Physical Design contest, and promoting research in physical design.” |
| 2008 | Hai Zhou “For contributions to the SIGDA E-Newsletter (2005-2008)” |
| Jing Yang “For contributions to the SIGDA Ph.D. Forum at DAC (2004-2008)” | |
| 2007 | Geert Janssen “For contributions to the SIGDA CADathlon” |
| Tony Givargis “For contributions to the SIGDA Ph.D. Forum at DAC (2005-2007)” | |
| Gi-Joon Nam “For contributions to the Physical Design Contest at ISPD (2005-2007)” | |
| 2006 | Kartik Mohanram “For contributions to the SIGDA CADathlon at ICCAD (2004-2005)” |
| Ray Hoare “For contributions to the SIGDA University Booth at DAC (2004-2006)” | |
| Radu Marculescu “For contributions to the SIGDA Ph.D. Forum at DAC (2004-2006)” | |
| Frank Liu “For contributions to the SIGDA Ph.D. Forum at DAC (2005-2006)” | |
| 2005 | Florian Krohm “For contributions to the SIGDA CADathlon at ICCAD” |
| R. Iris Bahar Igor Markov “For contributions to the SIGDA E-Newsletter” | |
| 2004 | Robert Jones “For contributions to the SIGDA Ph.D. Forum at DAC” |
| 2003 | Diana Marculescu “For contributions to the SIGDA Ph.D. Forum at DAC” |
| 2002 | Geert Janssen “For contributions to the SIGDA CADathlon at ICCAD” |
| Pai Chou Abe Elfadel Olivier Coudert Soha Hassoun “For contributions to the SIGDA Ph.D. Forum at DAC” |
1996 SIGDA Lifetime Achievement Award
Paul Weil
“For contributions to SIGDA for 13 years, most recently being in charge of Workshops.”
1996 SIGDA Leadership Award
Steve Levitan
“For Newsletter and Electronic Publishing”
1995 SIGDA Outstanding Leadership Award
Charlotte Acken
“In recognition of her efforts in managing the high school scholarship program”
1994 SIGDA Outstanding Leadership Award
Pat Hefferan
“As Editor of the SIGDA Newsletter”