Kanellakis Award

ACM Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award




The ACM Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award is given to an individual
or group for a specific theoretical accomplishment that has had a
significant and demonstrable effect on the practice of computing. The
nature of the theoretical accomplishment may be either an invention
itself or a major analytic study of an existing technique that led
practitioners to adopt it.


The Award has been established in memory of the late Paris
C. Kanellakis, whose tragic death in late 1995 cut short a
distinguished research career. The monetary amount of the award will
be $5,000, to be paid from an endowment established for this purpose.
The frequency of the award will depend on the size of the endowment,
but should be at least once every three years. The first award was
given in March 1997 to Leonard Adleman, Whitfield Diffie, Martin
Hellman, Ralph Merkle, Ronald Rivest, and Adi Shamir for the
conception and first effective realization of public-key cryptography.




Winners of the award will be chosen by a 6-member committee appointed
by the ACM Awards Committee Chair. Membership on the committee will
be on a rotating basis, with 5-year terms. The current committee
consists of Barbara Liskov, David Johnson, Tom Leighton, Christos
Papadimitriou (chair), Moshe Vardi, and Peter Wegner. The committee
will actively solicit nominations from the computing research and
practitioner communities, as well as outside advice on questions of
practical and theoretical significance and of priority. Nominations
from previous years will typically be carried forward. The committee
also reserves the right to make its own nominations. Winners will be
selected based on both the importance of the practical impact and the
quality of the theoretical accomplishment.


In addition to choosing award winners, the Prize Committee will also
prepare an extended award citation suitable for publication in all ACM
announcements as well as in the ACM Awards Program brochure, based on
the nomination and other relevant information obtained by the
committee in evaluating the nominee.




A nomination will consist of three related parts.


(1) A discussion of the theoretical work being nominated, including
copies of relevant publications or other documentation of the
accomplishment.


(2) A description of the claimed practical impact, together with
evidence supporting the claims, either in the form of published
references or attached statements by one or more top practitioners in
the relevant field.


(3) Evidence of the linkage between the theoretical work and the
practical impact, either in the form of documentation that implies the
linkage, or attached statements from the implementers attesting to it.


It is not required that the nominees were involved in the transfer
from theory to practice, though such an involvement will strengthen
the nomination. The theoretical contribution should have occurred
within 25 years of the date of the award. For the 1998 award, this
means that contributions that were made in 1973 or later are eligible.


Nominations should be sent by October 1, 1997 to


Christos Papadimitriou
Computer Science Division
689 Soda Hall
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94270-1776
(510) 642-1559
christos@cs.berkeley.edu
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