New SIGCHI Awards Chair

We are delighted to announce our new SIGCHI Awards Chair Kentaro Toyama — W. K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan School of Information, a fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, and author of Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology. Previously, Kentaro taught at Ashesi University in Ghana and co-founded Microsoft Research India, where he did research on the application of information and communication technology to international development.

Kentaro’s vision for this role, in his words:

I’m honored to serve as the next SIGCHI Awards Chair. Building on the work of previous chairs and committees, I hope to support and maintain the thoughtful, rigorous process by which awards are decided; lower the average effort required to nominate potential awardees; and further improve the degree to which the set of awardees reflects SIGCHI and the broader community of HCI professionals.

We thank Kentaro for making time for this absolutely crucial commitment to SIGCHI, and are confident the energy he brings to this role will serve the SIG well, continuing the amazing work that Niklas Elmqvist did for us over the last two years. Thank you Niklas, for your service on the SIGCHI Awards Committee through the last eight years, including the last two as Awards Chair.