SIGCHI Awards: A Brief Debrief
2024 in review and look ahead to 2025
With the awards dinner and talks at CHI 2024 in Hawaii behind us, the 2024 cycle of SIGCHI awards has concluded, and we are now looking ahead to the 2025 cycle. In this blog post, I will provide an overview of the current state of the SIGCHI awards program: highlights from 2024 and what we can anticipate for 2025.
Let me start by thanking the volunteers who serve in the SIGCHI Awards Committee. Serving in this role is truly a commendable effort: not only is there a significant amount of work involved, but you are also unable to nominate anyone for the particular awards subcommittee you are currently serving. This year, special recognition goes to Sunny Consolvo and Philippe Palanque, who are rotating out of the committee after completing their three-year terms as chairs of the SIGCHI Academy and Lifetime Service Award subcommittees, respectively.
The 2024 cycle was remarkable; not only did we have a record number of nominations (34 for the Outstanding Dissertation Award, for example), we also were able to give out a record number of awards. There were a total of 23 awards: 4 Lifetime Research Awards, 1 Lifetime Practice Award, 3 Societal Impact Awards, 5 Outstanding Dissertation Awards, and 10 inductions into the SIGCHI Academy. This increase in the number of awards reflects the rapid growth of our SIG. With over 5,400 members in 2024, SIGCHI is among the largest ACM SIGs. It is only logical to expand the awards program to match the growing size and diversity of our community. I am proud of our efforts to do so in 2024.
As the 2024 cycle ends, the 2025 cycle begins, and we have several new initiatives underway. One key effort is the early start of our volunteer recruitment. The call for volunteers to join the award committee is now open and will remain so until June 21 (midnight AoE). If you are an experienced HCI researcher or practitioner with at least 7 years in the field, I urge you to volunteer! We need your voice in the award committee. Please note that all appointments are subject to an ACM Sanctions Database check and an approval vote by the SIGCHI Executive Committee.
Another initiative we are starting this summer is a new SIGCHI Awards talk series. Traditionally, SIGCHI awardees present their work at the annual CHI conference, but these sessions often struggle to attract large audiences due to the packed conference schedule. In addition, not all SIGCHI members have access to these sessions. Regrettably, few of these sessions have been recorded for posterity, over the years. To address this, we are now inviting our SIGCHI awardees to record a new version of their award talk that we can share on our SIGCHI Youtube channel. We started the effort with our 2024 cohort and our first talk by SIGCHI Lifetime Research Awardee James Landay is happening today (June 14), but there will be more talks for you all to participate in and view during the coming summer and fall, so keep an eye on the SIGCHI social media platforms for announcements. Past SIGCHI awardees willing to participate in this initiative can sign up using this form (or this form to submit a talk recording). Our goal is to build a comprehensive library of award talks freely available on YouTube.
Finally, I would like to turn the floor over to the SIGCHI community. My email inbox (elm@cs.au.dk) is open, so please send me feedback or post a comment on this post about what works and what doesn’t about the current SIGCHI awards. How should we change the awards program in the future? What is already good and what can we do better? Do you have any ideas for new awards we should establish? I’m eager to hear your opinion.
Niklas Elmqvist
ACM SIGCHI Adjunct Chair for Awards
