Important Dates

Nomination Registration Deadline (Mandatory): October 5, 2026

Nomination Deadline (Firm): October 19, 2026

Notification of Awards: December 2026 – January 2027

Award Presentation at ICSE 2027

Eligibility

• A nominee must be an IEEE Computer Society and TCSE member at the time of nomination (unless the nominee is an institution).

• Self-nominations are not allowed.
• If a nominee was previously recognized by an award in a similar category by this or another society of similar stature to TCSE, their achievements in the time after receiving the previous award should be sufficient to merit a new one.
• Nominations not awarded may be resubmitted in any subsequent year. 
• The same person cannot be nominated for different TCSE awards in the same year.
• For a list of previous awardees, please check TCSE Awards.

TCSE Awards Selection Process and Criteria

• TCSE Chair appoints the TCSE Awards Co-Chairs annually who serve at most two consecutive years.
• The TCSE Awards Co-Chairs in consultation with the TCSE Chair appoint an Award Selection Committee Chair and several Award Selection Committee Members for each award. 
• Each Award Selection Committee member evaluates the nominations according to the selection criteria for that award. Please see the criteria for each award below.
• The Award Selection Committee Chair submits the committee recommendation to the TCSE Awards Co-Chairs. There is flexibility in the process and criteria (e.g., a nominee might be moved to a more suitable category.
• The Committee reserves the right to solicit nominations, and, if appropriate, may make no award in the current year—e.g., if none of the nominees satisfies the criteria for a given award.
• The TCSE Awards Co-Chairs review the selection process and approve or disapprove the recommendation based on conformance with the selection process and criteria.
• The TCSE Awards Co-Chairs submit their final recommendations for approval to the TCSE Chair.
• The TCSE Chair submits their final recommendations for approval to IEEE.

TCSE Distinguished Service Award

Award Committee: Karl Reed (Chair), Gregory Gay, Kenji Tei, Nenad Medvidovic

See Selection Criteria

TCSE Distinguished Education Award

Award Committee: Bernd Breugge (Chair), Sebastián Uchitel, Chetan Arora

See Selection Criteria

TCSE Distinguished Synergy Award

Award Committee: Zhi Jin (Chair), Dongmei Zhang, Shaukat Ali, Jan Bosch

See Selection Criteria

TCSE WISE Barbora Bühnová Distinguished Leadership Award

Award Committee: Myra Cohen (Chair), Eleni Stroulia, Betty Cheng

See Selection Criteria

TCSE Rising Star Award

Award Committee: Sherlock Licorish (Chair), Cuiyun Gao, Ajitha Rajan, Baishakhi Ray

See Selection Criteria

TCSE Lifetime Achievement Award

Award Committee: Tony Wasserman, Prem Devanbu, Jeff Kramer, Daniela Damien

See Selection Criteria

TCSE New Directions Award

Award Committee: Lei Ma (Chair), Sonia Haiduc, Miryung Kim, Anita Sarma

See Selection Criteria

NOMINATION PROCESS

1. Register an intent to submit a nomination in EasyChair

To register an intent to submit a nomination, the nominator  (who will act as the corresponding author) creates a submission to the appropriate track using this EasyChair Submission Link.

• In Title, enter “Nomination for <nominee name(s)> for the <award name> Award”—e.g., “Nomination for Jane Doe and Juan Sanchez for the TCSE Rising Star Award.”
• To allow for managing Conflicts of Interest (CoI) in Easychair, enter information for the nominator,  nominee(s), and referees as ‘Authors’ of the submission. The nominator should be ‘Author 1’. Indicate the role (i.e., nominator, nominee, or referee) of each person with a dash after their last name—e.g., “Doe-nominee” in the ‘Last name’ field for ‘Author 2’ and e.g. “Bloggs-referee” in the ‘Last name’ field for ‘Author 3’. (The referees can be changed, if necessary, anytime prior to the final Nomination Deadline.) Check the ‘corresponding author’ box for the nominator only and uncheck it for all others.
• Keywords are unnecessary but regretfully required by Easychair.  Please enter three words on separate lines.
• Specify any known Conflicts of Interest for the nominator, nominee(s), and referees with the current TCSE Chair, TCSE Awards Co-Chairs and/or any of this year’s TCSE Awards Selection Committee members. (All are entered as PC members on Easychair. They are also listed on the 2027 TCSE Awards Call for Nominations.)
• For “New Directions” submissions, if there are multiple nominees, enter a semicolon-separated list of nominee and IEEE Number-pairs in the ‘IEEE Number’ field—e.g. “JD 10000000; JS 10000001”. (If different nominees have the same initials, differentiate them in some other manner and notify the TCSE Awards Chairs how you have done so.)
• For “Synergy” submissions, designate a person who can represent the team, e.g. the head of the lab, as the nominee.
• Upload any .pdf; it is just a placeholder, so any .pdf is fine.

2.  Prepare the Nomination Package (All Awards)

• Nominator: name, address, phone number, email address, and IEEE number of the person making the nomination.
• Nominee(s): name, address, phone number, email address, and IEEE number of the individual(s) or the name of the institution for whom an award is recommended.
• Referees: names, affiliations, and email addresses for two referees who agree to provide supporting letters and who have no conflict of interest (CoI) with the nominee(s). At least one of the referees should also not have a CoI with the nominator. Please see the bottom of this page for what constitutes a CoI.
• CoIs with the TCSE Chair/Awards Co-Chairs/Selection Committee Members: the chairs and committee members that have a known CoI with the nominator, nominee(s) and/or referee(s). 

In addition to the Registration information (above), a nomination package is required:

Nomination Package (for Rising Star, New Direction and WISE Awards)

• A paragraph (200-500 words) explaining why the nominee deserves the recommended award.
• Letters from the two referees explaining why the nominee deserves the recommended award.
• A letter from the nominee saying “I accept this nomination and declare to adhere to the IEEE Code of Ethics. My IEEE membership number is <number>.”
• The vitae or detailed biographical summary of the nominee, or a document highlighting the story of the institution, mission/goals, and what its impact has been on Software Engineering. 
• It is at the discretion of the Committee member to evaluate any additional information included in the package.

Nomination Package (for Educators, Lifetime, Service, and Synergy Awards) 

• A vitae or detailed biographical summary of the nominee, or for synergy award a document highlighting the story of the institution, mission/goals, and what its impact has been on Software Engineering.
• Nomination statement in structured paragraphs requested on the submission form (total 500-1000 words) to be provided by the nominator.
• A letter from the nominee saying “I accept this nomination and declare to adhere to the IEEE Code of Ethics. My IEEE membership number is <number>.”
• Names and contact info of two referees who have agreed to support your nomination. 
• NEW this year: For Educators, Lifetime, Service, and Synergy awards referees are not required to provide reference letters. The committee members will contact the referees directly to request a letter or ask specific questions they have about candidates, if deemed necessary. 

3. Submit the Nomination Package in Easychair

As the corresponding author on the Easychair site, the nominator should:

• Upload a complete nomination package as a single PDF file to the submission created at registration
• Complete nomination form structured questions
• Update details of the nominee and of the two referees, if necessary
• Add known CoI for new referees, if any

General inquiries about the TCSE Awards may be directed to the 2027 TCSE Awards Co-Chairs, John Grundy <john.grundy@monash.edu> and Shiva Nejati <snejati@uottawa.ca>.

 Conflict of Interest (CoI)

• The lifelong relationship between PhD student and PhD supervisor
• Personal or family relationships that would reasonably cause others to doubt impartiality
• Notable personal or professional rivalry/animosity (publicly known or not)
• Working closely together (e.g., at the same institution, company, or organization; or within the same organizational team)
• In the last five years (or pending in the near future):
  • Funder or program manager/awardee relationship exists
  • Recipients of joint funding or significant professional collaboration
  • Joint authorship of an archival publication
• If in doubt, please contact the awards chairs.

Solicitation

• The Committee reserves the right to solicit nominations for the awards either personally or through mailing lists such as SEWORLD and TCSE, and including from past nominators to re-submit nominations from the previous year, if appropriate.
• The Committee also reserves the right to make no award in the current year, for example if none of the nominees satisfies the criteria for a given award.
• 2027 Promotion Committee Members: Sepideh Ghanavati, Tushar Sharma, Laurie Williams, Jie Zhang, Tom Zimmerman