ACM History Committee Fellowships
The Association for Computing Machinery, founded in 1947, is the oldest and largest educational and scientific society dedicated to the computing profession, and today has 100,000 members around the world. To encourage historical research, the ACM History Committee supports up to four research projects each year with awards of up to $4,000 each. Successful candidates may be of any rank, from graduate students through senior researchers. The current and past winners of the fellowship can be found on this page.
See Prior Proposal for a sample, prior proposal. Note that proposals should include all requested materials, including a planned budget, which this sample does not include.
Past Winners of the ACM History Committee Fellowship
| Year | Recipient | Institution | Proposal title |
| 2024 | Amelia Acker | University of Texas | From Data Archives to Social Science Computing: Tracing the Development of ACM SIGSOC to SIGCHI, 1969-1982 |
| 2024 | Jacob Bruggeman | Johns Hopkins University | Securing the System: Computer Hackers, Professional Experts, and Political Order, 1963-2013 |
| 2024 | Sam Franz | University of Pennsylvania | From Computing Centers to Computer Science: The Political Economy of American Universities and the Rise of Computing, 1930-1990 |
| 2024 | Alain Tchana | Grenoble INP – LIG Laboratory | The history of Computer Science in Africa: the pioneers and their impact |
| 2024 | Devin Kennedy | University of Wisconsin | The 1984 ACM ‘Risks to the Public’ Statement |
| 2023 | David Dunning | University of Pennsylvania | Writing the Rules of Reason: A Social Life of Notation from Logic to Computing |
| 2023 | Bonnie Mitchell and Jan Searleman | Professor of Digital Arts, Bowling Green State University (Mitchell); Adjunct Research Professor of Computer Science, Clarkson University (Searleman) | ACM SIGGRAPH History Archive: Expanding Conference Content |
| 2023 | Dana Plepys | University of Illinois at Chicago | Long-term Storage and Preservation of the SIGGRAPH Video Review Media Archive |
| 2023 | Simon Rowberry | University College London | The ACM Hypertext Class of 1987-1991 and the development of pre-Web reading on-screen |
| 2023 | Kevin Walsh | University of California, San Diego | Select Oral History Interviews for the 35th Anniversary of the ACM/IEEE Supercomputer Conference |
| 2022 | Ruth Lennon and Rukiye Altin | Letterkenny Institute of Technology (Lennon) and METU Development and Foundation Schools (Altin) | ACM-W Europe History: The origins and advancement of the ACM-W Europe |
| 2022 | Bonnie Mitchell and Jan Searleman | Professor of Digital Arts, Bowling Green State University (Mitchell); Adjunct Research Professor of Computer Science, Clarkson University (Searleman) | Archiving the History of ACM SIGGRAPH Communities and Activities |
| 2022 | Daniel Pillis | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | 3D Object/Artifact Archive |
| 2022 | Eric Rawn | University of California, Berkeley | Investigating the Intellectual History of Computing and HCI Research in the 1970s and 1980s: How Philosophy Helped Define the Personal Computing Era |
| 2022 | Huixin Tian | Indiana University Bloomington | Asian migrants and employment in the ICT industry |
| 2021 | Don Gotterbarn | Professor Emeritus at East Tennessee State University | ACM’s role in evolving the understanding of computing professional responsibility |
| 2021 | Zach Loeb | University of Pennsylvania | Y2K Oral History |
| 2021 | Bonnie Mitchell and Jan Searleman | Professor of Digital Arts, Bowling Green State University (Mitchell); Adjunct Research Professor of Computer Science, Clarkson University (Searleman) | SIGGRAPH History Online Archives, design and development |
| 2021 | Kanyinsola Obayan | M.I.T. | Surulere technology cluster (Nigeria) |
| 2021 | Gloria Childress Townsend | Professor of Computer Science, DePauw University | ACM-W History |
| 2020 | Ekaterina Babintseva | History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania | AI and Cold War |
| 2020 | Bonnie Mitchell and Jan Searleman | Professor of Digital Arts, Bowling Green State University (Mitchell); Adjunct Research Professor of Computer Science, Clarkson University (Searleman) | Innovative Archive Development: Adding Computer Graphics from the 1980s, Visualization and Enhancements |
| 2020 | Briana B. Morrison | Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska Omaha | History of SIGCSE’s Conferences |
| 2020 | Rebecca Perry | Independent Scholar | History of pioneer women artists in computing (SIGGRAPH) |
| 2020 | Dana M. Plepys | Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago | Preservation of SVR (SIGGRAPH Video) |
| 2020 | Gloria Childress Townsend | Professor of Computer Science, DePauw University | ACM-W History |
| 2019 | Frances Corry and Anna Loup | PhD students at University of Southern California | Continued support of “Revisiting SIGCOMM 99’s Technical History of the Internet”. |
| 2019 | Kira Lussier | University of Toronto Mississauga | Computing Psychology: Personality Testing in Human/Computer Interaaction |
| 2018 | Frances Corry and Anna Loup | PhD students at University of Southern California | Revisiting SIGCOMM 99’s Technical History of the Internet |
| 2018 | Tomas Petracek | Kent University, U.K. (nee Charles University in Prague) | Documenting the History of Programming Errors |
| 2018 | Urooj Raja | PhD student in environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder | Technology/Empathy Dyad within Virtual Space |
| 2017 | Beth A. Robertson | Research Associate at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario | James Swail, a blind engineer who designed, built and conducted extensive user testing on a series of adaptive and assistive technologies |
| 2017 | Bethany G. Anderson | Archival Operations and Reference Specialist (Science and Technology Archivist), University Archives, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | From Margin to Center: Reframing the History of Women in Computing and Information Technology through Oral Histories |
| 2017 | Bonnie Mitchell | Chair of Digital Arts, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH | SIGGRAPH Art Show Archiving |
| 2015 | Ismail Akturk | PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota | Evolution of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Architecture (SIGArch) |
| 2015 | Janet Mary Toland | Senior Lecturer, School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington | Computing opportunities for all: ACM’s role in influencing public policy on universal access and education 1960 to 2010 |
| 2015 | Rajeev Agrawal | Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Systems Technology, North Carolina A & T State University | Documenting the contributions of African-Americans in Computing Research and Education |
| 2015 | Scott Campbell | Director Centre for Society, Technology and Values, University of Waterloo | Kelly Gotlieb and the professionalization of computer science in Canada to the 1960s |
| 2015 | Sebastian Dziallas | PhD student, School of Computing, University of Kent | The Evolution of Development and Purpose of Computing Curricula |
| 2014 | Rebecca Slayton | Assistant Professor in the STS Department at Cornell University | Measuring Security: ACM and the History of Computer Security Metrics |
| 2013 | Amy Bix | Associate Professor, the History Department at Iowa State University | Informing the History of ‘Celebrating, Informing, and Supporting Women in Computing’: Studies of Gender in ACM and ACM-W |
| 2013 | Andrew L. Russell | Assistant Professor of History, College of Arts & Letters at Stevens Institute of Technology | Quality Standards for Computing Education:A History of the Computer Sciences Accreditation Board (CSAB) |
| 2013 | Irina Nikivincze | Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology at the Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg | Making Science: Careers and Contributions of the First Doctoral Women in Computer Science |
| 2013 | Joseph November | Associate Professor, Department of History at the University of South Carolina | George Forsythe, the ACM, and the Creation of Computer Science |
| 2013 | Sarah A. Bell | Doctoral student in Communication at the University of Utah | Evans & Sutherland: Mentoring SIGGRAPH’s Pioneers |
| 2012 | Bernadette Longo | New Jersey Institute of Technology | Edmund Berkeley Biography |
| 2012 | Jacob Gaboury | PhD student in Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University | Image Objects: A History of Computer Graphics |
| 2012 | Janet Abbate | Associate Professor, Science & Technology in Society, Culture, and Communication at Virginia Tech | ACM’s Curriculum Efforts of the 1960s and 1970s: Defining Computer Science |
| 2011 | Andrew L. Russell | Assistant Professor, College of Arts & Letters at Stevens Institute of Technology | European Contributions to Computer Networks: An Oral History Project |
| 2011 | Inna Kouper | Instructor, School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University Bloomington | History of ACM SIGWEB as a framework for a conceptual history of hypertext |
| 2011 | Ksenia Tatarchenko | Ph.D. candidate in the History of Science Program at Princeton University | Computer Science from Silicon Valley to Golden Valley |
| 2010 | Andrew Meade McGee | Ph.D. student at Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia | Creating the Federal Computing Complex: The ACM and the Development of Washington’s Government Computer Community |
| 2010 | Kenneth Lipartito | Chair and Professor of History, Florida International University | The Information Revolution and the First Privacy Debates, 1950-1980 |
| 2010 | Lars Heide | Associate Professor at the Centre for Business History, Copenhagen Business School | ACM as an Institutional Intermediary between the Innovators, Producers, and Users in Automating America |
| 2009 | Bernard Geoghegan | Ph.D. student at Northwestern University and Bauhaus University – Weimar | Staging the ACM Chess Championships |
| 2009 | Irina Nikiforova (aka Nikivincze) | Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech’s School of History, Technology and Society | ACM, Turing Prize Scientists, and their Web of Affiliations |