Alumni Awards

The Siebel School of Computing and Data Science annually recognizes alumni and faculty members who have made professional, technical, educational, or service contributions that bring distinction to themselves, the school, and the university. We welcome all alumni and friends to join this tradition, nominate someone you know worthy of this honor, and come back to campus to celebrate with each new class.

Submit your nominations for the 2025 school Alumni Awards

Congratulations to our 2023-24 honorees:

Young Alumni Achievement Award: Brett Jones , Kevin Karsch , Raj Sodhi
Early Career Academic Achievement Alumni Award: Abhinav Bhatele
Distinguished Academic Achievement Alumni Award:Alfred C. Weaver
Distinguished Alumni Service: Corly Leung , Robert M. Pieta , Emily Tran , Marrissa Hellesen , Nathan Handler, Cole Gleason , Matthew Dierker
Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award: Chirantan "CJ" Desai

The school awards activities are held with the Celebration of Excellence Student Awards Program and the Women in Computer Science Alumni & Student Dinner, making it an ideal time to visit campus.

See Past Recipients

The recipients of the 2017 Illinois Computer Science Alumni Awards. Seated (from left): Rajesh Karmani, Nikil Dutt, James E. Smith, Aditya Parameswaran, Marianne Winslett, Kishor Trivedi, Andrei &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;Aring;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;Aring;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;frac34;tef&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;Auml;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;fnof;nescu, and Svetlana Lazebnik. Standing (from left): Isaac J. Hall, Richard M. Schell, Steven Ko, Drina C. Yue, Interim CS Department Head Vikram Adve, Jill Zmaczynski, Xiang Ren, and Scott Fisher. — The recipients of the 2017 Illinois Computer Science Alumni Awards. Seated (from left): Rajesh Karmani, Nikil Dutt, James E. Smith, Aditya Parameswaran, Marianne Winslett, Kishor Trivedi, Andrei ÅÅ¾tefÄƒnescu, and Svetlana Lazebnik. Standing (from left): Isaac J. Hall, Richard M. Schell, Steven Ko, Drina C. Yue, Interim CS Department Head Vikram Adve, Jill Zmaczynski, Xiang Ren, and Scott Fisher.

The recipients of the 2016 Illinois Computer Science Alumni Awards. Seated (from left): Milos Gligoric, Yu Pan, Dan Kaufman, Andreas Kloeckner, Le Xu, Steven Ashby, and Yizhou Sun. Standing (from left): Rosalind Weinberg (for Michael Faiman), Romit Roy Choudury, Michael Hughes, Thomas Dietterich, Marcin Kleczynski, CS Department Head Rob A. Rutenbar, Carl Dill, and Ed Reingold.

2015 Illinois Computer Science Award recipients. Seated, from left: Pete Koomen, John Criswell, William Dunn, Paul Saylor, Jackson Hu, Lynn Reedy, and Rick Cattell. Standing, from left: Nancy Amato, Luis Ceze, Apu Kapadia, Rob A. Rutenbar, Russ Simmons, Dave Paola, and Cosmin Radoi.

2014 Illinois Computer Science Award recipients. Seated, from left: Alan M. Braverman, Cinda Heeren, Brigid A. Johnson, Parisa Tabriz, Linda Petzold, and Der-Tsai Lee. Standing, from left: Roy H. Campbell, Siva Kumar S. Hari , Michael T. Heath, C. William Gear, Marc Snir, Trevor Mudge, Kenichi Miura, Daniel A. Reed, Franco P. Preparata, Lawrence Angrave, Jason Cong, and Koushik Sen.

2013 Illinois Computer Science Alumni Awards Winners. Seated, from left: Jed Taylor, Shan Lu, Sandra Rankin, H. George Friedman, and William Kubitz. Standing, from left: Mehdi Harandi, Channing Brown, Sam Kamin, Dennis Mickunas, Steven LaValle, CS Department Head Rob Rutenbar, Milos Ercegovac, and Svetlana Lazebnik.

2012 Illinois Computer Science Alumni Awards Winners (l to r): David J. Kuck, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Sizhao Yang, Roger Dickey, Ari Gesher, Milos Prvulovic, Amitt Mahajan, Joel Poloney, Pooja Agarwal, Xiasong Ma, Robert L. Bocchino Jr.

Illinois Computer Science Awards Trophies