ACM MemberNet - Fall 2025

ACM Transitions to Full Open Access

ACM is pleased to share an important milestone for the computing field. Beginning January 2026, all ACM publications and related artifacts in the ACM Digital Library will be made open access. This change reflects the long-standing and growing call across the global computing community for research to be more accessible, more discoverable, and more reusable. This transition is the result of extensive dialogue with authors, SIG leaders, editorial boards, libraries, and research institutions worldwide. ACM is grateful for the community’s consistent advocacy for openness and its commitment to ensuring that computing knowledge is shared widely. Learn more about ACM Open Access here.

Young Researchers: Apply for the 13th Heidelberg Laureate Forum

Young researchers are invited to apply for one of 200 coveted spots to participate in the 13th annual Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF). The invitation is open to undergraduates, graduate students and recent PhDs of mathematics and computer science (and closely related fields). The 13th HLF will take place September 13 – 18, 2026. To be considered, young researchers can either apply directly or be nominated by a colleague, professor, mentor, or manager. Applications must be submitted online by Wednesday, February 11, 2026, via the application page. You will need to enter ACM's organization code to complete the application process. Please email [email protected] to request this number. Those who are accepted will be notified by the end of April 2026.

Introducing the Hour of AI

Artificial intelligence is already changing how we learn, work, and live. Yet right now, many students are on the sidelines — using AI without understanding how it works, how to use it responsibly, or how to shape what’s coming next. Building on over a decade of success with the Hour of Code, this new global Hour of AI initiative is designed to help students and educators everywhere take their first step into understanding and creating with AI. Anchored during CS Education Week (December 8–14, 2025) but available year-round, Hour of AI offers hands-on, easy-to-follow activities in which learners around the world will demystify AI and imagine what’s possible when they harness it for good. Learn more here.

ACM MEMBERS IN THE NEWS

ACM Honorees Receive 2025 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Modern Machine Learning

The 2025 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering is awarded to seven engineers who have made seminal contributions to the development of Modern Machine Learning, a core component of artificial intelligence (AI) advancements, including A.M. Turing Laureates Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, and Yann LeCun, ACM Fellows Fei-Fei Li and Bill Dally, and John Hopfield (Princeton) and Jensen Huang (NVIDIA). Together, the work of these engineers has laid the foundations for the machine learning that lies behind many of the most exciting innovations shaping the world today. Read more here.

Yoshua Bengio Reaches 1 Million Citations on Google Scholar

ACM A.M. Turing Award laureate Yoshua Bengio, Professor of Computer Science at Université de Montreal in Canada, has become the only living scientist to have surpassed 1 million citations on Google Scholar. He joins French philosopher Michel Foucault as the only two scientists to have achieved the milestone. Geoffrey Hinton, who shared the 2018 Turing Award with Bengio and Yann LeCun, is expected to join the group in the coming months. Read more here.

Berners-Lee Says Today's Internet Exploits Users for Data

Speaking at Harvard University, ACM A.M. Turing Award Laureate Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, called for user autonomy over their data, net neutrality, and a more decentralized Web experience. Berners-Lee also criticized popular digital platforms for data exploitation and addictive algorithms. Said Berners-Lee, "The Web is being hijacked from an 'intention economy' to an 'attention economy,'" adding that "the user has been reduced to a consumable product for the advertiser. Read more here.

AWARDS AND MEMBER RECOGNITION

Saman Amarasinghe Recognized With ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award

ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award recipient Saman Amarasinghe

ACM has named Saman Amarasinghe, Thomas and Gerd Perkins Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as the recipient of the 2025 ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award. The Ken Kennedy Award recognizes groundbreaking achievements in parallel and high-performance computing. Amarasinghe is cited for fundamental contributions pioneering high-performance domain-specific languages, exceptional mentorship, and service advancing the global computing community. The award will be formally presented at The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC25). Read the ACM news release.

2025 ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowships

2025 ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship recipients Ana Veroneze Solórzano and Yafan Huang

Ana Veroneze Solórzano of Northeastern University and Yafan Huang of The University of Iowa are the recipients of the 2025 ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowships. Aristotle Martin of Duke University received an Honorable Mention. The George Michael Memorial Fellowship honors exceptional PhD students throughout the world whose research focus is high-performance computing (HPC) applications, networking, storage, or large-scale data analytics. The Fellowships will be formally presented at the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC25). Read the ACM news release.

Call for ACM Award Nominations

Each year, ACM recognizes technical and professional achievements within the computing and information technology community through its celebrated Awards Program. ACM welcomes nominations for candidates whose work exemplifies the best and most influential contributions to our community, and seeks your help in expanding and diversifying the nomination pool for our ACM Awards. Please take a moment to consider those people in your community who may be suitable for nomination. Refer to the award nominations page for links to individual award pages, where you will find nomination requirements, deadlines, and Award Subcommittee Members. Nominations for most awards are due December 15, 2025. The next deadline for Senior Member nominations is December 3, 2025.

PUBLIC POLICY

Register for the Panel Discussion: Digital Identity in Europe

As digital identification apps gain traction worldwide, governments, businesses, and consumers face the challenge of developing systems that can both protect minors from online harms and facilitate legitimate use for adults. The tension between ensuring access and restricting harmful content sits at the center of regulatory debates, as the EU, the UK, the US, and others pilot various age-verification tools. "Digital Identity in Europe, A Panel Discussion" (November 20, 10 am EST (3:00 pm UTC) will explore the opportunities and challenges of deploying Age Identification Apps at scale in Europe, with a focus on lessons learned from global pilots and their implications for the future of the internet. Register for the panel here.

View on Demand: Get Involved: ACM Tech Policy Committees & Expanding Regions TPC

ACM is expanding its global footprint in technology policy—and we want you at the table. From AI and cybersecurity to privacy and emerging tech, this is your chance to influence policy debates that matter worldwide. On Nov 6, 2025, the ACM Technology Policy Council held a webinar "Get Involved: ACM Tech Policy Committees & Expanding Regions TPC"— an interactive event about the global tech policy debate and how you can take action, contribute your expertise, and make a global impact. If you have special interest and expertise in a region where you are not currently living and working, register to view the webinar on demand.

TechBrief on Government Digital Transformation

"The ACM Technology Policy Council's "TechBrief: Government Digital Transformation,” states that governments throughout the world urgently need to complete the digital transformation that started with the adoption of the World Wide Web in the 1990s and early 2000s to deliver services. They must do so while establishing the necessary safeguards, modernizing their digital infrastructures, and offering citizen oriented digital services that are secure, efficient, integrated, and resilient. Successful transformation requires a holistic and multidisciplinary approach with transparency and accountability, especially for AI-related deployments.

Systemic Risks Associated with Agentic AI: A Policy Brief

Agentic AI—the new paradigm for creating autonomous systems capable of perceiving, reasoning, learning, and acting towards goals using large language models (LLMs) with minimal human oversight—offers transformative potential but also poses systemic risks that the EU AI Act only partially addresses. "Systemic Risks Associated with Agentic AI" from the Europe Technology Policy Committee identifies potential gaps in the current regulatory framework and recommends opportunities to make oversight continuous and dynamic.

Statement on the Inappropriate Use of AI Chatbots

ACM's US Technology Policy Committee has deep concerns regarding the ethics of chatbots and other interfaces that engage in interactions of a sensual, sexual, or suggestive nature with minors. As the premier global association of computing professionals, this action violates our organization’s Code of Ethics and our mission statement, which emphasizes “promoting the highest professional and ethical standards.” ACM urges the investigation and oversight of any such design or deployment until an independent analysis can be done, and an appropriate, informed, and transparent public consensus is reached. Read the statement here.

Impact of ETPC Recommendations on the EU’s General-Purpose AI Code of Practice

At the invitation of the European Commission, the ACM Europe Technology Policy Committee (ETPC) submitted a number of recommendations towards the development of a General-Purpose AI Code of Practice (GPAI). The GPAI is intended to help industry comply with the AI Act legal obligations on safety, transparency and copyright of general-purpose AI models. We are proud to announce that several of those recommendations have now been incorporated into the GPAI. Learn more here.

PUBLISHING NEWS

CACM Special Section: Federal Funding of Academic Research

Technological innovation is not just a byproduct of American ingenuity—it is its driving force. Most of the United States' 20th-century productivity growth stemmed from domestic breakthroughs in science and technology. And it is federal funding of basic research which has sparked and sustained the modern technological revolution. Yet despite the extraordinary returns of this investment, federal support for basic research is being sharply curtailed. This special section of Communications of the ACM raises the critical question: Can America remain a global innovation powerhouse if it sidelines the very engine that powered past progress? Learn more here.

Arturo Béjar, formerly of Facebook, explains how the key difference between safety and security is that when you engineer for safety, user feedback is an essential part of the system design. It is essential to capture user experience information, to combine that information with other features to prevent harm, and, where appropriate, to give feedback to the actors. When designing social systems, engineers must think about safety as incorporating the people and their responses to experiences into the system design. Read the full article here.

New ACM Books

Functional Data Structures and Algorithms: A Proof Assistant Approach by Tobias Nipkow et al. is an introduction to data structures and algorithms for functional programming languages, with a focus on proofs. What sets this book apart from existing books on algorithms is that all proofs have been machine-checked by the proof assistant Isabelle with definitions and proofs are available online. This book is aimed at teachers and students but is also a reference work for programmers and researchers who are interested in the verified details of some algorithm or proof.

Thinking About Programs is based on Gavin Lowe's 30 years of experience teaching programming at the University of Oxford and is an excellent choice for early programming courses offered by universities worldwide. It is a rigorous and thoughtfully structured textbook designed to equip students with both the theoretical underpinnings and practical skills essential in today’s programming landscape. Combining pedagogical clarity with up-to-date industry relevance, the book guides learners through fundamental programming concepts, algorithmic thinking, and problem-solving strategies while fostering a deep understanding of computational logic.

Journals Welcome New Editor-in-Chiefs

XRDS Crossroads: The ACM Magazine for Students welcomes Julia Gersey as the new Editor-in-Chief. Gersey is second-year PhD student at The University of Michigan. The appointment is from November 1, 2025 to October 31, 2028.

ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies (JCSS) welcomes new Co-Editors-in-Chief Waylon Brunette (Augusta University), Sunandan Chakraborty (Indiana University), and Melissa Densmore (University of Cape Town) for the term of October 1, 2025 – September 30, 2028.

ACM Open: The Importance of Transparency in Open Access Publishing

Scott Delman, ACM's Director of Publications, explains the importance of transparency in open access publishing for Charleston Hub. Read the blog post, "What Does Transparency in Open Access Really Mean, and Why Does It Matter Now More Than Ever?"

More information on ACM Open, which offers a transparent, tiered pricing model, is available here.

SIG NEWS & AWARDS

SC25 November 16 - 21

At the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, invited talks will show how translational research and technologies and their applications address some of the most complex challenges of our time. Tutorials and workshops include "Better Software for Reproducible Science," "Connecting the HPC and the Quantum Community," "Modern High Performance I/O: Leveraging Object Stores," "Large Scale Quantum-Classical Computing," "Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Scientific Applications," and more. Keynote speaker is Ralph McEldowney (Air Force Research Laboratory). The event will be held in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

2025 SIGSAC Awards

The ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC) has announced its 2025 recipients for Outstanding Innovation, Outstanding Contribution, and Excellence in Service awards which can be found here. They have also announced their Early Career Research and Doctoral Dissertation Awards.

Best Paper Awards Given at Recent ACM SIG Conferences

ACM's Special Interest Groups (SIGs) regularly cite outstanding individuals for their contributions in 37 distinct technological fields. Some awards presented (or to be presented) at conferences:

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION

Global Diversity Awareness Month

As the world’s largest computing society, ACM is proud of our international community. Our globe diversity is reflected in our international conferences, the People of ACM series, and hundreds of student and professional chapters worldwide. For this year's Global Diversity Awareness month, we’re excited to launch a special video series featuring ACM President Yannis Ioannidis, capturing his conversations with members of the ACM community during his travels to conferences across the globe. Journey along with #ACMGoesGlobal as we post the series across ACM socials (YouTube, X, Instagram, etc.).

Native American and Indigenous Heritage Month

November is Native American and Indigenous Heritage Month (NAIHM). At ACM, we’re proud to honor Indigenous computing experts whose valuable contributions and innovation have left a positive impact on the future of inclusive technology. Throughout the month, ACM will be spotlighting Indigenous computing experts and organizations that empower Indigenous communities through STEM education. Follow along on X, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky and Linkedin as we celebrate and uplift Indigenous voices in computing.

Hispanic Heritage Month

Through September 15 to October 15, ACM celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month (Iberoamerican Heritage Month) by honoring Latin and Hispanic individuals who have made considerable contributions to the ACM community. During this time, ACM highlighted several prominent Latin and Hispanic computing professionals for their accomplishments that have left a tremendous impact on the computing field. Visit ACM social media (X, Instagram, Facebook) and #HispanicHeritageMonth to keep track of our posts related to this campaign.

Geetanjali Kale Appointed Chair of ACM-W India

Supporting women in computing has been a driving force throughout Geetanjali Kale’s distinguished career in academia and research. As the new Chair of ACM-W India, she brings both the experience of a seasoned academic leader and the passion of someone who has witnessed firsthand the power of mentorship and inclusive environments to transform careers. As the new chair, she is committed to fostering inclusive growth and empowering women in computing across India and all stages of academia and industry. Learn more about Kale here.

MEMBERSHIP

ACM Local: New Meetups

ACM Meetups are non-profit informal groups that meet regularly to discuss diverse topics in computer science such as predictive analytics, applied machine learning, statistical modeling, open data, data visualization, user experience, user research, and artificial neural networks.

Nashville AI Engineering is an ACM affiliated group supporting folks at all levels who are exploring building with AI, whether you're wiring up workflows, shipping side/main projects, configuring/coding new ways to express yourself artistically, deep diving into the research, technology, tools, and techniques, or just curious what this stuff can actually do.

Featured Member Benefit: Travel Discount Program

Are you planning a winter vacation? ACM is pleased to offer exclusive hotel, car rental and entertainment discounts to our members through Local Hospitality. Vacation rental properties are also now available! Save time and money on your next trip by visiting the ACM Travel Discount Program page.

LEARNING PROGRAMS

ACM ByteCast Interviews

ACM ByteCast is a podcast series from ACM’s Practitioner Board in which hosts Rashmi Mohan, Bruke Kifle, and Scott Hanselman interview researchers, practitioners, and innovators who are at the intersection of computing research and practice. In each monthly episode, guests will share their experiences, the lessons they’ve learned, and their own visions for the future of computing. Recent ByteCast interviews include:

Anusha Nerella, Senior Principal Engineer at State Street, traces her journey from growing up with limited access to technology to teaching herself programming to working at global firms including Barclays and Citibank and leading enterprise-scale AI initiatives.
Ilias Diakonikolas, 2024 ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award recipient and Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, describes his early love of math as a student in Greece, defines “robust statistics” and how it aids in detecting “data poisoning,” and explore statistical v. computational efficiency, the practical applications of this research in machine learning and trustworthy AI, and future directions in algorithmic design.
Cecilia Aragon shares her journey into computing, starting as a math major at Caltech with a love of the Lisp programming language, highlights the importance of making data science more human-centered and inclusive practices in design, talks about Viata, a startup she co-founded with her son, and more.
2024 ACM Prize in Computing recipient Torsten Hoefler, Professor of Computer Science at ETH Zurich (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) reminisces on early interest with multiple computers to solve problems faster and on building large cluster systems in graduate school that were later turned into supercomputers. He also delves into high-performance computing (HPC), its central role in simulation and modeling across all modern sciences, and more.
2024 ACM Athena Lecturer and ACM Eugene L. Lawler Award recipient Maja Matarić talks about moving to the US from Belgrade, Serbia and how her early interest in both computer and behavioral sciences led her to socially assistive robotics. She discusses the challenges of social assistance as compared to physical assistance and why progress in the field is slow, why Generative AI is conducive to creating socially engaging robots, and more.

Listen to ACM ByteCast interviews here, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Featured TechTalks

ACM members and non-members alike are welcome to attend our popular series of free TechTalks by expert industry professionals, distinguished ACM award laureates, and visionary researchers from industry and academia. Recent TechTalks include:

In "Translating Interview Speak: What Your Interviewer Really Wants To Know," Career Coach and Consultant Barbara Limmer and Career Coach Laura Browne teach what’s behind job interview questions and what employers are really looking for. This information can help you to develop your best answers for your next job interview.
In “Quantum Programming in Depth: Bringing Software Engineering Practices to QC," Mariia Mykhailova, Principal Quantum Software Developer at PsiQuantum, introduces quantum software development workflow, with particular focus on validating the correctness of quantum programs and estimating their performance on future fault-tolerant quantum computers.
In “Functional Programming in Financial Markets," Jose Pedro Magalhaes, Managing Director of Standard Chartered Bank, focuses on how we leverage functional programming to orchestrate type-driven large-scale pricing workflows. He builds upon decades of research and experience in the functional programming community, relying on concepts such as monads, lenses, datatype generics, and closure serialization.

Find our entire archive of TechTalks here.

EDUCATION

European Informatics Retention and Graduation Rate Report

European higher education is as diverse as the continent’s cultures and traditions. This also means that making analyses and meaningful comparisons can be complex. The area of Informatics is no exception. This report presents the first pan-European analysis of student retention and graduation rates in bachelor-level Informatics programs. Conducted jointly by Informatics Europe and ACM Europe, it draws on the Informatics Europe Higher Education (IEHE) Data Portal and examines trends across thirteen European countries over the period 2010 to 2023. Learn more here.

STUDENT NEWS

Upcoming ACM Student Research Competitions: Submission Deadlines

ACM Student Research Competitions (SRCs) offer a unique forum for undergraduate and graduate students to present their original research at well-known ACM-sponsored and co-sponsored conferences before a panel of judges and attendees. The most recent SRC winners were presented at ESEC/FSE 2025. The next conferences accepting submissions are:

CGO 2026, April 12–18, 2026, deadline December 5, 2025
CHI 2026, April 13–17, 2026, deadline January 22, 2026
SIGMETRICS 2026, June 8-12, 2026, deadline February 6, 2026

CHAPTER NEWS

Welcome New ACM Chapters

Chapters are the "local neighborhoods" of ACM. The regional ACM Professional, Student, ACM-W, and Special Interest Group (SIG) chapters around the globe involve members locally in competitions, seminars, lectures, workshops, and networking opportunities. 22 Student and 5 Professional Chapters were started in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, India, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

ACM welcomes the new chapters that were chartered July 28, 2025 through October 22, 2025.

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS PROGRAM

ACM Distinguished Speaker: Regan Mandryk

Regan Mandryk is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Victoria, Canada. Prior to moving to UVic, she was a professor at the University of Saskatchewan for 15 years where she was a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Digital Gaming Technologies and Experiences. Her long-term research objective is to design, develop, and evaluate novel technologies that improve the social, cognitive, and emotional wellbeing of people. Her lectures include "Innovations in Social Play." For more information about Mandryk, please visit her DSP speaker information page.

All speakers are available through ACM's ACM Distinguished Speaker Program.

This Is for Everyone: Read with ACM

What’s on your reading list this fall? ACM invites you to be part of the Back-to-School Virtual Bookclub, #ACMBookclub! Running from November through December 2025, ACM members across the globe will be reading together and diving into big ideas in computing and technology. The two-month experience will cu lminate in an exclusive online discussion featuring the book’s author or an ACM expert. The community-picked title for our inaugural bookclub is This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web by ACM Turing Laureate Tim Berners-Lee. Follow us on FB @associationforcomputingmachinery or IG @officialacm. For more details, visit here.

ACM CAREER & JOB CENTER

The Ultimate Career Development Destination

Connecting with the right employers in computing can be a daunting task. The ACM Career & Job Center is a true career planning destination. Whether you are seeking Career Insights, Career Advice, or Career Coaching, ACM can help.

Read past issues of MemberNet online in our archive.

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