The SIGEVO Outstanding Contribution Award will recognize truly distinctive contributions to the field of Evolutionary Computation (EC) when evaluated over an extended period of at least 15 years.

These contributions can include technical innovations, publications, leadership, teaching, mentoring, and service to the Evolutionary Computation community. An individual's contributions may fall in one or more of the following areas:

  1. Service via elected or appointed offices in SIGEVO and/or other EC societies.
  2. Editorial responsibilities for EC publications, such as editorial board member, series editor, area editor, associate editor, or editor-in-chief.
  3. Conference management responsibilities for EC related conferences, including program chair, proceedings editor, general chair, or organizing committee member.
  4. Technical contributions through scholarly publications appearing in archival journals, conference proceedings, books or monographs that have had an impact on producing new knowledge or improving the practice of EC.
  5. Significant contributions in EC education, including teaching, advancing and spreading EC subjects and/or the development of students who have made notable contributions in their own right.

Contributions benefiting SIGEVO are weighted more heavily than those benefiting other elements of ACM. In turn contributions to elements of ACM are weighted more heavily than those benefiting non-ACM organizations.

The SIGEVO Outstanding Contribution Award will be given annually to a maximum of 2 individuals. The award presentation will take place at the annual GECCO awards ceremony. Each award will carry a monetary value of $1,000 and a plaque contributed by SIGEVO to be awarded to each awardee.

Nomination information can be found on the Call for Nominations page.

Submission Deadline

February 1 of each year

Decision Deadline

The SIGEVO Outstanding Contribution Award Committee will make a recommendation to the Chair of SIGEVO by May 1 of each year. Upon approval of the recommendation by the executive board of ACM SIGEVO, the chair will inform the individuals selected.

Outstanding Contribution Award Selection Committee

The committee will consist of five members (normally 2 SIGEVO Executive Committee (EC) members, and 3 at-large SIGEVO members). The initial members will each receive a term of one to five years, with one member at each term length. As each member’s term expires, the SIGEVO EC will appoint a new member for a 5-year term with a view on keeping the ratio of EC members and at-large members to 2:3. A maximum of one reappointment of any member is permissible. The committee will determine/confirm its own chair after renewal of membership for the year. Reappointment to a second term as chair is allowed.

As of 2023, Committee Members (last year of service) are:
Chair: Una-May O’Reilly (2024)
Thomas Baeck (2027)
Wolfgang Banzhaf (2025)
Ken De Jong (2023)
Erik Goodman (2026)

Evaluation Process

The evaluation of nominations is conducted as follows:

  1. All oral and written communications regarding nominations or deliberations of the Committee shall remain strictly confidential, including the names of all nominators, endorsers, and nominees.
  2. In the event a winner is selected, the Committee Chair shall have full responsibility for obtaining and presenting the award and for publicizing the presentation of the award.

Conflict of interest

The award committee will follow a conflict of interest policy that is consistent with that of ACM: http://awards.acm.org/conflict-of-interest.cfm. In addition, within a week of the nomination deadline, the award committee chair will report all conflicts to the SIGEVO chair, with a recommendation for dealing with the conflicts. The chair’s recommendation may be a recusal similar to ACM’s policy, or a replacement of the conflicted committee member. The SIGEVO chair will make the final decision for handling all conflicts.

Outstanding Contribution Award Funding

Funding will be contributed by ACM SIGEVO.

Grandfather Clause

SIGEVO is the successor organization of the formerly independent International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation which had its own Fellow and Senior Fellow awards. Under ACM rules, such awards are not possible for SIGs. Former ISGEC Fellows and Senior Fellows will therefore automatically be grandfathered in and receive the ACM SIGEVO Award for Outstanding Contributions in the first year of its existence. They will not receive a monetary award but will receive the award plaque.
Being grandfathered in are:

ISGEC Fellows:
Thomas Baeck
Erick Cantu-Paz
Kalyanmoy Deb
William Langdon
Una-May O'Reilly
Riccardo Poli
Lee Spector

ISGEC Sr. Fellows
Wolfgang Banzhaf
Lawrence "David" Davis
Kenneth De Jong
Stephanie Forrest
David E. Goldberg
Erik D. Goodman
John Koza
Marc Schoenauer
Hans-Paul Schwefel
Darrell Whitley