We have established the SIGIR Academy to honor and recognize individuals who have made significant, cumulative contributions to the development of the field of information retrieval (IR).
Inductees to the SIGIR Academy are the principal leaders in IR, whose efforts have shaped the discipline and/or industry through significant research, innovation, and/or service.
Each year, a small cohort (around 3-5 new members) will be elected to the SIGIR Academy. Election is considered an official ACM award. Inductees will be celebrated at the SIGIR conference in their year of induction.
Selection Criteria
The criteria for election to the SIGIR Academy are as follows:
- Cumulative contributions to the field,
- Impact on the field through the development of new research directions, innovations, and/or service,
- Influence on the work of others, and
- Reasonably active participation in the ACM SIGIR community.
The criteria above include both significant technical contributions (scientific or industrial) and/or significant community service contributions.
Nomination Process
Inductees into the ACM SIGIR Academy in any given year are determined by a Selection Committee. For transparency, the list of Selection Committee members will be made public. Lobbying (even informally) of Committee members is not permitted. Members of the Selection Committee are not permitted to submit nominations or endorse nominees for the duration of their service on the Committee.Potential inductees must be nominated. We welcome more than one nomination from the same nominator.
Nominations must include the following:
- Name and contact information of the nominee,
- The nominee’s resume,
- A brief summary (one page max, PDF) of how the nominee meets the award criteria,
- Name and contact information of the nominator, and
- Names and contact information of two people (other than the nominator/nominee) who are knowledgeable about the qualifications of the nominee and endorse them
- Endorsements from existing Academy members are recommended but not required.
Each endorser can endorse at most two candidates. An endorsement should consist of a brief summary (one page max, PDF) of how the nominee meets the award criteria.
The deadline for nominations is February 28, 2026. Shortly after this deadline, the chairs of the selection committee will contact the endorsers and ask them for their endorsements. The deadline for endorsements is March 15, 2026.
Inductees and nominators will be notified of the outcome of their nominations by email by the middle of May in the induction year. Inductees will be publicly announced shortly thereafter, and will be recognized with a ceremony at the SIGIR 2026 conference.
Nominations should be submitted via email to sigir-academy-award@acm.org. We will acknowledge receipt.
The Selection Committee will follow the ACM Diversity and Inclusion policy (https://www.acm.org/diversity-inclusion/about).
Inductees
The SIGIR Academy currently has these members:
| Year | Inductees |
| 2025 | David Carmel, Evgeniy Gabrilovich, Don Metzler, Chirag Shah, Ian Soboroff, Min Zhang |
| 2024 | Fernando Diaz, Donna Harman, Mounia Lalmas, Yiqun Liu, Mark Sanderson |
| 2023 | Nick Craswell, Nicola Ferro, Jimmy Lin, Tetsuya Sakai, Ryen W. White, Yiming Yang |
| 2022 | Charles L. A. Clarke, William Hersh, Jian-Yun Nie, Maarten de Rijke, Jaime Teevan, Justin Zobel |
| 2021 | James Allan, Jamie Callan, Noriko Kando, Diane Kelly, Alistair Moffat |
| 2021 inaugural inductees |
Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Nicholas Belkin, Andrei Broder, William Cooper, W. Bruce Croft, Susan Dumais, Edward Fox, Ophir Frieder, Norbert Fuhr, Marti Hearst, Kalervo Järvelin, Thorsten Joachims, Michael Lesk, Yoelle Maarek, Marc Najork, C. J. van Rijsbergen, Stephen Robertson, Tefko Saracevic, Ellen Voorhees, ChengXiang Zhai |
The inaugural inductees in 2021 were selected based on their existing recognition as past Salton Award recipients and/or as Fellows of the ACM.
Selection Committee
The Selection Committee for the Class of 2025 is as follows:
- Mounia Lalmas (2026)
- Jimmy Lin (2026)
- Yiqun Liu (2026)
- Jian-Yun Nie (2026)
- Justin Zobel (2026)
- Don Metzler (2027)
- Min Zhang (2027)
The composition of the Committee changes annually, with 3-4 Committee members continuing for a second (and final) year and 3-4 new members joining for a two-year term. The final induction year of Committee member terms are in parentheses in the list above. The Committee for 2026 will be finalized in early 2026.
The (non-voting) Chairs of the Selection Committee in 2026 are Yoelle Maarek and Marc Najork.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. May Selection Committee member and the non-voting Committee Chair be nominated?
No. This would be a conflict of interest. Selection Committee terms last only two years, so Committee members not yet inducted will soon be eligible for nomination once their terms are complete. At the moment, all committee members are already members of the Academy.
2. May Selection Committee members nominate or endorse nominees?
This is handled as a conflict of interest in the submission system, so the nominating committee member will not see or discuss the candidate they nominated. Committee members and non-voting chairs may not endorse candidates.
3. Is there a template for the one-page case for nomination or the endorsement?
No. Each case is different. Nominators and endorsers should ensure that the case clearly covers the nomination criteria, highlighting the significance and the uniqueness of the nominee’s contributions and impact.
Other Questions
If you have any questions about the SIGIR Academy, nominations, or the selection process, that are not covered in the FAQs, please contact the Chairs of the Selection Committee at the email address above.