SIGSOFT

Founding and early years (1975–1979)

• 1973: Tony Wasserman wrote to Peter J. Denning (then ACM President) advocating the formation of a dedicated ACM special interest group (initially framed around programming / programming methodology).
• 1975: Tony Wasserman and Stockton Gaines drafted a petition supporting an ACM Special Interest Committee on Software Engineering; an organizational meeting was held at the International Conference on Reliable Software (≈80 attendees). Jean Sammet (ACM President) supported the formation of SICSOFT.
• 1976: SICSOFT was officially approved (often cited as SIGSOFT’s birth). Initial officers included Thomas B. Steel, Jr. (initial chair), Tony Wasserman (chair), Susan L. Gerhart (vice chair), Peter A. Freeman (secretary/treasurer), and Peter G. Neumann (newsletter editor). Major publications launched included SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes (newsletter editor: Peter G. Neumann) and IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (Editor-in-Chief: Raymond T. Yeh, 1976–1979).
• 1977: Successful conversion from SICSOFT to SIGSOFT (effective July 1, 1977), approved by the ACM SIG/SIC Board.
• 1979: ICSE 1979 is noted as the first ICSE co-sponsored by SIGSOFT, chaired by Friedrich (Fritz) L. Bauer with program chairs Manny M. Lehman and Leon G. Stucki.

Building a conference ecosystem (1980s–1990s)

• 1980: SIGSOFT established formal guidelines for organizing both SIGSOFT symposia and ICSE conferences.
• 1981: The first SIGSOFT Software Engineering Symposium (Tool and Methodology Evaluation) was held (general chair William Riddle, program chair Victor Basili).
• 1986–1988: A testing-focused meeting lineage developed (including early workshops such as the 1978 testing workshop chaired by Ed Miller), and SIGSOFT expanded its conference footprint; TOSEM was approved by ACM in 1988.
• 1992: ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) published its first issue (first Editor-in-Chief: W. Richards Adrion).
• 1993: The first SIGSOFT FSE symposium was held (general chair Barry Boehm, program chair David Notkin), cementing FSE as a flagship SIGSOFT venue.
• 1995: SIGSOFT established the Conference Attendance Program for Students (CAPS) to support student travel and participation.
• 1996: SIGSOFT adopted its logo (concept by Sandy Wise, refined by a design artist).

Modernization and growth (2000s–2020s)

• 2001: The SIGSOFT Impact Project started during the 2001–2005 executive committee led by Alexander L. Wolf (chair) and Mary Jean Harrold (vice chair).
• 2009: Revised SIGSOFT bylaws were approved (including longer leadership terms and increased at-large representation). Leadership at the time included David S. Rosenblum (chair) and Matthew B. Dwyer (vice chair), with Will Tracz as newsletter editor and Tao Xie as history liaison.
• 2010s–2020s: SIGSOFT continued stewarding and co-sponsoring major venues such as ICSE, FSE/ESEC-FSE, and ISSTA, reflecting the field’s global growth (e.g., ICSE leadership included chairs such as Martin Glinz for ICSE 2012 in Zürich and David Notkin for ICSE 2013).

Officers

• Chair: Marsha Chechik — University of Toronto (Canada)
• Vice Chair: Massimiliano Di Penta — University of Sannio (Italy)
• Most Recent Past Chair: Thomas Zimmermann — Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine (USA)

At-Large Members

• Claire Le Goues (SIGSOFT Awards) — Carnegie Mellon University (USA)
• David Lo (Student Mentorships and Support; Secretary–Treasurer) — Singapore Management University (Singapore)
• Emerson Murphy-Hill (Director of Communication)
• Kelly Blincoe (Memberships and Community) — University of Auckland (New Zealand)

Liaison Members

• International Liaison: S.C. Cheung — Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Hong Kong)
• iSoft Liaison: Atul Kumar — IBM Research India
• cSoft Liaison: Minghui Zhou — Peking University (China)
• Special Projects Liaison: Will Tracz — Lockheed Martin Fellow Emeritus (retired), Owego, NY (USA)
• Industry Co-Liaison: Nachi Nagappan — Meta (USA)
• Industry Co-Liaison: Xin Xia — Huawei Technologies (China)
• Climate Change Liaison: Rick Kazman — University of Hawaii (USA)

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Liaisons

• Jo Atlee — University of Waterloo (Canada)
• Kelly Blincoe — University of Auckland (New Zealand)
• Alexander Serebrenik — Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands)

Program and Communications Roles

• Research Highlight Chair: Martin Robillard — McGill University (Canada)
• Social Media Chair: Judith Michael — RWTH Aachen University (Germany)
• Digital Learning Chair: Sridhar Chimalakonda — Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati (India)
• Digital Learning Co-Chair: Andrew Begel — Carnegie Mellon University (USA)

Student Support Programs

• CAPS Co-Chair: Istvan David — McMaster University (Canada)
• CAPS Co-Chair: Zhiyuan Wan — Zhejiang University (China)
• CAPS Co-Chair: Fabio Palomba — University of Salerno (Italy)

CARES Program

• CARES Co-Chair: Joanne Atlee — University of Waterloo (Canada)
• CARES Co-Chair: Alexander Serebrenik — Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands)
• CARES Co-Chair: Kelly Blincoe — University of Auckland (New Zealand)
• CARES Co-Chair: Federica Sarro — University College London (United Kingdom)

Publications

• Newsletter Editor: Jacopo Soldani

Past SIGSOFT Executive Committee

Journals

Conferences

SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award

The SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award is presented annually to an individual or individuals who have made significant and lasting research contributions to the theory or practice of software engineering.

• 1997 – Barry Boehm
• 1998 – David Parnas
• 1999 – Harlan Mills
• 1999 – Niklaus Wirth
• 2000 – Victor Basili
• 2001 – Michael Jackson
• 2002 – Gerard Holzmann
• 2003 – Leon J. Osterweil
• 2004 – Nancy Leveson
• 2005 – Jeff Kramer and Jeff Magee
• 2006 – David Harel
• 2007 – Elaine J. Weyuker
• 2008 – Axel van Lamsweerde
• 2009 – Richard N. Taylor
• 2010 – Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides
• 2011 – David Garlan and Mary Shaw
• 2012 – Lori Clarke
• 2013 – David Notkin
• 2014 – Alexander Wolf
• 2015 – Carlo Ghezzi
• 2016 – James Herbsleb
• 2017 – Daniel Jackson
• 2018 – Andreas Zeller
• 2019 – Mark Harman (computer scientist)
• 2020 – Michael D. Ernst
• 2021 – Prem Devanbu
• 2022 – Lionel Briand
• 2023 – Gail Murphy
• 2024 – Tsong Yueh Chen
• 2025 – Martin Rinard
• 2026 – Tao Xie

SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award

The SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award is presented annually to individuals who have contributed dedicated and important service to the software engineering community.

• 1995 – Tony Wasserman
• 1996 – Rick Adrion
• 1997 – Peter G. Neumann
• 1998 – Bruce Barnes
• 1999 – Bill Riddle
• 2000 – Marvin Zelkowitz
• 2001 – Kouichi Kishida
• 2002 – Lori Clarke
• 2003 – Axel van Lamsweerde
• 2004 – Will Tracz
• 2005 – Richard N. Taylor
• 2006 – Carlo Ghezzi
• 2007 – David Notkin
• 2008 – John C. Knight
• 2009 – Stuart Zweben
• 2010 – Mary Lou Soffa
• 2011 – Jeff Kramer
• 2012 – Alexander Wolf
• 2013 – Wilhelm Schäfer
• 2014 – Leon J. Osterweil
• 2015 – Bashar Nuseibeh
• 2016 – Martin Glinz
• 2017 – Laura Dillon
• 2018 – David S. Rosenblum
• 2019 – Matt Dwyer
• 2020 – Nenad Medvidović
• 2021 – Tao Xie
• 2022 – Joanne M. Atlee
• 2023 – John Grundy
• 2024 – Massimiliano Di Penta
• 2025 – Mauro Pezzé
• 2026 – Thomas Zimmermann

SIGSOFT Influential Educator Award

The SIGSOFT Influential Educator Award is presented annually to an educator or educators who have made significant contributions to, and impact on, the field of software engineering with his or her accomplishments as a teacher, mentor, researcher (in education or learning), author, and/or policy maker.

• 2009 – Laurie Williams (software engineer)
• 2009 – Nico Habermann
• 2010 – Leon J. Osterweil
• 2011 – Ian Sommerville (software engineer)
• 2012 – Mehdi Jazayeri
• 2012 – David Notkin
• 2013 – Tony Wasserman
• 2014 – Mary Lou Soffa
• 2015 – Barbara Ryder
• 2016 – Lori Pollock
• 2017 – Bertrand Meyer
• 2018 – Shriram Krishnamurthi
• 2019 – Ahmed E. Hassan
• 2020 – Greg Wilson
• 2021 – Katsuro Inoue
• 2022 – Miryung Kim
• 2023 – Tao Xie
• 2024 – Martin Robillard
• 2025 – Andreas Zeller
• 2026 – Daniela Damian

SIGSOFT Early Career Award

The SIGSOFT Early Career Award is presented to an individual or individuals who have made outstanding contributions in the area of software engineering as an early career investigator.

• 2017 – Christian Bird
• 2018 – Gabriele Bavota
• 2019 – Jeff Huang
• 2020 – Claire Le Goues
• 2021 – Lingming Zhang
• 2022 – Xin Xia
• 2023 – Chunyang Chen
• 2024 – Kevin Moran
• 2025 – Jie Zhang
• 2026 – Eunsuk Kang
• 2026 – Sen Chen

SIGSOFT Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award

The SIGSOFT Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award is presented annually to the authors of outstanding doctoral dissertations in the area of Software Engineering.

• 2012 – Mark Gabel
• 2013 – Jeff Huang
• 2014 – Nicolas Mangano
• 2015 – Muath Alkhalaf
• 2016 – Milos Gligoric
• 2017 – Srdan Krstic
• 2018 – Fan Long
• 2019 – Sergey Mechtaev
• 2020 – Rachel Tzoref-Brill
• 2021 – August Shi
• 2022 – Wing Lam
• 2023 – David Shriver
• 2024 – Bianca Trinkenreich
• 2025 – Elizabeth Dinella
• 2025 – Jialun Cao
• 2026 – Zhou Yang

SIGSOFT Impact Paper Award

The SIGSOFT Impact Paper Award is presented annually to the author(s) of a paper presented at a SIGSOFT-sponsored or co-sponsored conference held at least 11 years prior to the award year.

• 2008 – Rosenblum, D. S. and Wolf, A. L. A design framework for Internet-scale event observation and notification.
• 2009 – Andreas Zeller. Yesterday, my program worked. Today, it does not. Why?.
• 2010 – James C. Corbett, Matthew B. Dwyer, John Hatcliff, Shawn Laubach, Corina S. Pasareanu, Robby, and Hongjun Zheng. Bandera: Extracting finite-state models from Java source code.
• 2011 – Luca de Alfaro and Thomas A. Henzinger. Interface automata.
• 2012 – Chandrasekhar Boyapati, Sarfraz Khurshid, and Darko Marinov. Korat: Automated testing based on Java predicates.
• 2013 – Michael Ernst, Jake Cockrell, Bill Griswold, and David Notkin. Dynamically discovering likely program invariants to support program evolution.
• 2014 – Barbara Kitchenham, Tore Dybå, and Magne Jørgensen. Evidence-based software engineering.
• 2015 – James A. Jones, Mary Jean Harrold, and John Stasko. Visualization of test information to assist fault localization.
• 2016 – Daniel Jackson and Mandana Vaziri. Finding bugs with a constraint solver.
• 2017 – Roy T. Fielding and Richard N. Taylor. Principled design of the modern web architecture.
• 2018 – Lingxiao Jiang, Ghassan Misherghi, Zhendong Su, and Stéphane Glondu. DECKARD: Scalable and accurate tree-based detection of code clones.
• 2019 – Koushik Sen, Darko Marinov, and Gul Agha. CUTE: A concolic unit testing engine for C.
• 2020 – Willem Visser, Klaus Havelund, Guillaume Brat, and SeungJoon Park. Model checking programs.
• 2021 – Matthew B. Dwyer, George S. Avrunin, and James C. Corbett. Patterns of property specifications for finite-state verification.
• 2022 – Mik Kersten and Gail Murphy. Using task context to improve programmer productivity.
• 2023 – Gordon Fraser and Andrea Arcuri. EvoSuite: Automatic test suite generation for object-oriented software.
• 2024 – Marcel Bruch, Martin Monperrus, and Mira Mezini. Learning from examples to improve code completion systems.
• 2025 – Alberto Bacchelli and Christian Bird. Expectations, outcomes, and challenges of modern code review.
• 2026 – Jacek Śliwerski, Thomas Zimmermann, and Andreas Zeller. When do changes induce fixes?.

SIGSOFT - SIGBED Frank Anger Award

In the spirit of Frank’s work and legacy, the Executive Committees of SIGBED and SIGSOFT, with support from the US National Science Foundation, have established a student travel award in his name. The award provides $2000 stipends for two students, one named by each SIG, to cover travel expenses to attend the flagship conference of the other SIG. The award is meant to improve the mutual awareness of the two research communities to the opportunities and challenges emerging in complementary research areas.

• 2006 – Cesar Sanchez and Bernhard Egger (SIGBED)
• 2007 – Stefan Henkler and Chunyang Ye (SIGSOFT)
• 2008 – Basil Becker (SIGSOFT)
• 2008 – Georgios Fainekos (SIGBED)
• 2011 – Aldeida Aleti (SIGSOFT)
• 2011 – Miroslav Pajic (SIGBED)
• 2012 – Indranil Saha (SIGBED)
• 2013 – Reinhard Schneider (SIGSOFT)
• 2017 – Ivan Ruchkin (SIGSOFT)
• 2019 – Jacob Krüger (SIGSOFT)
• 2020 – Sumaya Almanee (SIGSOFT)
• 2020 – Adeola Bannis (SIGBED)
• 2021 – Sumaya Almanee (SIGSOFT)
• 2021 – Akshay Gadre (SIGBED)
• 2022 – Claudio Mandrioli (SIGBED)
• 2024 – Max Camillo Eisele (SIGSOFT)
• 2025 – Liu Wang (SIGSOFT)
• 2026 – Federico Formica (SIGSOFT)