Connectionists: SDM/IBM EARLY CAREER DATA MINING RESEARCHER AWARD

[Albrecht Zimmermann]

SDM/IBM EARLY CAREER DATA MINING RESEARCHER AWARD
 
About the Award: The SDM/IBM Early Career Data Mining Researcher Award for Excellence in Data Analytics seeks to recognize one individual (no runner up/ honorable mention) who has made outstanding and influential contributions in the field of data analysis and who will be within 10 years of having received their PhD degree as of the calendar year prior to the year of the award. For example, an award winner in 2020 should have received their PhD no earlier than 2009. An award winner in 2021 should have received their PhD no earlier than 2010.

Since SDM 2020 was deferred due to the pandemic, this year we are accepting nominations for both 2020 and 2021. Applications for 2020 should include achievements (publications, etc.) dated no later than March 30, 2020.

Nominations: A candidate may be nominated by any member of the community except members of the Award Selection Committee. An individual may nominate at most one candidate for this award in a specific year. In this competition, an individual may nominate at most one candidate for 2020 and at most one candidate for 2021.  One candidate can be nominated for both 2020 and 2021 as long as the candidate is eligible for both years.  Nominations must be submitted to the Award Selection Committee Co-Chairs by email at jpei at cs.sfu.ca and chawsanj at gmail.com with “SDM/IBM Research Award [2020 or 2021]” as the subject. Please send one nomination per email and specify whether the nomination is for year 2020 or 2021 in the subject of the email.

A nomination application (a single PDF file) should contain the following:
    1 Name/email of nominator (self-nominations are not permitted).
    2 Name/email of candidate being nominated.
    3 A statement by the nominator (maximum of 500 words) as to why the nominee is highly deserving of the award. Note that since the award is for outstanding contributions, the statement and supporting letters should address what the contributions are and why they are both outstanding, significant, and influential. The nomination should also list the names and email addresses of up to 3 persons who will provide letters supporting the nomination.
    4 CV of the nominee (the CV must clearly indicate date of degree received)
    5 Up to three support letters. The letters should be collected by the nominator and included in the nomination. The letter writers may not be the nominator nor Award Selection Committee members.

Important Dates:
    - Nomination Deadline:     March 12, 2021
    - Results Notification:        April 15, 2021
 
Award Selection Committee:  
Sanjay Chawla, Qatar Computing Research Institute (Co-Chair)
Jian Pei, Simon Fraser University (Co-Chair)
Zoran Obradovic, Temple University (Steering Committee Representative)
Members: TBD

Note that members of the selection committee cannot be nominators or provide support letters. Also note that the intent is to select exactly one awardee (one for 2020 and one for 2021) – re-nominations for subsequent years are permissible as long as the individuals continue to maintain eligibility. The committee at its discretion may elect not to make an award in a particular year.