For the first time in the 37-year history of the distinguished honor, the National Science Foundation (NSF) today named two individuals — both computer scientists — as joint recipients of the 2012 Alan T. Waterman Award. Scott Aaronson of MIT and Robert Wood of Harvard were honored with the award, recognizing “an outstanding young researcher in any field of science or engineering” supported by NSF. Also for the first time, both Aaronson and Wood will receive $1 million grants over a five-year period to further their research, up from $500,000 awards in recent years. Aaronson was selected for his research on the limitations of quantum computers and computational complexity theory more generally. Wood received […]

Congratulations to Susan Graham, who was selected earlier this week by the Computing Research Association’s (CRA) Board of Directors as its 2012 Distinguished Service Award recipient. CRA makes the award, usually annually, to a person who has made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community, in areas of government affairs, professional societies, publications or conferences, and/or leadership. (Susan is currently the Vice Chair of the CCC Council.) Susan was selected “in recognition of the extraordinary contributions that she has made over more than three decades of dedicated and selfless service and leadership.” Here’s the full award description (following the link):

Turing Award-winner Barbara Liskov has been named as one of the 2012 inductees of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, which has been honoring individuals who have “conceived, patented, and advanced the great technological achievements since the birth of our nation.” The citation reads: Barbara Liskov, for programming languages and systems design: MIT Institute Professor Liskov is considered an innovator in the design of computer programming languages, largely for helping to make computer programs more reliable, secure, and easy to use. Her innovations can be found within almost all modern programming languages. Liskov is part of an elite class that includes several folks from computing. Among them (after the jump):

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has just announced the election of 66 new members and 10 foreign associates, including a number of esteemed computing researchers. Among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer, “Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to ‘engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature,’ and to the ‘pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education’.” This year’s new members in Section 5 — Computer Science and Engineering are (following the link):

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) named the winners of its 2012 Charles Stark Draper and Bernard M. Gordon Prizes yesterday, honoring the pioneers of the LCD and those who architected Harvey Mudd College’s engineering design curriculum, respectively. According to the NAE, the Draper Prize — honoring “those engineers whose accomplishment has had a significant impact on society by improving the quality of life, providing the ability to live freely and comfortably, and/or permitting the access to information” — went to George H. Heilmeier, Wolfgang Helfrich, Martin Shadt, and T. Peter Brody “for their efforts in the engineering of the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) that is utilized in billions of consumer devices” today. From the NAE announcement:

ACM is out with its 2011 Fellows, 46 of its members from universities, corporations, and research labs being recognized “for their contributions to computing that have provided fundamental knowledge to the computing field and generated multiple technology advances in industry, commerce, healthcare, entertainment, and education.” They join a distinguished set of colleagues honored since 1993. Check out the 2011 Fellows and their contributions to the field after the jump…