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Programs

Fellow Awards

Honoring the Past. Inspiring the Future.

The CHM Fellow Awards Program honors distinguished technology pioneers—unsung heroes and legends—for their outstanding merits and significant contributions to the advancement of computing and the evolution of the digital age. This prestigious program is supported with collecting, education, research, and media efforts that reflect the seminal work of each Fellow and preserves their stories for future generations. Fellows are selected annually through a public nomination process and honored at an exclusive gala ceremony.

2021 Fellow Awards 

CHM proudly presents its 2021 Fellow Award honorees:

Raymond Ozzie: For a lifetime of work in collaborative software and software entrepreneurship

Raj Reddy: For his groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence, robotics, and computer science education

Lillian F. Schwartz: For her pioneering work at the intersection of art and computing

Andries van Dam: For a lifetime of contributions to computer graphics, hypertext, and education

Learn more

Learn more about this year’s honorees and the 2021 Fellow Awards.

Hall of Fellows

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2019

James Gosling

For the conception, design, and implementation of the Java programming language.
2019

Katherine Johnson

For her exceptional calculations during the US space programs that brought the first humans to the Moon.
2019

Leslie Lamport

For his contributions to the analysis and design of distributed computer systems, and for the initial creation of the LaTeX document production system.
2019

Louis Pouzin

For the pioneering design and implementation of packet communication networks that led the way to the internet.
2018

Dov Frohman-Bentchkowsky

For the invention of the first commercial erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), which enabled rapid development of microprocessor-based systems.
2018

Dame Stephanie Shirley

For a lifetime of entrepreneurship promoting the growth of the UK software industry and the advancement of women in computing.
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Fellow Nominations

Now accepting nominations for 2022 Fellows through September 30, 2021.

Fellow nominations are open to the public and reflect a diverse range of viewpoints and areas of computing. Final selection is made by a panel of historians, researchers, industry leaders, CHM staff, and past Fellow Award honorees.

Selection Criteria and Process

This public nomination process helps CHM to identify qualified candidates who best fit the selection criteria. By drawing on the cumulative industry knowledge of our community, the written nomination process helps to document and enrich our understanding of candidates’ contributions.

Review our selection criteria and process.

Nominate

Past Fellow Awards and Program Highlights

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2018 Fellow Awards

Honoring Dov Frohman-Bentchkowsky, Dame Stephanie Shirley, and Guido van Rossum

2017 Fellow Awards

Honoring Alan Cooper, Margaret Hamilton, Cleve Moler, and Larry Roberts

2016 Fellow Awards

Honoring David Cutler, Lee Felsenstein, and Philip Moorby

2018 Fellow Awards Highlights

Honoring Dov Frohman-Bentchkowsky, Dame Stephanie Shirley, and Guido van Rossum

2017 Fellow Awards Highlights

Honoring Alan Cooper, Margaret Hamilton, Cleve Moler, and Larry Roberts

2016 Fellow Awards Highlights

Honoring David Cutler, Lee Felsenstein, and Philip Moorby
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Sponsorship 

Event sponsors enjoy an elite and powerful opportunity to take their place among other industry leaders, to communicate with a renowned and influential audience, and to show their support of the honorees at CHM, the premier institution that preserves and interprets the pivotal objects and stories of the computing revolution.

Contact us to learn more about sponsorship opportunities for our Fellow Awards Program.

Fellow Awards: A CHM Tradition

Fellow Awards

Inaugural Fellow Grace Hopper and Gwen Bell, 1987

The Fellow Awards were started in 1987 by Gwen Bell, cofounder of Boston’s The Computer Museum (TCM), precursor to CHM. TCM named Admiral Grace Murray Hopper as its first Fellow for her essential role in developing programming languages and standardization efforts.

Fellow Awards

Fellow Awards programs from the CHM institutional archive, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006

The Fellow Awards are a Museum-wide effort. Every detail is scrutinized to make sure the evening is a success, including program and invitation design.

Fellow Awards

Fellows Collection and Archive

Continuous work by our curatorial, collections, and media teams goes toward creating and maintaining a substantial archive of our Fellows that includes oral histories, artifacts, and documents.

Top to bottom, left to right: cover page from the 1963 PhD dissertation of 2005 Fellow Ivan Sutherland detailing his Sketchpad system; 1968 head-mounted display, which gave its wearer the illusion of a 3-D scene, by Ivan Sutherland; and Dov Frohman-Bentchkowsky interviewed by CHM in Treviso, Italy, on February 2, 2018.

Collection of the Computer History Museum, 102726907, X1044.90, and 102738721.

Fellow Awards

2008 Fellow Award Honorees

2008 Fellows Linus Torvalds, Jean Bartik, and Bob Metcalfe.

Fellow Awards

Dr. Yvonne Cagle Accepts 2019 Fellow Award on Behalf of NASA’s Katherine Johnson

Dr. Yvonne Cagle, NASA astronaut, accepts the CHM Fellow Award on behalf of her heroine NASA mathematician and “hidden figure no longer” Katherine Johnson. Johnson was honored at the Museum’s 2019 Fellow Awards gala for her exceptional calculations during the US space programs that brought the first humans to the Moon. 

Watch Cagle’s moving acceptance speech

Fellow Awards

Hall of Fellows

The stories of our Fellow Award honorees are preserved for future generations in our Hall of Fellows. Past Fellows include NASA’s Margaret Hamilton, the World Wide Web’s Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Pixar’s Ed Catmull, SRI’s Doug Engelbart, NASA’s Katherine Johnson, and Apple’s Steve Wozniak.

Hall of Fellows

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