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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.

2024 Fellow Awards Gala will take place at CHM on Saturday, November 16, 2024.

2023 Fellow Awards 

CHM proudly presents its 2023 Fellow Award honorees:

Rodney Brooks: For the advancement of robotics and consideration of its implications for humanity.

Thomas E. Kurtz: For the co-invention of the BASIC programming language, which brought the power of computers to beginners around the world, and the Dartmouth Timesharing System.

Barbara Liskov: For practical and theoretical contributions to programming language and system design that continue to shape modern computing. 

Learn more about this year’s honorees and the 2023 Fellow Awards.

Fellow Nominations

Now accepting nominations for 2025 Fellow Honorees. The deadline for 2025 nominations is December 31, 2024. 

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

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.

Hall of Fellows

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2022

Adele Goldberg

For the promotion and codevelopment of the Smalltalk programming environment and for advancing the use of computers in education
2022

Leonard Kleinrock

For his pioneering work on the mathematical theory of computer networks and roles in the ARPANET and in expanding the internet
2021

Raj Reddy

For his groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence, robotics, and computer science education
2021

Lillian F. Schwartz

For her pioneering work at the intersection of art and computing.

2021

Andries van Dam

For a lifetime of contributions to computer graphics, hypertext, and education.
2019

Katherine Johnson

For her exceptional calculations during the US space programs that brought the first humans to the Moon.
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Past Fellow Awards and Program Highlights

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2022 Fellow Awards

Honoring Don Bitzer, Adele Goldberg, Dan Ingalls, and Leonard Kleinrock

2021 Fellow Awards

Honoring Ray Ozzie, Raj Reddy, Lillian Schwartz, and Andries van Dam

2019 Fellow Awards

Honoring James Gosling, Katherine Johnson, Leslie Lamport, and Louis Poizen

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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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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