SIGMOBILE Rockstar Award

The RockStar Award is SIGMOBILE's early career award. The Award recognizes an individual who has made recent outstanding research or product contributions to the field of mobile computing during the early part of that person's career.

The submission site for nominations is open for the 2024 round. Deadline: 29th February, 2024.

2024 Recipient

Swarun Kumar

In recognition of outstanding contributions to the design of novel techniques to extend the range of low-power networks and the development of the area of programmable targeted wireless energy delivery.

Past Recipients

2023
Xinyu Zhang

For significant contributions to wireless networking and wireless sensing, especially millimeter-wave network systems and new sensing modalities, driven by novel computational models and programmable hardware platforms.

2022
Fadel Adib

For his innovations in using wireless networks for physical sensing, developing underwater backscatter networks, and batteryless microchips for biomedical monitoring.

	2021 Aruna Balasubramanian In recognition of her significant contributions in the areas of mobile systems and mobile Web performance, and her mentoring and leadership efforts in improving diversity in the SIGMOBILE community.
	2020 Nic Lane For contributions to the understanding of how resource-constrained mobile devices can robustly understand, reason and react to complex user behaviors and environments through new paradigms in learning algorithms and system design. Watch Award Lecture
	2019 Xia Zhou In recognition of her research examining unconventional wireless spectrum frequencies to build next generation wireless systems and spearheading the field of "visible light sensing" which turns the ubiquitous light around us into a powerful medium that integrates data communication and human behavioral sensing. Watch Award Lecture
	2018 Kyle Jamieson In recognition of his outstanding early-career contributions and impact in the field of wireless computer networks.
	2017 Shyam Gollakota For contributions to the use of wireless signals in the context of novel applications, including battery-free communications, health monitoring, and gesture recognition.
	2016 Karthik Sundaresan In recognition of significant contributions, early in his career, to wireless connectivity, with an emphasis on novel technologies for wide-area wireless access and smart antenna networking.
	2015 Romit Roy Choudhury In recognition of significant contributions, early in his career, to mobile sensing and wireless networking, with an emphasis on location and cross-layer protocols.
	2014 Lin Zhong For contributions to understanding mobile design tradeoffs, driven by novel platforms and large longitudinal studies of mobile users.
	2013 Suman Banerjee For contributions to understanding wireless interference, and for service to the research community.

Award Criterion

The SIGMOBILE RockStar Award recognizes one or more recent technical contribution(s) made in the early part of a mobile computing researcher's career, resulting in notable influence on our field. Early career for an individual is defined as within 10 years of receiving their highest university degree or younger than 40 years of age at the time of the nomination.

Selection is based on the impact of the candidate's work in creating promising new ideas, paradigms, and tools, related to mobile computing. Depth, impact, and novelty of the individual's contributions will be key criteria upon which the RockStar Award Committee (RAC) will evaluate the nominees.

Deadline for Nomination: 28/29th February for award in that calendar year.

Nomination Process

The nominator should solicit recommendations from colleagues in the field who are most familiar with the nominee's achievements. An individual may nominate, or endorse, multiple nominees; self nominations are not allowed. Per ACM policy, no members of the selection committee may serve as nominator or endorser.

Each nomination should consist of the following items:

Name, phone number, organization, job title, and email address of the person making the nomination.
Curriculum vitae of the nominee, including name, phone number and email address.
A brief citation, no more than 50 words long. See examples from the Rockstar award page.
A statement, no more than 500 words long (excluding references), on why the candidate deserves the award. The statement should confirm that the nominee meets the criterion: “within 10 years of receiving their highest university degree or younger than 40 years of age at the time of the nomination.”
Minimum of three and maximum of five supporting statements from other individuals who endorse the nomination. The endorser should identify the rationale for the nomination and by what means they know of the nominee's work. Endorsement letters may be sent in the form of emails and should not be more than 400 words.

Submit your nominations here. Note: Please combine all nomination material into one pdf file for your submission to the HotCRP system.

Selection Committee

Ashu Sabharwal (Chair) Email: ashu@rice.edu
Lama Nachman (Intel Labs), term ending 2024
Xia Zhou (Dartmouth College), 2019 winner
Nic Lane (Oxford University), 2020 winner
Aruna Balasubramaniam (Stony Brook University), 2021 winner
Fadel Adib (MIT), 2022 winner
Xinyu Zhang (UCSD), 2023 winner

Please direct questions to Ashutosh Sabharwal (ashu@rice.edu) Award Committee Chair.

Retired from Selection Committee

David Kotz (Chair, 2020 - 2021)
Edward Knightly (Chair, 2013 - 2019)
Roy Want (SIGMOBILE EC)
Marco Gruteser (SIGMOBILE EC)
Alec Wolman (SIGMOBILE EC)
Lili Qiu (SIGMOBILE EC)
PR Kumar (Senior Research Community)
Hari Balakrishnan (Senior Research Community)
Anind Dey (Senior Research Community)
Tanzeem Choudhury (Senior Research Community)
Suman Banerjee (2013 winner)
Lin Zhong (2014 winner)
Romit Roy Choudhury (2015 winner)
Karthik Sundaresan (2016 winner)
Mary Baker (2017 winner)
Morley Mao (Senior Research Community)
Shyam Gollakota (2017 winner)
Kyle Jamieson (2018 winner)