Informatics Professor Paul Dourish and Computer Science Professor Michael Franz honored for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and IT
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, has announced that two professors at UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences — Paul Dourish from the Department of Informatics and Michael Franz from the Department of Computer Science — have been named 2015 ACM Fellows.
Established in 1993, the ACM Fellows Program recognizes its top members for outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology. Of the 42 ACM Fellows who were named this year from the association’s more than 100,000 member, UCI was one of the few universities with two Fellows recognized for 2015. ACM President Alexander L. Wolf acknowledged the advances made by this year’s ACM Fellows: “These newly minted ACM Fellows are responsible for the breakthroughs and industrial innovations that are transforming society at every level. At times, the contributions of a Fellow may include enhancements to a device that immediately impacts our daily lives. At other times, new research discoveries lead to theoretical advances that, while perhaps not immediately perceptible, have substantial long-term impacts.”
Informatics Professor Paul Dourish was honored as an ACM Fellow for his contributions in social computing and human-computer interaction. His research interests lie at the intersection of computer science and social science, with a particular interest in ubiquitous and mobile computing and the cultural practices surrounding new media. He has published two books and more than 100 scientific articles, and holds 19 U.S. patents.
Computer Science Professor Michael Franz, who also serves as director of UCI’s Secure Systems and Languages Laboratory, earned the ACM Fellow rank for his contributions to just-in-time compilation and optimization to compiler techniques for computer security. His current research emphases lie in the areas of systems software, trustworthy computing and software engineering. He is the principal investigator on several competitive grants from the federal government totaling more than $16 million, and has received almost a million dollars in unrestricted gifts from industry in appreciation of the research innovations he has contributed.
ACM will formerly recognize the 2015 Fellows at its annual awards banquet this June in San Francisco.
“I’m delighted to be named an ACM Fellow, not least for the honor itself, but also for the recognition it brings to the work that we’ve been doing at UCI for many years now, bridging between technical and sociocultural traditions in informatics,” says Dourish. “Three of this year’s class of fellows are working in HCI, and along with the other Fellows here at ICS, this really underscores the significance and impact of the UCI flavor of informatics research that we have been developing.”