The SIGMIS Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the recipient’s dedication to promoting excellence in the MIS profession over a substantial period. A lifetime achiever serves as a superior role model to their peers. Recognized achievements can include technical innovations, publications, leadership, teaching, mentoring, and service to the MIS community. The award is announced annually at the ACM SIGMIS CPR Conference.
Call for Nominations for the SIGMIS Lifetime Achievement Award 2024
Call for Nominations for the SIGMIS Early Career Award 2024 will be announced in January, 2024.
A nominator (which may include self-nomination) should submit their nomination to the selection committee chair Fred Niederman (fred.niederman@slu.edu) by March 1, 2023. Each nomination should be accompanied by a summary statement about the nominee and a justification for the nomination.
Based on the criteria for the award, the selection committee will select the best candidate(s) among the nominees.
Selection committee members are not eligible for the award.
The 2023 ACM SIGMIS Lifetime Achievement Award Selection Committee:
Fred Niederman (Chair), Cindy Riemenschneider (Chair SIGMIS), Ephraim McLean (2019 SIGMIS Lifetime Achievement Recipient), Thomas Ferratt (2020 SIGMIS Lifetime Achievement Recipient).
Previous Awardees of the SIGMIS Lifetime Achievement Award
2023 – Lorne Olfman
Lorne Olfman is an Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Center for Information Systems and Technology at Claremont Graduate University (CGU); he was also Dean of the School of Information Systems and Technology, and from 2003-2012, Fletcher Jones Chair in Technology Management. He came to Claremont in 1987 after graduating with a PhD in Business (Management Information Systems) from Indiana University (IU). He also holds an MBA (from IU), an MA in Economics and a BSc in Computing Science (both from the University of Calgary). Lorne worked in the public (air transport) and private (telecommunications) sectors in Canada for 10 years before entering the PhD program.
His research interests include how software can be learned and used in organizations, the impact of computer-based systems on knowledge management, and the design and adoption of systems used for group work. Along with Terry Ryan, Lorne co-directed the Social Learning Software Lab ([SL]2) from 2005-2018. A key component of Lorne’s teaching is his involvement with doctoral students; he has supervised 77 students to completion and has served as a member, examiner, and opponent on more than 100 other completed dissertations.
Lorne attributes his success as an academic to his wife and family, Bob Bostrom (his dissertation chair), Paul Gray (who hired him), and Maung Sein (his doctoral colleague and long-time friend), as well as his CGU colleagues and early doctoral students. He presented his first academic paper (along with Bob and Maung) at the 1986 “SIGCPR” Conference in his hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He published his first refereed article in “Computer Personnel”, the then SIGCPR newsletter.
These were the first two of his 167 co-authored refereed published articles including 62 in journals, 26 book chapters, and 81 conference papers. Many of those conference papers were presented at SIGCPR and SIGCPR-MIS with Bob and Maung, and also with former doctoral students Conrad Shayo, Stan Clark, Ricardo Teitelroit, and Tony Coulson, as well with colleagues Magid Igbaria and Ruth Guthrie. He also appeared on panels with Maung and former students John Satzinger and Munir Mandviwalla.
Lorne was Program Chair (1995) and then Conference Chair (1996) for ACM SIGCPR – many thanks to Jeanne Ross – and co-chair of the 2015 Doctoral Consortium with Damien Joseph. He served on many international conference committees, co-chaired mini-tracks at HICSS and served on the HICSS IS Advisory Board. He has also served on a variety of editorial boards and has been a Senior Editor of the AIS Transactions on Human Computer Interaction. He was Chair of the Claremont Graduate University Faculty from June 2011-May 2013, and served as Associate Director of the Center for Information Systems and Technology from 2013 to 2016.
“In the Spring of 2009, Darlene and I traveled around the world. I gave talks at universities in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Norway, Finland, and Israel. This trip would not have been possible if not for the many friends I made during my academic journey, including individuals who I met by joining the Computers and People Research family. Thank you very much to the selection committee for honoring me with a Lifetime Achievement Award for SIGMIS-CPR.”
2022 – Fred Niederman
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Fred Niederman, Shaughnessy Endowed Professor of Management at Saint Louis University, is the recipient of the 2022 ACM SIGMIS CPR Lifetime Achievement Award. He was recognized as a Fellow of the Association for Information Systems in 2020 for outstanding contributions to the information systems discipline in terms of research, teaching, and service. He is currently serving as Editor in Chief for Communication of AIS Journal. He has served as Chair for the ACM special interest group on MIS (SIGMIS), Co-Program Chair for the International Conference on IS, and Preeminent Editorial Board member for The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems. His areas of research interest include: Philosophy of Science Applied to Information Systems, IT Computer Personnel, Ethics, Computer Mediated Group Systems, and Project Management.
Throughout his research career, Dr. Niederman has had 86 papers accepted by refereed journals (14 in “basket of 8” journals), 13 refereed book chapters, and 74 articles at refereed conferences. His work has been published in top journals, including MIS Quarterly (2), Communications of ACM (3), Journal of AIS (4), Journal of Strategic Information Systems (2), Journal of MIS, Journal of Information Technology, and European Journal of Information Systems, among others. His work has been downloaded more than eight thousand times from the AIS digital library and more than thirty thousand times from the ACM digital library.
His work on the co-evolution of IT worker skills and generations of technology platforms has been recognized as a “publication of the year” by AIS in 2015 and inaugural Communications of AIS, Paul Gray thought-provoking paper of the year in 2014. More recently, his 2019 paper with Salvatore T. March, “Broadening the Conceptualization of Theory in the Information Systems Discipline: A Meta-Theory Approach,” received the best paper award for The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems. He was the winning annual senior editor of the best JAIS paper of the year in 2016 and 2018.
Dr. Niederman has contributed to the IS field for more than 30 years. He has served as Senior Editor for Journal of AIS, Editorial Board Departmental Co-Editor for Project Management Journal, and Associate Editor for Communications of AIS, Transactions on MIS, Journal of Global Information Systems, Journal of International Management, and Human Resource Management. He has also served as the first official “facilitator” for the AIS College of Senior Scholars and was elected to the “circle of compadres” for the KPMG Ph.D. Project serving to bring more minority scholars into MIS academia. Dr. Niederman has taught more than 3000 students in more than 120 delivered courses. Additionally, he has served as organizer of the Magid Igbaria conference paper award, ACM SIGMIS lifetime and emerging scholar awards, and initiator of the annual research grants program with ACM SIGMIS.
2021 – Eileen Trauth
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Eileen Trauth, Emeritus Professor of Information Sciences & Technology, and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University, is the recipient of the 2021 ACM SIGMIS CPR Lifetime Achievement Award. She has served in leadership roles for ACM SIGMIS, such as Conference Chair, Program Chair, and Preeminent Editorial Board member for The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems. Her research examines issues in the IT workforce and issues that create barriers to underrepresented groups within information technology.
Dr. Trauth has conducted research in Europe, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and throughout the United States with grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Science Foundation Ireland and the Australian Research Council. She has published several books and hundreds of scholarly papers. She has served on the scientific advisory boards for three European Union gender projects, is co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Gender and Technology: Environment, Identity, Individual, is past editor-in-chief of Information Systems Journal, and founded the Association for Information Systems special interest group on social inclusion. Her play, iDream, which was funded by an NSF grant, is based on her research about barriers to inclusion in the information technology field.
She regularly would publish her early research in ACM SIGMIS Conferences and further extend her work in publications, including The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems. Dr. Trauth’s involvement in ACM SIGMIS has encouraged many others to be involved in this community, many of whom have gone on to serve in elected roles or conference chair roles. So many people have shared that when they started attending and participating in ACM SIGMIS conference that “I found my people.”
Dr. Trauth recalls, “It was because of the CPR conference that I began my gender research. I met Liisa von Hellens in 1999 and went to Australia in 2000 for a sabbatical where I first researched gender in the IT field with Liisa and Sue Nielsen. Over the next 20 years SIGMIS, The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems, and the CPR Conference nurtured and supported my research. It has truly been a “safe harbor” for research that was being viewed as fringe in other settings. … I have published 8 papers in The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems. I have participated in every CPR conference between 1999 and 2019 except 4. My co-authors and I won best paper award in 2008.”
“The colleagues I came to know at SIGMIS became cherished friends. I have so many fond memories of participating in the CPR conference over the years. Perhaps the most recent two conferences sum it up. At the 2018 CPR conference a group of us sat on the terrace of the conference hotel one evening. We were having such a good time that the staff came outside to say they were closing but to feel free to stay as long as we liked, and to lock up when we left”.
“At the 2019 CPR conference Fried Niederman invited me to put on a performance of iDream, my research-based play about early career-determining influences on the lives of women IT professionals. Because there weren’t sufficient funds to hire actors, CPR members stepped up to help make the performance a reality: Curtis Cain, Allison Morgan Bryant, Jeria Quesenberry (SIGMIS Secretary/Treasurer & Program Co-chair), Leigh Ellen Potter (SIGMIS Vice Chair) and Craig van Slyke (Conference Co-chair) played the roles.”
It is clear that Eileen has been a leader and role model in our community and has helped create a supportive community for people that have an interest in workforce and social inclusion issues.
2020 – Thomas W. Ferratt
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Thomas W. Ferratt, Professor Emeritus at the University of Dayton, is the recipient of the 2020 ACM SIGMIS CPR Lifetime Achievement Award. He served in leadership roles, including Chair, Conference Chair, and Program Chair, with ACM’s Special Interest Group on Computer Personnel Research (SIGCPR). Subsequent to its merger with SIGMIS, he continued to serve in leadership roles with the CPR Conference. Consistent with the conference theme, a major stream of his research has focused on the management of information systems professionals. His research has been published and featured in a variety of publications, including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly Executive, Communications of the ACM, The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems, Information and Management, Communications of the AIS, Academy of Management Journal, Human Relations, Decision Sciences, and Computerworld.
His 2000 MIS Quarterly paper with Bob Roepke and Ritu Agarwal, “Aligning the IT Human Resource with Business Vision: The Leadership Initiative at 3M,” received first place in the 1998 SIM Paper Competition. More recently, his 2016 paper with Fred Niederman and Eileen Trauth, “On the Co-Evolution of Information Technology and Information Systems Personnel,” in The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, received a 2017 Senior Scholars AIS Best Information Systems Publications Award,
Dr. Ferratt’s academic career, beginning with his doctoral program at The Ohio State University in 1970, now spans 50 years. Prior to retirement at the end of 2016, he was at the University of Dayton for thirty years (1986-2016), where he served as an associate dean (1997-2000) and held the Sherman-Standard Register Endowed Chair in Management Information Systems from 2003 until his retirement. He also was on the faculty at Drake University (1974-84), where he served as a department chair (1980-82), a visiting faculty at Indiana University (1984-86), and a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California (2015).
He served as an Associate or Senior Editor on the editorial boards of MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems. He has collaborated on three books, serving as co-author with Ritu Agarwal of Coping with Labor Scarcity in Information Technology – Strategies and Practices for Effective Recruitment and Retention (1999), co-editor with Fred Niederman of IT Workers – Human Capital Issues in a Knowledge-Based Environment (2006), and, most recently, co-author with Jerry Power of The Real-Time Revolution – Transforming Your Organization to Value Customer Time (2019).
2019 – Ephraim R. McLean
The Special Interest Group on Management Information Systems (SIGMIS) of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has announced the establishment of its inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award. The first recipient Is Ephraim R. McLean, a Regents’ Professor and holder of the G.E. Smith Eminent Scholar’s Chair in the Department of Computer Information Systems in the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia.
ACM, with over 100,000 members, is the largest and oldest society in the computing field. SIGMIS, founded in 1961 to focus on business data processing (as opposed to scientific computing), is the second-oldest special interest group within ACM. Professor McLean was presented with the Award for “a lifetime of achievement in the information systems field” at the SIGMIS International Conference in Munich, Germany in December 2019.
Professor McLean has been a member of SIGMIS and of ACM since 1969, and for eight years (1994-2002) was the editor-in-chief of SIGMIS’s DATBASE for Advances in Information Systems, the oldest business-oriented computer publication in continued existence. In 2007, he was designated as an ACM Distinguished Lecturer. McLean began his career in computing in 1962 while working for Procter & Gamble; so this is his 58th year in the computer field and 50 years as an information systems (IS) professor.
McLean has written extensively in the IS field, with over 31,000 citations of his published works. His book, Information Technology for Management (1996), co-authored with Efraim Turban, was for many years the second-largest selling IS textbook in the world. His book, Strategic Planning for MIS (1977), co-authored with McKinsey consultant, John Soden, was the first book published on IS planning. However, he is perhaps best known for his development of the DeLone and McLean Model for Measuring IS Success, which since 1992 has led to 12 co-authored publications about the Model.