[TYPES/announce] New SIGPLAN "awards nomination portal" + Important information on eligibility requirement for Milner Award

[Derek Dreyer]

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that ACM SIGPLAN has launched a new "awards
nomination portal" at

                http://awards.sigplan.org

where you can use a web form to submit nominations for the Achievement
Award, the Software Award, and the Robin Milner Young Researcher
Award.

The deadline for all these awards is January 5.  We request that you
submit nominations through the website if possible.  (If you have
already submitted a nomination by e-mail to secretary_sigplan at acm.org
and received a confirmation of it, then you do not need to resubmit
your nomination through the website, although you are encouraged to.)

Any questions about the award nomination process may be directed to
the respective award e-mail addresses:

SIGPLAN Programming Languages Achievement Award <achievement_award at sigplan.org>
SIGPLAN Programming Languages Software Award <software_award at sigplan.org>
SIGPLAN Robin Milner Young Researcher Award <milner_award at sigplan.org>

One point of note concerning the Milner award:

- Several people have inquired about eligibility for this award,
because it seems the eligibility requirement
(http://www.sigplan.org/Awards/Milner/Description) is confusingly
worded.  The intention of the award description was that, for the 2013
award, individuals are eligible whose computer-related professional
career (graduate school or full-time employment, whichever began
first) started no earlier than January 1, 1993.  However, the award
description as written can also be reasonably interpreted to mean
that, so long as the *nomination* is submitted by the end of this
calendar year (December 31, 2012), the candidate is eligible so long
as their professional career started no earlier than January 1, 1992.

Therefore, for this year, the SIGPLAN Executive Committee has decided
to accept the latter, more liberal interpretation of the requirement.
In the next year, the SIGPLAN EC will work to revise and clarify the
eligibility requirement.  We apologize for any confusion.  If you have
any further questions regarding eligibility, please direct them to
milner_award at sigplan.org.

Best regards,
Derek Dreyer (on behalf of the SIGPLAN EC)