James H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software | SIAM
 

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James H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software

The prize recognizes innovative software in scientific computing by researchers in the earlier stages of their career. Starting in 2019, SIAM will award the prize every four years at the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering.

Next Call for Nominations Opens: March 1, 2026

Prize Description


Prize Description

The James H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software is awarded every four years to the authors of an outstanding piece of numerical software, or to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to an existing piece of numerical software. The prize is awarded for an entry that best addresses all phases of the preparation of high-quality numerical software. It is intended to recognize innovative software in scientific computing and to encourage researchers in the earlier stages of their career. It has been awarded at the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) meetings since 1991. Starting in 2019, SIAM will award the prize every four years at the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering.


Eligibility Criteria

Selection will be based on: clarity of the software implementation and documentation; importance of the application(s) addressed by the software; portability, reliability, efficiency, and usability of the software implementation; clarity and depth of analysis of the algorithms and the software in the accompanying paper; and quality of the test software.

Candidates must have worked in mathematics or science for at most 12 years (full time equivalent) after receiving their PhD as of January 1 of the award year, allowing for breaks in continuity. The prize committee can make exceptions, if in their opinion the candidate is at an equivalent stage in their career.

For the 2027 award, a candidate must have received their PhD no earlier than January 1, 2015.


Required Materials

  • CVs of the authors of the software, at most two pages per author (PDF)
  • A two-page summary of the main features of the algorithm and software implementation (PDF)
  • A paper describing the algorithm and the software implementation (PDF)
  • Software written in a widely available high-level programming language. The software should be submitted in a gzipped .tar archive with a README file describing the contents of the archive. Each submission should include documentation, examples of the use of the software, a test program, and scripts for executing the test programs.

Winner Announcement

Congratulations to the 2023 recipients, Devin A. Matthews and Field G. Van Zee! Read more about their accomplishments.

~*Learn More*~



Prize Details

Prize Details

Read the full prize specifications.

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Selection Committee

About the Award


About the James H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software


The James H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software includes a $3,000 monetary award and a certificate. At least one of the awardees is expected to attend the award ceremony and to deliver a lecture at the conference. SIAM will reimburse the speaker for reasonable travel expenses incurred in giving the talk.

Dr. James H. Wilkinson spent most of his working life at the National Physical Laboratory and regularly visited Argonne National Laboratory and the Numerical Algorithms Group. In honor of his outstanding contributions to the field of numerical software, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL; Argonne, IL), the National Physical Laboratory (NPL; Teddington, Middlesex, England), and the Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd (NAG; Oxford, England) established the Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software and sponsored the award every four years at the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) beginning with the 1991 award. By agreement among ANL, NPL, NAG, and SIAM, the prize will be administered by SIAM starting with the 2019 award.

Award Date

The prize will next be awarded in 2023 at the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering.


Award Presentation

The prize will be presented by the Chair of the SIAM Activity Group on Computational Science and Engineering (SIAG/CSE). The announcement of the award will appear in SIAM News, the SIAM website, and appropriate electronic media.


Award Fund

The prize fund was established by generous donations in 2015 by Argonne National Laboratory, the National Physical Laboratory, and the Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd.

Prize History



Prize History

Citation

The 2023 James H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software is awarded to Field Van Zee and Devin Matthews for the development of BLIS, a portable open-source software framework that facilitates rapid instantiation of high-performance BLAS and BLAS-like operations targeting modern CPUs.

Selection Committee

Robert Falgout (Chair)
Ann Almgren
Andrew Knyazev
Haesun Park
Garth Wells

Citation

The 2019 James Wilkinson Prize is awarded to Jeff Bezanson, Stefan Karpinski, and Viral B. Shah for the creation of Julia, an innovative environment for the creation of high-performance tools that enable the analysis and solution of computational science problems.

Selection Committee

Jorge Moré (Chair)
Sven Hammarling
Michael Heroux
Randall LeVeque
Katherine Yelick

Citation

The 2015 James Wilkinson Prize is awarded to Patrick E. Farrell, Simon W. Funke, David A. Ham, and Marie E. Rognes for the development of dolfin-adjoint, a package which automatically derives and solves adjoint and tangent linear equations from high-level mathematical specifications of finite element discretizations of partial differential equations.

Selection Committee

Maurice Cox
Mike Deward
Jorge Moré

2011 Andreas Waechter and Carl D. Laird for IPOPT
2007 Wolfgang Bangerth, Guido Kanschat, and Ralf Hatmann for deal.II
2003 Jonathan Shewchuk for Triangle
1999 Matteo Frigo and Steven Johnson for FFTW
1995 Chris Bischof and Alan Carle for ADIFOR 2.0
1991 Linda Petzold for DASS

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