Honours and Awards

Major Awards

• ACM Presidential Award, 2023
• For "long-standing contributions to the broader computing community and to ACM"
• IEEE Technical Committee on Data Engineering (TCDE) Education Award, 2024
• For "fundamental contributions to data management and data science pedagogy"
• IEEE Innovation in Societal Infrastructure Award, 2022
• For "contributions to data science infrastructure and distributed data management"
• Distinguished Visiting Professor, Tsinghua University, 2020 - present
• CS-Can/Info-Can Lifetime Achievement Award, 2018
• University Professor, University of Waterloo, 2018
• For "exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence"
• University Research Chair, University of Waterloo, 2004–2011
• Ohio State University College of Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award, 2008
• ACM SIGMOD Contributions Award, 2006
• For "long-standing dedicated service to the database research community, including leadership roles in the SIGMOD and VLDB organizations, and innovations in the publication process"

Fellowships

• Fellow, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 2022
• Fellow, Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA), 2022 
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2017
• Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, 2016
• Elected Member, The Science Academy, Türkiye, 2013
• Life Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2011
• For "contributions to distributed data management and multimedia database systems"
• Life Fellow, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2006
• For "contributions to distributed data management and service to the database community"
• Sigma Xi – Scientific Research Society Member, 1994–present

Publication Awards

• Test-of-Time Award, ACM SIGMOD (2015) for paper
  • Robust and Fast Similarity Search for Moving Object Trajectories, L. Chen, M. T. Özsu, and V. Oria, appeared in Proc. ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data, 2005, pages 491-502.
• Best Paper Award, 38th IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (2022) for paper
  • Evaluating Complex Queries on Streaming Graphs, A. Pacaci, A. Bonifati, and M.T. Özsu
• Best Paper Award, 44th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (2018) for paper
  • The Ubiquity of Large Graphs and Surprising Challenges of Graph Processing, S. Dahu, A. Mhedhbi, S. Salihoglu, J. Lin, M.T. Özsu
• Best Paper Award, 23rd International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications (2018) for paper
  • Multi-Query optimization in Federated RDF Systems, P. Peng, L. Zou, M.T. Özsu
• Best Paper Award Honourable Mention, 29th International Conference on Data Engineering (2013) for paper
  • Main-Memory Hash Joins on Multi-Core CPUs: Tuning to the Underlying Hardware, C. Balkesen, J. Teubner, G. Alonso, and M.T. Özsu

Other Awards

• Cheriton Faculty Fellow, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo, 2013–2016; 2018–2021; 2021–2024
• Google Faculty Research Award, 2009 & 2015
• University of Waterloo Outstanding Performance Award, 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2024
• Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada Discovery Accelerator Award for Exceptional Opportunity, 2013
• ACM Distinguished Lecturer, 2007–2014
• IBM CAS Canada Research Faculty Fellow, 2010–present
• Faculty Fellow, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo, 2000–2003
• McCalla Professor, University of Alberta, 1993–1994
• NATO Ph.D. scholarship through TÜ̈BITAK–The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey, 1979–1983

Last update: 6 March 2025