Honours and Awards · M. Tamer Özsu

Major Awards

University of Waterloo Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision, 2025
- To "recognize those faculty members who have excelled in their support of graduate students"
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"

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

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

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