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The 2016 ACM SIGARCH Maurice Wilkes Award was presented to Computer Science Professor Tim Sherwood, "for contributions to novel program analysis advancing architectural modeling and security." This annual award acknowledges an outstanding contribution to computer architecture made by an individual in the first 20 years of their career, and is named after Sir Maurice Wilkes -- creator of the world's first practical stored program computer in 1949. Sherwood joins an impressive list of prior SIGARCH award winners, including Stanford Professor William Dally (now Chief Scientist at NVIDIA); Steve Scott (Chief Technology Officer at Cray Inc.); and MIT Professor Anant Agarwal (now CEO of edX).

Computer architecture defines the way in which computer hardware and software interact with one another. Professor Sherwood has contributed new analysis techniques leading directly to better and more efficient computer processor designs along with new ways to support computer security through changes in the computer hardware.

In his acceptance of the award, Prof. Sherwood noted the important role that the University of California has played in both his schooling and in his professional development.  "There is zero question in my mind that affordable access to the top research universities of the world changes lives for the better -- as both an undergraduate at UC Davis, and as a graduate student at UC San Diego, these contributions would not have been possible to make without the continued investment from the State of California."