CIIR/Manning CICS Phd ('07) alum Donald Metzler was named a 2021 Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for outstanding contributions to the field.
While a doctoral student in the CIIR, Don received the Best Student Paper Award at SIGIR 2005 for his and co-author Bruce Croft's influential research that resulted in the paper, "A Markov random field model for term dependencies." Dr. Metzler later co-authored a textbook,
According to ACM, "the ACM Distinguished Member program recognizes up to 10 percent of ACM worldwide membership based on professional experience and significant achievements in the computing field. To be nominated, a candidate must have at least 15 years of professional experience in the computing field, five years of professional ACM membership in the last 10 years, and have achieved a significant level of accomplishment, or made a significant impact in the field of computing, computer science or information technology. A Distinguished Member is expected to have served as a mentor and role model by guiding technical career development and contributing to the field beyond the norm."