IEEE CS and ACM Honor Daniel Reed with 2026 Ken Kennedy Award
University of Utah Presidential Professor recognized for pioneering contributions to high-performance computing and for sustained leadership and service to the computing community.
LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 15 October 2026 – The IEEE Computer Society (CS) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) today announced Daniel Reed, PhD, as this year’s recipient of the Ken Kennedy Award. Reed, Presidential Professor in Computational Science (emeritus) at the University of Utah, and former Corporate Vice President of Technology Policy and Leader of the eXtreme Computing Group (XCG) at Microsoft, received the distinction for his “pioneering contributions to high-performance computing, scalable systems, and national cyberinfrastructure, and for sustained leadership in programming productivity, mentoring, and service to the computing community.”
Over the course of his more than 40-year career, Reed has made groundbreaking contributions to the technical foundations of high-performance computing and the broader computing ecosystem that enables discovery at scale. His work spans parallel systems, performance analysis, scalable I/O, web and cloud infrastructure, computational grids, and edge computing. Consistently, Reed has translated fundamental ideas into tools, systems, and infrastructure that have changed practice and helped make advanced computing more usable and productive.
Specifically, Reed’s early work on distributed-memory message-passing systems helped establish key ideas for understanding application and system behavior on large-scale parallel machines, well before such architectures became the dominant model for advanced computing. He also developed widely used approaches to parallel system measurement and tuning, including the Pablo and Autopilot software environments, which gave researchers and practitioners practical tools to analyze, visualize, and improve performance at scale. His work on portable performance data formats, low-overhead tracing and counting, hardware performance support, and integrated compiler/performance analysis further improved the ability of developers to understand and tune parallel codes. These contributions, along with his work on scalable I/O that identified the patterns that strained performance, helped shape the field of performance engineering for parallel systems.
Reed also has repeatedly translated ideas into infrastructure that changed practice. He played a central role in deploying the first terascale Linux clusters for national research use and served as chief architect for the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) TeraGrid, then the world’s largest open computing infrastructure for computational science. At Microsoft, he brought high-performance computing principles into cloud system design, leading work on low-power servers, ARM-based systems, energy-efficient data center design, and software frameworks for large-scale services. He also helped launch the first public-private cloud partnership with NSF, expanding access to cloud platforms for academic research.
In addition, Reed is being recognized for his contributions to teaching, mentoring, community building, and national computing policy. He has supervised 28 MS theses and 19 PhD dissertations. He helped launch an international distance education MS program that broadened access to advanced computing education and has developed programs that continually expand access to others including the Renaissance Computing Institute, the Iowa Informatics Initiative, and K-12 computer science efforts that contributed to what became code.org, among others. Additionally, he has held leadership and advisory roles across many of the most important computing and cyberinfrastructure efforts in the United States, including the National Science Board and the Computing Community Consortium; testified repeatedly before the U.S. Congress; shaped national strategy in computational science and information technology; and provided sustained leadership on issues ranging from research infrastructure and workforce development to cloud policy and digital equity.
“Reed’s contributions to high-performance computing are extraordinary in both their breadth and their lasting impact,” said William Gropp, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, chair of the 2026 ACM/IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Subcommittee. “His work has advanced the foundations of parallel and high-performance systems and has helped create the tools and infrastructure that have enabled generations of researchers to harness their power. We are honored to recognize Reed for a career that has not only transformed the field but also expanded its access through his leadership, mentorship, and service to the broader community.”
Nominations for the 2027 Ken Kennedy Award are now open. Nominators must answer a series of questions about the candidate and solicit two endorsers to support the candidate; self-nominations are not accepted. Submissions must be received by 30 June 2027. For more information or to submit, visit https://www.computer.org/volunteering/awards/kennedy.
About the Ken Kennedy Award
ACM and IEEE CS co-sponsor the Ken Kennedy Award, which was established in 2009 to recognize substantial contributions to programmability and productivity in computing and significant community service or mentoring contributions. It was named for the late Ken Kennedy, founder of Rice University’s computer science program and a world expert on high-performance computing. The Ken Kennedy Award carries a US $5,000 honorarium endowed by IEEE CS and ACM.
About the IEEE Computer Society
Engaging computer engineers, scientists, academia, and industry professionals from all areas of computing, the IEEE Computer Society sets the standard of excellence and champions global advancements to benefit humanity.
As the IEEE Computer Society celebrates its 80th anniversary in 2026, it continues to build on its rich legacy. Through conferences, publications, and programs that bring together computer science and engineering leaders at every stage of their careers, the IEEE Computer Society empowers, shapes, and guides the future of its 375,000+ community members, as well as the greater computing community, enabling new opportunities to better serve our world. Visit computer.org for more information.
