2024 Call for Nominations for Silvia Coradeschi and Gerhard K. Kraetzschmar Awards

Prof. Silvia Coradeschi (d. Feb 5, 2014) was a founding trustee of RoboCup and an early visionary in the RoboCup initiative. She served as General Chair of RoboCup 1999 in Stockholm, Sweden, was a frequent competition participant, and was an exemplar of the RoboCup ideal of engaging in cutting-edge AI and Robotics research.

Prof. Gerhard K. Kraetzschmar (d. July 24, 2019) joined RoboCup since its beginning in 1997 and significantly contributed to the development of the RoboCup Federation (Trustee since 2004, Vice-President from 2008 to 2016). He was involved in the organization of many of the leagues, with major contributions to RoboCupJunior, RoboCup@Home, and RoboCup@Work. He was General Chair of RoboCup 2016 in Leipzig, Germany.

To honor their extraordinary contributions to RoboCup and to honor their memories, the RoboCup Federation created “The Silvia Coradeschi RoboCup Award” in 2014 (https://www.robocup.org/silvia_coradeschi), for a young female RoboCup student or post-doctoral researcher, with distinguishing research and the “The Gerhard Kraetzschmar RoboCup Distinguished Service Award” in 2021 (https://www.robocup.org/gkk_award), to recognize the outstanding contributions of an individual for his/her exceptional leadership, service, and dedication that benefit RoboCup in any of its leagues.

We are now calling for candidates for the 2024 Awards.

The award recipients, to be named at RoboCup 2024 will receive:

* a certificate

* a US$1,000 honorarium

Nominations for the “Silvia Coradeschi Award”:

Eligible candidates for the “Silvia Coradeschi Award” are female graduate students and post-doctoral researchers who received the degree within the past 3 years and who will register for RoboCup 2024.

The two criteria are:

1. Distinguishing research as evidenced by, for example, refereed publications.

2. RoboCup leadership, either within a team and/or in the broad RoboCup community.

To nominate a female student or post-doctoral researcher for the “Silvia Coradeschi Award”, the individual's professor should fill out the nomination formhttps://forms.gle/VT2j8SsXHCfn9XkT9 by May 1st, 2024. The submission should include:

* A letter of recommendation that addresses both criteria.

* An additional letter of recommendation from a RoboCup community member not affiliated with the nominee’s team is recommended (but not required) to support the nomination.

Please upload the letters to the form by the professor recommending the candidate.

Nominations for the “Gerhard Kraetzschmar RoboCup Distinguished Service Award”:

Eligible candidates for the “Gerhard Kraetzschmar RoboCup Distinguished Service Award” are RoboCup members with an outstanding record of service in one or more of the RoboCup Leagues, including as Technical and Organizing Committees, Executive Committee, and/or Board of Trustees.

To nominate a RoboCup member for the “Gerhard Kraetzschmar RoboCup Distinguished Service Award”, a person nominating a candidate should fill out the nomination formhttps://forms.gle/VT2j8SsXHCfn9XkT9 by May 1st, 2024 by May 1st, 2024. The email must include

* a letter of recommendation that addresses the individual’s impact of service and contributions to RoboCup, including diversity, quality, and length of the work done for RoboCup.

* One or two additional letter(s) of recommendation from RoboCup community members to support the nomination.

Please upload the letters to the form by the person nominating the candidate.

Best Regards, Tom Ellis on behalf of the RoboCup SPL OC and TC.