Hans Karlsson Standards Award

Nomination Deadline:

1 October 2025 - 11:59PM EDT

Established in 1992 in memory of Hans Karlsson, chairman and father of the IEEE 1301 family of standards. His sensitive, people-oriented approach to management enabled him to achieve consensus on the 1301 standards in record time. In many ways, Hans’ vision of obtaining results has set a new high-water mark in creating standards documents.

A plaque and $2,000 honorarium is presented in recognition of outstanding skills and dedication to diplomacy, team facilitation and joint achievement, in the development or promotion of standards in the computer industry where individual aspirations, corporate competition, and organizational rivalry could otherwise be counter to the benefit of society. Eligibility is limited to present or past participants in IEEE CS Standards activities.

This award nomination requires a minimum of 3 endorsements.

Nomination Questions (pdf)

2025 Hans Karlsson Award Committee Chair

Paul Nikolich, YAS Broadband Ventues

About Hans Karlsson

Past Recipients

2025 Yonghong Tian: For exceptional leadership in developing IEEE standards on AI model representation and visual data coding.
2024 Adam D. Cron: For outstanding dedication to the development of standards serving industry in the field o electronics testing.
2023 Cheryl L. Jones: For key standards development in measurement and systems engineering, broad outreach, and diplomatic leadership.
2020 Teresa Doran: For extended dedication to harmonization of systems and software engineering life cycle process standards.
2019 Adrian Stephens: For exemplary leadership of the 802.11 Wireless LAN Working Group and technical contributions to the 802.11 family of standards.
2018 Jeff Rearick: For his vision, extraordinary skills and dedication in leading, shaping, and promoting the IEEE 1687 standard that provides access to embedded semiconductor instrumentation.
2016 David Law: For his contributions and leadership as Working Group officer and Chair of 802.3, and service in governance, educational, and regional activities.
2015 Francois Coallier: For leadership in the development of the theory and practice of international software and systems engineering standards.
2014 Annette D. Reilly: For harmonization and development of novel approaches to the system and software engineering standards for vocabulary, life-cycle information, and user documentation.
2013 Brian G. Kiernan: For extraordinary skill and dedication in chairing the complex task groups that developed the IEEE 802.16a, 802.16e, and 802.16m WirelessMAN standards, including the world's first 4G broadband standard.
2012 Paul R. Croll: For dedicated leadership of the IEEE Systems and Software Engineering Standards Committee, and for his diplomacy and collaboration in facilitating the development of a collection of high-quality standards.
2009 Arthur W. Astrin: For leadership and diplomatic skills applied to LAN/MAN wireless personal area network standards; mediating rivalry of corporate entities and personal aspirations by promoting the value of IEEE wireless standards-based approaches.
2008 James W. Moore: For charting the road maps and leading the harmonization of IEEE and ISO systems and software engineering standards.
2007 Katherine L. Morse: For leadership in development of modeling and simulation standards and exemplary collaboration in establishing the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) Standards Activity Committee (SAC) as an IEEE standards sponsor.
2006 Kohn L. (Jack) Cole: For bringing together diverse interests with inspired leadership, dedication and vision in producing five storage system standards, and forming the first information assurance standards committee.
2005 Yervant Zorian: For outstanding leadership, communications, and achievement with the IEEE Testability Method for Embedded Core-based ICs standard (IEEE Std. 1500tm-2005) through collaboration with major industry groups.
2004 David B. Gustavson: For outstanding leadership in Standards and for your insight, organization, and political astuteness in bringing the Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI) (IEEE 1596-1992) to fruition, significantly advancing the art and science of scalable systems.
2002 H. Wayne Hodgins: For your extraordinary leadership and vision that led to the first learning technology standard and that was instrumental in moving an entire industry to pursue a standards-based rather than a proprietary approach.
2001 Victor Hayes: For your dedication to the advancement of technologies and their use in a wide area of segments, markets, and applications benefiting all our lives.
1996 Leonard L. Tripp: For your long-term service and leadership of the IEEE Computer Society Software Engineering Committee (SESC) and related activities.
1995 Roger Martin: For leadership in timely completion of test methods which assure quality and dependability for the standards customer, completeness for the portable app builder and consensus to the whole community.
1994 James D. Isaak: For outstanding leadership and achievement through collaboration.