Call for Tao Li Award

ICDM Tao Li Award

ICDM Tao Li Award was established in December 2017. The purpose of the award is to honor Professor Tao Li´s life and accomplishment, and reward excellent early career researchers (individuals either in a doctoral program or who have received a doctoral degree less than 10 years prior to receiving the Award) in the field of data mining and machine learning. Each year, starting from 2018, the ICDM steering committee will form an ad-hoc award committee to select one awardee to receive the Tao Li award. The award, worth $2,000 in check, for one awardee, will be given out once a year at the annual IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM). The Tao Li Award was established through public donations, and is managed by the IEEE ICDM steering committee and the FAU Foundation.

ICDM Tao Li Award Winners

Year	Winners	Affiliation	PhD Deg. Year	Citations (h-index)
2025 Award Winner	Dr. Jundong Li	University of Virginia, USA	June, 2019	18,700+ (h-63) *
2024 Award Winner	Dr. Shirui Pan	Griffith University, Australia	November, 2015	32,000+ (h-69) *
2023 Award Winner	Dr. Danai Koutra	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA	August, 2015	7,900+ (h-36) *
2022 Award Winner	Dr. Evangelos (Vagelis) Papalexakis	University of California, Riverside, USA	August, 2016	5,300+ (h-33) *
2021 Award Winner	Dr. Jiliang Tang	Michigan State University, USA	May, 2015	18,500+ (h-65) *
2020 Award Winner	Dr. Jing Gao	Purdue University, USA	Dec., 2011	9,700+ (h-51) *
2019 Award Winner	Dr. Hanghang Tong	University of Illinois-Champaign, USA	Dec., 2009	10,000+ (h-44) *
2018 Award Winner	Dr. Jilles Vreeken	Helmholtz Center for Info. Security, Germany	Dec., 2009	2,700+ (h-28) *

* citations and h-index are based on the time of application (not the current).

2026 Tao Li Award Selection Criteria

• The awardee is either in a doctoral program or has received a doctoral degree less than 10 years prior to Nov 12, 2026.
• The awardee has made significant achievement in the area of data mining, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
• The awardee has demonstrated significant impact in research contribution, leadership, and services.
• The awardee has obtained a strong reference from a world leading researcher in the field.
• Commits to attend the ICDM-2026 ceremony on site to receive the award (registration fee is waived if only attending the award ceremony).

Application Submission

Candidates should submit applications to ICDM.Tao.Li.Award.Committee@gmail.com, with following materials being included in the package (please include materials in one zip file, preferably compiling all documents as one pdf file):

• A one-page executive CV of the candidate.
• Response to the above selection criteria (2 pages maximum).
• Certificate showing PhD degree awarding intuition and the time receiving the PhD degree.
• One referee letter with referee’s contact details and signature (preferably NOT applicant´s PhD advisor). Referees can directly send the reference letter to the committee (ICDM.Tao.Li.Award.Committee@gmail.com), with the applicant’s name being listed in the email subject.

2026 Tao Li Award Submission Deadline

August 22, 2026

2026 Tao Li Award Committee

TBA

Additional Information

Any inquiries and questions about this year´s Tao Li award should be addressed to: ICDM.Tao.Li.Award.Committee@gmail.com.For more information about the Tao Li Award or ICDM-2026, please access IEEE ICDM-2026 website.