A pioneer of information retrieval, the computer science sub-discipline that also underpins the technology of modern Web search engines, Karen Spärck Jones was a British professor of Computers and Information at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge. Her contributions to the fields of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Information Retrieval (IR), especially with regard to experimentation, have been outstanding, highly influential and lasting, and include the introduction of Inverse Document Frequency for relevance ranking.
In order to honour Karen’s achievements, the BCS Information Retrieval Specialist Group (BCS IRSG) in conjunction with the BCS has established an annual award to encourage and promote talented researchers who have endeavoured to advance our understanding of Natural Language Processing or Information Retrieval with significant experimental contributions. The Karen Spärck Jones Award is sponsored by Microsoft Research Cambridge
The recipient of the 2022 award will be invited to present a keynote lecture at the European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR) in Dublin in April 2023. This forum provides an excellent venue to present and announce the award as the conference attracts many new and young researchers.
For more details on the criteria for nominations and the nomination schedule go to http://jochenleidner.com/?p=67 Jochen Leidner is the Award Chair and can be contacted at Leidner AT acm.org