ICDM Tao Li Awards

Call for ICDM 2026 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. 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).

Previous Award Winners

  • 2025: Dr. Jundong Li; University of Virginia, USA

  • 2024: Dr. Shirui Pan; Griffith University, Australia

  • 2023: Dr. Danai Koutra; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

  • 2022: Dr. Evangelos (Vagelis) Papalexakis; University of California, Riverside, USA

  • 2021: Dr. Jiliang Tang; Michigan Stte University, USA

  • 2020: Dr. Jing Gao; Purdue University, USA

  • 2019: Dr. Hanghang Tong; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA

  • 2018: Dr. Jilles Vreeken, Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Germany

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.

  • The awardee commits to attend the ICDM-2026 ceremony on site to receive the award.

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 signatures (preferably NOT applicant’s PhD advisor). The referee can directly send the reference letter to the committee (ICDM.Tao.Li.Award.Committee@gmail.com), with applicant's name being listed in the email subject.

Submission Deadline

  • August 22, 2026

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 ICDM-2026 website (http://icdm2026.neu.edu.cn/)