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The International Society for Artificial Life is pleased to confirm the winners of the 2021 ISAL Awards. The awards were presented to recipients during the online 2021 Conference on Artificial Life organised in Prague, Czech Republic.

After a nomination process open to all members of the broader Artificial Life community, three committees reviewed the nominations and made recommendations that were then approved by the ISAL board of directors.

The awards and 2021 winners are:

2021 ISAL Award for Lifetime Achievement
To recognize an individual who has made profound contributions to the field of Artificial Life, influencing the work of many others and helping to shape the state of the art.
Winner:
Prof. Takashi Ikegami

2021 ISAL Award for Distinguished Early-Career Investigator
To recognize an individual who is early in their career (typically pre-tenure), but has already made important contributions to the field of Artificial Life.
Winner:
Dr. Jitka Čejková

2021 ISAL Award for Outstanding Publication of the Decade 2006 – 2016
To recognize the authors of an influential publication in any venue from five to fifteen years ago that has had a profound impact on the field of Artificial Life, as evidenced by follow-up research, citations, or attention brought to the field.
Winner:
Enactive artificial intelligence: Investigating the systemic organization of life and mind
Tom Froese and Tom Ziemke
Artificial Intelligence, Volume 173, Issues 3–4, 2009, Pages 466-500

2021 ISAL Award for Outstanding Publication of 2020
To recognize the authors of a publication in any venue during the previous calendar year that shows significant potential to advance the field of Artificial Life.
Two joint winners were awarded this year.
Winner 1:
The surprising creativity of digital evolution: A collection of anecdotes from the evolutionary computation and artificial life research communities.
Joel Lehman, Jeff Clune, Dusan Misevic, Christoph Adami, Lee Altenberg, Julie Beaulieu, Peter J. Bentley et al.
Artificial life 26, no. 2 (2020): 274-306
Winner 2:
A scalable pipeline for designing reconfigurable organisms
Sam Kriegman, Douglas Blackiston, Mochael Levin, Josh Bongard
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), vol. 117 no. 4, pp. 1853-1859

2021 ISAL Award for Education and Outreach
To recognize the authors of an outstanding project that either teaches about Artificial Life or uses Artificial Life techniques to teach about another topic, or inspires users to learn more on their own.
Winner:
infectiousmatter.com (by Dr. Luis Zaman)

2021 ISAL Award for Exceptional Service
To recognize an ISAL member who has provided truly exceptional service to the field of Artificial Life by, for example, helping to organize the Artificial Life community, developing valuable resources, or facilitating administration of ISAL.
Winner:
Juniper Lovato and Dr. Laurent Hébert-Dufresne

Our sincere thanks to the volunteers who reviewed these nominations and recommended the winners to the ISAL board of directors.

In addition, the ISAL student group, ERA (Emerging Researchers In ALife) presents the Outstanding Student Publication Award, which is judged by a committee organised by ERA. The 2021 winner is:

2021 ISAL Award for Outstanding Student Publication
To recognize a student or postdoc for a paper or other publication that they published while a student; any researcher who is still a student or within approximately three years of graduation is eligible.
Winner:
Sources of predictive information in dynamical neural networks
Madhavun Candadai (co-authored with Eduardo Izquierdo)
Scientific Reports 10, 16901 (2020)

Congratulations to all the winners!