For a scientific community to be well-functioning, you are dependent on the services of dedicated members of the community. It is the voluntary unpaid services rendered by members of the community as journal editors, chairs, and participants in conference programme committees, award committees, etc. that are at the very core of the structures advancing research and supporting academic careers.   

In the database research community, Christian S. Jensen, Professor at the Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University, has for years been one of these dedicated members, which is the background for his receiving this year’s ACM SIGMOD Contributions Award. In her laudation, Chair of the 2022 SIGMOD Award Committee Yanlei Diao states:

- The SIGMOD 2022 Contributions Award goes to Christian S. Jensen for extensive, high-quality service to the database research community, including as Editor-in-Chief of ACM TODS and the VLDB Journal for 12+ years.

ACM TODS and the VLDB Journal are the two top journals in the database area, and Christian S. Jensen is the only person who has served as Editor-in-Chief of both journals - VLDB Journal from 2008 to 2014 and ACM TODS from 2014 to 2020.

HIGHEST STANDARDS

It is well-known in the community, that with Christian S. Jensen at the helm of these journals, the many duties and activities as Editor-in-Chief have always been dealt with in a timely manner and based on the highest standards of scientific integrity.

- I have always felt that if you accept a position as Editor-in-Chief or any other service within the community, it is your obligation to carry out your duties in an unbiased and impartial manner and within the set deadlines. This has been my ambition during the 12+ years as Editor-in-Chief, and I am of course happy and proud to receive the ACM SIGMOD Contributions Award in acknowledgment of my efforts, says Christian S. Jensen.

- I feel that the award should also be seen as a recognition of the many dedicated scientists with whom I have worked as part of my service. Although they invariably have many demands on their time, they prioritize providing service to the scientific community, he adds.

SERVICES WORK BOTH WAYS

The list of services rendered by Christian S. Jensen is extensive. For example, he has served as programme or general (co-) chair of many of the leading conferences including VLDB, ICDE, and EDBT, and he has been a member of numerous test-of-time and best paper award committees.

In addition, he has served as ACM SIGMOD Vice Chair (2009-13), SIGMOD Workshops chair (2010-13), and as a member of the ACM SIGMOD Executive Committee from 2009 to 2020 (with a 1-year gap 2013-14).

- It is essential to a scientific community that people engage themselves and put in the time and effort to render these services. It can for sure be time-consuming, but apart from the satisfaction of contributing to the community, you benefit from the exposure to a broad spectrum of perspectives on the research within your field, and you get the opportunity to establish personal relationships and a valuable network, says Christian S. Jensen.

CONTINUES TO SERVE

Although Christian S. Jensen no longer serves as a journal Editor-in Chief, services to the community are still an important part of his daily workload. To name but a few examples, he is president of the Steering Committee for the Swiss National Research Program on Big Data, he is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Germany, he is chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Norwegian Research Center for AI Innovation, and in September 2021, he was appointed member of the board of the Danish National Research Foundation, where he now serves as vice-chair.

FURTHER INFORMATION

• Christian S. Jensen – personal profile
• ACM SIGMOD/PODS Conference 2022
• ACM SIGMOD website
• 2022 SIGMOD Awards

CONTACT

Christian S. Jensen
Professor
Department of Computer Science
Aalborg University
Mail: csj@cs.aau.dk
Phone: +45 2014 5250

Stig Andersen
Communications Officer
Department of Computer Science
Aalborg University
Mail: stan@cs.aau.dk
Phone: +45 4019 7682