Annual Stibitz-Wilson Awards to celebrate four innovators

BOZEMAN - The American Computer and Robotics Museum in Bozeman will honor four distinguished scientists in computing and conservation fields at this year's Stibitz-Wilson Awards dinner, held Friday, Oct. 2, on the Montana State University campus.

The free, public event will begin at 6 p.m. in Norm Asbjornson Hall's Inspiration Hall. Seating is limited, and tickets must be reserved prior to the event on the museum website. The ceremony will include a catered meal while honorees are presented with their awards and speak about their work. The theme for this year's event is "From Bits to Biomes: Innovation at Every Scale." The 2026 honorees are listed below:

Alan Kay is widely recognized for his work on object-oriented programming, personal computing and graphical user interfaces. As a key figure at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s, he developed the Smalltalk programming language; the Dynabook, a forerunner to modern laptops and tablets; and the Alto, the first modern, networked personal computer. He has received the Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering, the A.M. Turing Award, the Kyoto Prize and many other notable awards for his work.

Charles Simonyi is a computer scientist, entrepreneur and philanthropist who served as chief architect of Microsoft Word, Excel and other popular applications. Before Microsoft, Simonyi worked at Xerox PARC, where he created Bravo, the first text editor in which content appears exactly as it would look on a final website. He has a passion for space exploration and has traveled twice to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft, becoming the fifth space tourist and the first tourist to fly to space twice. He is also the first Stibitz-Wilson honoree to have a telescope named after him.

Craig Allen is an award-winning ecologist and a global expert on the effects of climate change and drought as drivers of tree mortality in forest ecosystems worldwide. He has focused on long-term, place-based ecological research in northern New Mexico since 1986, which includes partnerships with land managers that support forest and watershed conservation by anticipating landscape changes and developing adaptation scenarios.

Doug Smith has studied wildlife in Yellowstone National Park for nearly 30 years and led the Yellowstone Wolf Project, which reintroduced the apex predator to the park. He has been featured in four National Geographic television specials and was interviewed by 60 Minutes and the BBC. He has written and edited several books about the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

"The 2026 Stibitz-Wilson Awards recognize innovators whose work demonstrates how computing can advance both human knowledge and stewardship of our world," said Eleanor Barker, executive director of the American Computer and Robotics Museum. "From computer science trailblazers to compelling voices in biodiversity and conservation, this year's honorees exemplify the power of technology to solve meaningful challenges. We are honored to welcome them to Bozeman and to celebrate their achievements with our community."

Established in 1997, the museum's Stibitz-Wilson Awards honor past and present innovators in the computational and biological sciences. The awards are named for engineer George Stibitz, whose work in the 1930s helped set the stage for modern digital computing, and for biologist Edward O. Wilson, who made landmark contributions to the understanding of the complex web of life on Earth.

Stibitz-Wilson Awards honorees are selected by a committee comprising top talents at Montana State University, past award recipients and the American Computer and Robotics Museum's board of directors. Previous honorees include Nobel laureates Jennifer Doudna and Jack Kilby; National Medal of Technology and Innovation recipients Ralph Baer, Federico Faggin and Mary Shaw; Turing Award winner Robert Metcalfe; Montana-based researchers David Andes, Rufus Cone, Diana Six and David Quammen; and many others.

In addition to a number of business and foundation supporters, longtime sponsors of the awards include MSU's Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, Office of the President, Office of Research and Economic Development, College of Letters and Science, and Honors College.

"Ever since the museum's founding in 1990, we've been honored to work closely with MSU to create opportunities for students, faculty and the entire Bozeman community to be informed and inspired by science celebrations like the Stibitz-Wilson Awards," said museum cofounder and board president Barbara Keremedjiev.

For more information, visit acrmuseum.org/awards, contact Barker at [email protected] or call the museum at 406-582-1288.