Announcing the 2026 Stibitz-Wilson Awards!
From Bits to Biomes: Innovation at Every Scale
Friday October 2, 2026 at 5pm
Awards and Dinner in MSU’s Inspiration Hall
$125 per person
Limited Seating - Tickets Available Soon!
Since 1997, the American Computer & Robotics Museum has hosted the Stibitz-Wilson Awards to celebrate groundbreakers in the computational and biological sciences.
Meet the 2026 Honorees:
This year, we honor visionary leaders whose ideas have transformed computing, deepened our understanding of the natural world, and expanded how humanity imagines the future.
ALAN KAY
Alan Kay is widely recognized for his work on object-oriented programming, personal computing, and graphical user interfaces. A key figure at Xerox PARC in the 1970s, he developed the Smalltalk language and the Dynabook, a forerunner to modern laptops and tablets, and the Alto, the first modern networked personal computer. He has received the Draper Prize, the Turing Award, the Kyoto Prize, and many other notable awards.
CHARLES SIMONYI
Charles Simonyi is a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist – and was the chief architect of Microsoft Word, Excel,and other popular applications. Before Microsoft, Simonyi worked at Xerox PARC where he created Bravo, the first WYSIWYG text editor. Passionate about space exploration, he has traveled to the ISS twice, and is the first Stibitz-Wilson honoree to have a telescope named after him!
CRAIG D. ALLEN
Craig Allen is an award-winning ecologist and a global expert on the effects of climate warming and drought on forest systems. His work places him at the forefront of “place-based ecology,” which aims to understand the processes driving tree mortality to help managers conserve forest ecosystems by anticipating change and developing realistic adaptation scenarios.
DOUG SMITH
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 interviewed by 60 Minutes and the BBC. He has written and edited several books about the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
JOIN US FOR THE Stibitz-Wilson AWARDS DINNER
Friday October 2, 2026 at 6pm
Awards and Dinner in MSU’s Inspiration Hall
$125 per person
Limited Seating, Tickets available soon!
Thank you to our Sponsors!
The Stibitz-Wilson Awards are made possible by the generous support of our Sponsors.
2026 SILICON SPONSORS:
MSU Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering
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2026 GOLD SPONSORS:
MSU Office of the President
MSU College of Letters and Science
The Stibitz-Wilson Awards: A Celebration of Excellence
Since 1997, the Stibitz-Wilson Awards have recognized insightful men and women whose work has powerfully impacted modern life.
The Stibitz-Wilson Awards are named for inventor George Stibitz, whose work at Bell Labs in the 1930s helped set the stage for modern digital computing, and for biologist Edward O. Wilson, who made landmark contributions to our understanding of the complex web of life on Earth.
Learn about our previous honorees below: