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The Fahiem Bacchus PhD Award in Satisfiability 2026: Call for Nominations

In 2024 the SAT Association established the Fahiem Bacchus PhD Award in Satisfiability. The award distinguishes one outstanding PhD thesis from the past year in the field of Satisfiability, broadly construed. The award is named after Fahiem Bacchus who made significant contributions to the theory and practice of SAT as well as to the SAT community and the SAT Association.

Eligibility

Eligible for the award are those who successfully defended their PhD

  • at an academic institution;
  • in the field of theory and applications of satisfiability, broadly construed. In addition to plain propositional satisfiability, it also includes Boolean optimization (such as MaxSAT and Pseudo-Boolean (PB) constraints), Quantified Boolean Formulas (QBF), Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT), Model Counting, Constraint Programming (CP) for problems with clear connections to Boolean-level reasoning, proof complexity, and other subjects with connections to Satisfiability.
  • in the period from 1 January 2025 - 31 December 2025.

The PhD students supervised or co-supervised by the Award Committee members are not eligible.

Nominations

Candidates for the award must be nominated by their supervisor(s) and one additional independent researcher who reviewed/examined the thesis. Nominations are to be submitted via email, by 15 May 2026 (Anywhere on Earth).

The nomination must consist of one compressed file (.zip) containing:

  • a letter from the supervisor(s) describing why the thesis should be considered for the award and the relationship of the contributions to SAT;
  • a report from the nominating additional independent researcher who reviewed/examined the thesis;
  • the thesis itself;
  • a copy of the PhD certificate;
  • copies of relevant papers by the nominee, if any, containing results published in the thesis.

Procedure

The thesis will be evaluated with respect to its quality, originality and (potential) impact to the field of Satisfiability.

The nominations will be evaluated and compared by an Award Committee. The justification by the supervisor and the nominating additional independent researcher report will play an important role in the evaluation. The final decision is made in early June by the Award Committee.

The award consists of a certificate announcing the winner to have received the Fahiem Bacchus PhD Award in Satisfiability and a prize money of 1,500 Euro, which in principle can also be used to cover travel costs to attend the SAT conference. The award will be announced and conferred at the conference SAT 2026. The nominators of the winner will also receive a copy of this certificate. The decision of the Expert Committee is final and cannot be appealed.

Award Committee

The committee for 2026 comprises the following people:

  • Supratik Chakraborty, IIT Bombay
  • Matti Järvisalo, University of Helsinki
  • Meena Mahajan, IMSc Chennai
  • Stefan Mengel, CNRS, CRIL Lens

Nominations shall be sent to Stefan Mengel (mengel@cril-lab.fr) by 15 May 2026 (AoE).