The IEEE William and Joyce Middleton Electrical Engineering History Award is awarded to the author of a book in the history of an IEEE-related technology that both exemplifies exceptional scholarship and reaches beyond academic communities toward a broad public audience.

About the award

Initially, the William and Joyce Middleton Electrical Engineering History Award will be for a book published in English. Books that have been translated from another language will be eligible for three years after publication date of the translation. Books will be considered that have been published in the previous three years (e.g., books eligible for the 2014 award will have been published in 2011–2013).

Publishers are invited to nominate published books that they wish to have considered for the award, by sending an email, giving the book's title and publication information, to ieee-history@ieee.org. Nominations must be received by 1 December, in order to be considered for the following calendar year’s award. The IEEE History Committee expects to make its decision each year by 1 September.

  • Only published books will be considered (no bound galleys or manuscripts).
  • For ebooks, please provide a digital PDF of the book, including publication date information.
  • The publisher shall make each author aware of and consent to the entry of his/her book for the award.
  • Books that did not win in a given year will be considered in the coming year up until the three-year period from publication date is exhausted.
  • Edited collections will not be considered
  • Additional editions (2nd, 3rd, etc. printing) of a previously published book will not be considered
  • There is no entry fee.
  • If a suitable candidate is not identified in any year, the award will not be given. 
  • The award consists of a certificate and an honorarium of US$2,000. 
  • An effort will be made for a high-ranking person from IEEE and/or the IEEE History Committee/Center to present the certificate in person at an appropriate public venue. No travel costs shall accrue against the award funds.

Sponsored by: The estates of William W. & Joyce F. Middleton

Current recipient

  • 2023, Kathy Kleiman, Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World's First Modern Computer (2022, Grand Central Publishing, New York)

Previous recipients

  • 2022, David A. Price, Geniuses At War: Bletchley Park, Colossus, and the Dawn of the Digital Age (2021, Alfred A. Knopf, New York)
  • 2021, Martin Collins, A Telephone for the World: Iridium, Motorola, and the Making of a Global Age (Johns Hopkins University Press)
  • 2020, Lillian Hoddeson and Peter K. Garrett,The Man Who Saw Tomorrow: The Life and Inventions of Stanford R. Ovshinsky (MIT Press)
  • 2019, Jimmy Soni & Rob Goodman, A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented  the Information Age (Simon & Schuster)
  • 2018Marc Raboy, Marconi: The Man who Networked the World (Oxford University Press)
  • 2017, Megan Prelinger, Inside the Machine: Art and Invention in the Electronic Age (Norton & Co.)
  • 2016, Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (Simon & Schuster)
  • 2015, W. Bernard Carlson, Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age (Princeton University Press)