The Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM SIGAI) and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) are happy to announce that they have established the Joint AAAI/ACM SIGAI Doctoral Dissertation Award to recognize and encourage superior research and writing by doctoral candidates in artificial intelligence. This annual award is presented at the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence in the form of a certificate and is accompanied by the option to present the dissertation at the AAAI conference as well as to submit one 6-page summary for both the AAAI proceedings and the newsletter of ACM SIGAI. Up to two Honorable Mentions may also be awarded, also with the option to present their dissertations at the AAAI conference as well as submit one 6-page summary for both the AAAI proceedings and the newsletter of ACM SIGAI. The award will be presented for the first time at the AAAI conference in 2020 for dissertations that have been successfully defended (but not necessarily finalized) between October 1, 2018 and September 30, 2019. Nominations are welcome from any country, but only English language versions will be accepted. Only one nomination may be submitted per Ph.D. granting institution, including large universities. Dissertations will be reviewed for relevance to artificial intelligence, technical depth and significance of the research contribution, potential impact on theory and practice, and quality of presentation. The details of the nomination process will be announced in early 2019.