Shivaram Venkataraman has received the 2016-2017 “Demetri Angelakos Memorial” Achievement Award  who recognizes students that “in addition to conducting research, unselfishly take the time to help colleagues beyond the normal cooperation existing between fellow students“. There is hard to imagine a more deserving recipient than Shivaram. During his PhD, Shivaram has been generous with his time and sharing credit to a fault. He has helped his peers in every imaginable way; after six years his colleagues still have to hear him saying “no” when asked for help. He has been a trusted sounding board for other graduate students (and even faculty) when it comes to feedback on their research, talks, and papers. Shivaram has been, without exaggeration, the nexus of knowledge in RISELab (and previously AMPLab) bridging various projects in machine learning and systems, and providing the expertise necessary to virtually every project in the lab. He has been often the catalyst who has made a research group more than its parts!