Vicki Hanson is the Chief Executive Officer of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Prior to that, she served as President of the ACM (2016 - 2018). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in the US and in 2017 was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from the School of Computing at Newcastle University in England.

Dr. Hanson's background includes both industry and academic appointments in the US and UK. She was a Research Staff Member / Manager at IBM Watson Research (1986 – 2008), a Professor of Computing at the University of Dundee in Scotland (2009 – 2013) and a Distinguished Professor in Computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York (2013 – 2018).

Her research focus has been on accessibility of technology for people with disabilities and the aging population. The work on accessibility stemmed from language and educational access questions and over the years has grown to include research to support the aging population and people with diverse abilities. For these efforts she has been recognized both by industry and academic honors, including an IBM Corporate Award, the Anita Borg Award for Woman of Vision Social Impact Award, the ACM SIGACCESS Award for Contributions to Computing and Accessibility, the Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society, and selection a member of the CHI Academy.

She is a Fellow of the ACM, a Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.