The Claude E. Shannon Award Committee shall consist of the President (who shall serve as Chair), the 1st Vice-President, the 2nd Vice-President, and four other members appointed by the Nominations and Appointments Committee before January 15th. At least three of the appointed members shall be former Claude E. Shannon Award winners, and at least one of the appointed members shall be the current, or a former, Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory or the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory. Typically the appointed members of the Committee will serve for two years, in staggered terms.

The Committee is charged with deciding whether to name a Claude E. Shannon Award winner for the following year and with selecting a winner.