Our heartiest congratulations to Mari Ostendorf, winner of the 2017 SPS Meritorious Service Award “for exemplary service to and leadership in the Signal Processing Society.” Mari’s service to SPS has included membership many SPS committees, including the Speech Processing Technical Committee (1990-93), the SPS DSP Education Committee (1992-93), the SPS Awards Committee (2009, 2015) and the SPS Awards Board (2015-2016), the SPS Executive Committee (2012-2014). She also served on the SPS Board of Governors (2009-2014) and was Vice President for Publications for SPS (2012-2014). Her service also to IEEE has included Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing (2006-8) and membership in the IEEE Kilby Award Committee (2009-2012) the IEEE Products and Services Committee (2013-2014), the IEEE Periodicals Review Advisory Committee (2014-2016).