20th ACM International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC) seeks to increase student participation in symposium and the field. The proposed funding would support the travel of eligible US students to the symposium. Recipients would be able to attend the main conference, workshops, and tutorials. Travel grants will encourage the research interests and the involvement of students in the field who are not well funded and those who are just beginning their participation in the field or are interested in entering it. A special effort will be made to reach out to women and under-represented minorities.
Principal Investigator: Raicu, Ioan Organization: Illinois Institute of Technology Research and Education Activities: We provided a limited number of travel assistance grants to attend the ACM HPDC 2011 conference. These grants were distributed after the conference in the form of reimbursements against actual travel, registration and accommodations expenses submitted by the student. Applications were due by May 1, 2011 in electronic format at https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHM1ZEhjeDE0R3A5ai1LSERjN2pQcnc6MQ. For students to qualify for the student travel grant assistance, a recipient must be a full time student (undergraduate or graduate) registered at a US or international university. Students (especially undergraduates and junior graduate students) who had a paper co-authored at HPDC2011 were especially encouraged to apply. Priority was given to students presenting their work at the conference (with conference presentations having priority over workshop presentations), and then to students who would otherwise be unable to attend the conference. Overall, we received 52 applications from 28 different institutions. We made 15 awards, with an average of $666.67 per award (the minimum was $500 and the maximum of $750). Of the 15 recipients, we had 4 female students and 4 US citizens. We also had students from all levels of their respective graduate degrees, ranging from 1st year to 5th year PhD students. The complete table of the HPDC 2011 Travel Awards can be found below (name followed by university name): Yanwei Zhang, University of Tennessee at Knoxville Nezih Yigitbasi, Delft University of Technology Umesh Deshpande, Binghamton University Nikhil, Purdue University Sunghwan Yoo, Purdue University Kristi Morton, University of Washington Lina Sawalha, University of Oklahoma Bowen Zhou, Purdue University Lei Xia, Northwestern University Samer Al Kiswany, University of British Columbia Vignesh Trichy Ravi, The Ohio State University Chris Bunch, University of California, Santa Barbara Yuanrui Zhang, Pennsylvania State University David Wolinsky, University of Florida Yao Chen, Stony Brook University Findings: With so many applications, 52 applications to be exact, given how small the conference was that year (~150 registered attendees), we believe we could have sponsored even more students given more funds. For the students who received the travel awards, it made a difference in that they were able to attend one of the top conferences in distributed systems. Training and Development: The research skill that the participating students learned by attending the ACM HPDC 2011 conference is invaluable in shaping them into future researchers and professors. Contributions within Discipline: The goal of the grant was to encourage the research interests and involvement of students who would otherwise have been unlikely to attend HPDC due to a lack of funding, under-representation in the field, lack of institutional tie to the HPDC community, or other reasons. The impact on these students’ education and enthusiasm for research in high-performance computing and distributed systems was high. They had the opportunity to witness first hand cutting edge research, presentations, and discussions, an experience they would likely not otherwise have. Contributions to Human Resource Development: 15 students were able to attend the HPDC 2011 conference as a direct result of this travel award.
