This award provides travel support for 25-30 U.S.-based graduate and undergraduate students to participate in the 21th ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS 2013 Conference, held in Orlando, FL, USA, November 5-8, 2013 (http://sigspatial2013.sigspatial.org). The ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS conference has established itself as the world's premier conference to foster research in the areas of Spatial Data and Analysis and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The conference provides a forum for original research contributions covering all conceptual, design, and implementation aspects of GIS ranging from applications, user interfaces, and visualization to storage management and indexing issues. It brings together researchers, developers, users, and practitioners carrying out research and development in novel systems based on geospatial data and knowledge, and fostering interdisciplinary discussions and research in all aspects of GIS. It is the premier annual event of the ACM Special Interest Group on Spatial Information (ACM SIGSPATIAL). The conference seeks to continuously advance the state of-the-art in spatial data management and spatial data analysis and broaden its impact.
The participation of U.S. graduate and undergraduate students results in the intellectual simulation of young minds to pursue advanced research and development activities in an area that has huge technical and societal impact. The students greatly benefit from attending this conference, as they are able to partake in the current state-of-the-art in the area of geospatial systems and applications, present their work, and potentially make connections for research collaborations and research mentoring. The total number of ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS participants in the past has been in excess of 300 participants, with a majority of the participants from the U.S., followed by Europe and Asia. A strong representation of U.S.-based graduate students at ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS is useful in maintaining U.S. competitiveness in the important research areas crucial for U.S. infrastructures and applications that critically depend on geo-referenced information. Applications of spatial and geographical information contribute to a wide-array of societal contexts: improving the lives of ordinary citizens through advanced transportation applications, increasing the security of the nation through better intelligence gathering using geospatial knowledge, and developing applications that will have a positive impact on the global environment. Educating and training the next generation of scientists, engineers, and practitioners in the area of spatial and geographical information systems will have a significant impact and will enhance the continuation of the competitive edge of the United States in this important area.
ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS 2013 received from NSF a grant of $30,000 to support the travel of US-based students. With the NSF funds, SIGSPATIAL supported 32 students. Among the 32 awardees, there were 26 Ph.d. students, 5 M.S. students, and 1 B.S. student. One of our goals was to support women, minority students and undergraduates and we successfully supported four women, one minority students, and one undergraduate student (19% of the awardees). This is similar to our level of support for women, minorities, and undergraduates in previous years. The awards ranged from $392 to $975 depending on student need and level of participation in the conference. The selection of the students for the awards was determined by a committee of faculty members that was chaired by the PI. Each student was evaluated based on a combination of their level of participation in the conference and their financial need. All but one of the students had a paper in either the conference or workshop and the one student that did not was one of the organizers of ACM SIGSPATIAL CUP, which is a spatial programming competition that attracts many students to the conference. At ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS 2012, a special area was set up for the "NSF Student Supported Research" during the combined "Poster, Demo, and PhD Showcase" Session.
