This is funding to provide financial support for 10 graduate students (all from U. S. universities and working towards either their Master's degree or a Doctorate) to attend the 2014 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2014), to be held February 24-27 in Haifa, Israel, as participants in a special Student Consortium (workshop), as presenters in the main conference, and as attendees at the conference for general training purposes. Sponsored by ACM, the annual IUI conferences represent the growing interest in next-generation intelligent and interactive user interfaces; they are the premier forum where researchers from academia and industry, who work at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), come together to exchange complementary insights and to present and discuss outstanding research and applications whose goal is to make the computerized world a more amenable place. Unlike traditional AI the focus is not so much on making the computer smart all by itself, but rather on making the interaction between computers and people smarter. Unlike traditional HCI, there is a focus on solutions that involve large amounts of knowledge and emerging technologies such as natural language understanding, brain computer interfaces, and gesture recognition. To this end, IUI encourages contributions not only from computer science but also from related fields such as psychology, cognitive science, computer graphics, the arts, etc. IUI 2014 will be the 17th conference in the series; topics of interest this year include: intelligent interactive interfaces, systems, and devices; ubiquitous interfaces; smart environments and tools; human-centered interfaces; mobile interfaces; multimodal interfaces; pen-based interfaces; spoken and natural language interfaces; conversational interfaces; affective and social interfaces; tangible interfaces; collaborative multi-user interfaces; adaptive interfaces; sensor-based interfaces; user modeling and interaction with novel interfaces and devices; interfaces for personalization and recommender systems; interfaces for plan-based systems; interfaces that incorporate knowledge- or agent-based approaches; help interfaces for complex tasks; example- and demonstration-based interfaces; interfaces for intelligent generation and presentation of information; intelligent authoring systems; synthesis of multimodal virtual characters and social robots; interfaces for games and entertainment; for learning-based interactions and for health informatics; empirical studies and evaluations of IUI interfaces; and new approaches to designing intelligent user interfaces. More information about the conference is available online at http://iuiconf.org/.
The IUI 2014 Student Consortium will build on the success of the previous two such events. The heart of the Consortium will be a full-day workshop on February 24, immediately preceding the conference, and will be structured to give student trainees exposure to their new research community by giving a 20-30 presentation on their work and receiving feedback from peers and a panel of senior researchers. Group lunch and dinner will encourage social interaction among the student cohort and informal personal interaction with the mentors. The students' work will also be featured during the main conference in a poster session, where they will gain additional experience explaining their work to others in the field. The IUI conference organizers will pay for audio-visual services, two coffee breaks, and space for accommodating attendees in the student session; no funds are requested for these items from NSF.
Broader Impacts: This funding will enable attendance at the IUI conference by students who might otherwise be unable to do so for financial reasons. It will enhance the educational experience of funded participants, by bringing them into contact with leading researchers in the field and by exposing them to the lively discussion during the course of the conference that often leads to opportunities for career advancement. The quality of the conference itself will be enhanced as well, thanks to a broadening of the base of institutions represented and increased diversity of participants. The rich exchange of ideas at IUI has previously proven to be a valuable source of ideas for future research, as well as leading to collaborative efforts; this funding will extend the opportunities for collaboration and provide intellectual stimulus to programs that have previously sent few or no representatives to this conference. The organizing committee has undertaken to proactively recruit student participants from schools that have not traditionally been well represented in the IUI community. Women, minority students, the disabled, and veterans all will be encouraged to participate. To further assure diversity, no more than one student will be accepted from any given institution.
