The grant supports student travel for about twelve students to attend the 2010 ACM conference on Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE 2010), to be held November 7-11, 2010, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Funds are requested to support the travel, meals, and lodging for student volunteers. The students will attend portions of the conference and serve as student volunteers. Attention will be paid to financial needs and under-represented groups. The opportunity to attend one of the premier conferences in Software Engineering is intended to provide experiences that may encourage students to pursue higher degrees in computer science research.
The funding from the grant was used to support students to attend two International conferences on Software Engineering. The ACM Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE) one of the premier forums for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the most recent ideas, innovations, trends, and experiences in the field of software engineering. The distinctive features of FSE are an emphasis on the foundations of the field, the relatively small scale of the event, and the intense intellectual engagement among participants. The funding allowed us to support fourteen graduate students to attend the Eighteenth International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE 18) in 2010 (13 students) and the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE) in 2011. Participation as a student volunteer helped these students attend the conference and learn about the latest research development and be inspired to perform first class research themselves. Further, at this conference we set up informal lunches with researchers that allowed students to identify mentors, be introduced to the international community, and interact with thought leaders and their peers. Student volunteers were able to share their experiences with students from other institutions and gain an informal introduction to life and opportunities at other higher education institutions. This informal bonding is an important step for students in broadening their network and in enabling them to recognize the opportunities through which they can become members of this vibrant community.
