The proposed grant will promote the design, development and analysis of embedded and networked sensor technologies, systems, and applications by encouraging student participation in the ACM Sensys 2013 conference. Besides technical paper presentations, Sensys, through this grant, will be able to stimulate several intellectual activities by students. Furthermore, the conference offers several opportunities for intellectually stimulating discussions between the students and researchers from around the world.
The participation of students in Sensys can have an important impact on their development as a junior researcher. The grant will also promote diversity by encouraging and enabling women and other underrepresented minorities to participate.
SenSys 2013 - the 11th ACM International Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems - was as a high caliber, cross disciplinary forum for research on systems issues in embedded and networked sensors. SenSys 2013 was a single track forum and it addressed issues that span multiple, inter-disciplinary research areas, including sensors and sensing systems, energy harvesting, low power circuits, signal processing, wireless communication, networking, operating systems, and sensor architectures. Student participation in top research venues, such as SenSys, is critical for a vibrant research community. Further, students often have limited sources of funds to travel to conferences. To help increase the representation and participation of graduate students in SenSys, we received financial support from the National Science Foundation, to partially cover travel and conference registration expenses for twenty students. The primary source of intellectual merit for this proposed project was providing twenty (20) students the opportunity to engage in the vibrant research environment of SenSys 2013. The opportunity to attend the top conference in embedded and networked sensor systems can have a long lasting effect on students in their early careers, motivating them to perform top notch research, publish in top avenues and become productive members of our society. Continuing its stellar track record, SenSys 2013 had a strong program spanning full research papers, demonstrations, posters, and several workshops. The broader impacts of this award was to bring students together with experienced practitioners enriching their existing research projects and creating new collaborations. Travel grants were awarded by giving high priority to female and under-represented minority students - five students were in this category. High priority was also given to students pursuing their graduate studies in Minority Serving Institutions, and institutions that serve Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and persons with disabilities - students from 8 institutions were in this category. The feedback from students that benefitted from the student travel award was extremely positive. For example, Joseph Taylor (Washington State University) said : "SenSys 2013 was the first conference I'd ever attended, and without the travel grant I certainly wouldn't have been able to come. Preparing a demo and presentation was likely the most stressful task I've managed this year, but the experience an insight I gained while attending SenSys was absolutely invaluable, and I feel it gave me a great head start in preparing for conferences as a graduate student. Seeing the presentations of others definitely gave me a better view of the nature of academic projects. There were several talks on subjects very similar to things I've focused on. Many more were on subjects I've only skimmed out of curiosity, and seeing how state?of?the?art undertakings still make use of the fundamentals I'd learned in passing was very exciting. The rest of the presentations were on subjects almost completely foreign to me; I didn't follow all of them perfectly, but I was able to at least pick out the main themes and commit some clever ideas to memory. I took notes on every presentation I attended, and in some cases ended up with several pages for single presentations, with an addition list of subjects to look in to." And Cynthia Sung (MIT) said: "Attending SenSys was an amazing experience. I would not have attended the conference were it not for the student travel grant, and I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity that the grant gave me! Listening to the presentations and talking to the other attendees has broadened my view of my own research. I come from a related but often separate research community (robotics), and before this year, I would never have considered consulting the sensor networks community on problems related to mine. After attending this conference, however, I have found some groups whose work I will definitely be keeping an eye on in the future! Of course, attending the conference under the travel grant also provided me with more than just some new references. Manning the registration desk with another student during a shift where very few people were actually checking in was incredibly awkward until we started talking to each other. Poster sessions and coffee breaks are good for giving brief overviews of a research problem, but conversations at those sessions do not typically last long enough to delve into any sort of detail about the work. Sitting at a table with someone for three hours, on the other hand, allowed me to exchange research ideas with another graduate student in great depth, and our conversation began to resemble a brainstorming session more than a typical 'networking' conversation by the end. I came out of that shift with a lot of ideas and enthusiasm for future directions to go with my work. I can confidently say that this type of conversation would not have happened were I not on the travel grant."
