This is funding to support both a doctoral research symposium (workshop) and the student volunteers program at the 11th International Symposium on Wearable Computing 2007, to be held October 10-12 in Boston, and sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). ISWC is a leading international forum for the presentation of research and practice relating to all aspects of wearable systems, including (but not limited to) hardware, battery life, electronic textiles, heat dissipation, sensor networks, software architectures, operating systems, privacy, human interfaces, formal evaluation methodologies, and the use of wearables in augmented reality and training, for the enablement of the elderly and people with disabilities, and for a host of consumer, industrial, medical, and wellness applications. The conferences are typically attended by approximately 250 professionals from around the world, and bring together researchers, product vendors, fashion designers, textile manufacturers, users, and all other interested parties to share information and advances in this highly interdisciplinary field. Research reports published in the ISWC Proceedings are heavily refereed and widely cited. The ISWC'07 Doctoral Consortium, which will take place on October 10, will bring together approximately 10 dissertation-stage doctoral students, for presentations and interactions with a panel of faculty members. The students will come from both the United States and abroad, and represent the best of the next generation of researchers in a variety of ISWC subfields. Because participants are selected chiefly on the grounds of research excellence, their work represents the state-of-the-art; even so, the Doctoral Consortium provides an opportunity for these projects to be shaped and improved through intellectual exchange, as well as for the students to present and communicate the character of their work to a key group of their peer professionals. The Student Volunteer Program, on the other hand, provides a means for promising upcoming researchers who are not yet ready to participate in the Doctoral Consortium to attend the conference and have full access to all activities at a significantly reduced cost, in return for simple services to the conference such as equipment setup and help at the registration desk. The PI will take proactive steps to ensure that for both the Doctoral Consortium and the Student Volunteers Program, participation criteria will include appropriate diversity factors.
Broader Impacts: The doctoral symposium will help expand the participation of young researchers pursuing graduate studies in this field, by providing them an opportunity to gain wider exposure in the community for their innovative work and to obtain feedback and guidance from senior members of the research community. It will further help foster a sense of community among these young researchers, by allowing them to create a social network both among themselves and with senior researchers at a critical stage in their professional development. Because the students and faculty constitute a diverse group across a variety of dimensions, including nationality/cultural and scientific discipline, the students' horizons are broadened to the future benefit of the field. This should in turn improve U.S. competitiveness in mobile personal computing and communications, areas in which Europe and Asia currently hold the lead.
