This award supports participation of U.S.-based doctoral students in the 16th SIGART/AAAI Doctoral Consortium to be held July 22-23, 2012 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in conjunction with the Twenty-Sixth Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-12), to be held July 22-26. This award provides travel stipends for 12 student participants as well as mentoring lunches, a group dinner, and a poster session. The participants will be selected on the basis of a packet of submitted materials that include a summary of thesis research; a curriculum vitae; and a letter of recommendation from the Ph.D. advisor.
The Doctoral Consortium will extend over two days and will include participant presentations, panel discussions, feedback to participants from assigned mentors, informal discussions (over lunch and during breaks), a group dinner for students and mentors, and a poster session. Each participant will give a 20-minute presentation that will be followed by 20 minutes of discussion led by an assigned mentor to provide feedback on the research and the presentation itself. To help the participants make the transition from being graduate students to launching a successful research program, there will be two panel discussions on relevant career issues: a panel of researchers who have completed their Ph.D.s within the last 5 years will focus on how to finish a dissertation and conduct a job search; and a panel of senior researchers from academia and industry will focus on establishing research funding and presenting oneself during the job search process. In addition, there will be a third panel that will further address issues on research, careers, and funding. All of these activities are in furtherance of the overarching goal of supporting the emerging next generation of researchers. The activities planned for the Doctoral Consortium have significant Intellectual Merit in that they strengthen the scientific quality of the participants' doctoral dissertation projects and provide valuable exposure to additional perspectives on their work at a critical time in their research endeavors and professional development. The Doctoral Consortium has potential for significant Broader Impact by furthering the education of the next generation of scientists, broadening participation in Robust Intelligence research, for instance, by including those from at institutions without strong programs in this area, and by fostering energetic scholarship and collaboration throughout all sectors of the community.
This project provided funds to subsidize the 16th SIGART/AAAI DoctoralConsortium (DC), which was held in July 2012 in conjunction with the 26th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-12). The DC was co-chaired by Prof Elizabeth Sklar, Brooklyn College, City University of New York (USA) and Prof Peter McBurney, King's College London (UK). The specific goals of the DC were as follows: (1) To provide a setting for mutual feedback on participants' current research and guidance on future research directions; (2) To develop a supportive community of scholars and a spirit of collaborative research; (3) To support a new generation of researchers with information and advice on academic, research, industrial, and non-traditional career paths; and (4) To contribute to the AAAI conference goals through interaction with other researchers and participation in conference events. All of these goals was met. The DC took place over two days, and incorporated student presentations followed by feedback from mentors assigned to each student and panels, as well as social events to encourage informal discussion. Fourteen doctoral students attended the DC, eight of whom were funded by NSF. Each was mentored by a senior researcher in the student's field of research. Two panels were held, in which topics such as job search and early career advice were discussed. Eight international panelists spoke on technical and personal topics related to academic and industry careers.
