Workshop for Students of Cognitive Systems (SOCS) at ACS 2015

The Students of Cognitive Systems workshop (SOCS-15) is aimed at second and third year Ph.D. students who have completed a majority of their course work and are working towards proposing a thesis. Students will be paired with mentors who have recently graduated or are at the finishing stages of their graduate work and are on the job market. The mentors will be matched with students based on interest and research themes. Each invited student from a United States university will receive an NSF Travel Award (see below). Approximately 8-10 students will be invited to participate.

The workshop has the following primary goals:

• To introduce students to cognitive systems research early in their academic career
• To give students the opportunity to present their research to their peers and other researchers
• To pair students with a mentor who has recently graduated or is at the finishing stages of their graduate work and is on the job market
• To discuss key challenges, evaluation methodologies, best practices, and ongoing research efforts in Cognitive Systems research
• To foster a culture of collaboration across several research labs that are pursuing research in cognitive systems and other related fields

NSF Travel Awards

We will give National Science Foundation (NSF) Travel Awards to students from United States Universities who participate. Each award will cover the entire cost of the student's conference registration and will partially cover the student's travel fees and/or lodging. Soon, we will post more details in this section about how much we expect to be able to provide for travel fees and/or lodging. Please check back soon!

Submission Procedure

Interested students should assemble a PDF packet with the following materials:

• A research abstract not to exceed four pages. Abstracts should be formatted according to instructions provided at http://www.cogsys.org/formatting, which provides Latex and Word templates. Figures, tables, and references count toward the four page limit. Students should include any research that has already been completed, but may also include plans for future research (e.g. planned experiments without results).
• A current CV
• A letter of support from their advisor

At the conference, students will give a short presentation on their work. Please plan to speak for 10-12 minutes, allowing 3-5 minutes for questions.

All applications should be submitted using the following EasyChair submission link (applicants will have to create an EasyChair account if they do not have one already):

Students of Cognitive Systems (SOCS) submission site

Important Dates

• April 1, 2015, 11:59pm PDT:  Deadline for submission
• April 17, 2015:  Decisions about acceptance
• May 8, 2015:  Deadline for early registration
• May 28, 2015:  Student Workshop

Workshop Program

Locations: All events on Thursday (except dinner and the coffee breaks) will be held in the GVU Cafe, which is near the staircase on the second floor of the Technology Square Research Buildling (TSRB), located at 85 5th Street NW. The poster session on Friday will be held in the TSRB auditorium area.

Thursday, May 28, 2015