WORKSHOP: Doctoral Colloquium at IEEE VIS 2016

University Of Illinois At Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

This is funding to support a Doctoral Colloquium (workshop) of about 18 dissertation stage doctoral students from both the U.S. and abroad and who represent a variety of visualization subfields, for a day of discussions and interactions with 6-12 distinguished research faculty. The event will be held in conjunction with the IEEE VIS 2016 meeting, which is comprised of the IEEE Scientific Visualization Conference (SciVis), the IEEE Information Visualization Conference (InfoVis), the IEEE Visual Analytics Science and Technology Conference (VAST), and the International Symposium on Visualization for Cyber Security, and which will take place during the week of October 23-28 in Baltimore, MD. Visualization, or the use of interactive graphics to support data analysis and understanding, has become an integral part and critical component of many application areas. IEEE VIS is the premier forum for advances in scientific and information visualization; this weeklong event convenes an international community of researchers and practitioners from academia, government, and industry to explore their shared interests in tools, techniques, and technology, and is now attended by over 1,200 visualization professionals from around the world. The papers presented at the various component events are rigorously refereed and widely cited. More information is available online at http://www.ieeevis.org. The Doctoral Colloquium at IEEE VIS, a research-focused meeting which has taken place annually since 2006, has been highly successful in providing a forum for introducing and grooming young scholars in the field. Many of today's leading visualization researchers have participated in earlier doctoral colloquia as students. The event brings together the best of the next generation of visualization researchers and allows them to create a social network both among themselves and with senior researchers, which plays a major role in their enculturation into the profession. Since the students and faculty are a diverse group on several dimensions (nationality, gender, ethnicity, scientific discipline, institution, and research specialization), the students' horizons are broadened at a critical stage in their professional development. The organizers strongly commit to achieving diversity among the student participants; to this end, no more than 2 students will be accepted from any one institution, and 2 students from the same institution will only be accepted if at least one of them is a woman. The PI has further affirmed that NSF funds will be used chiefly to support participation by students enrolled in graduate programs in the United States. In 2016 the workshop will convene on Saturday, October 22 (the day before the main conference), with follow-up events throughout the week during the VIS technical program. A primary objective is to allow students to discuss their research directions in a supportive atmosphere with a panel of distinguished leaders and with their peers, who will provide helpful feedback and fresh perspectives. To this end, the 18 students will be split into three groups of 6 students; two faculty panelists and one DC co-chair will be assigned to each group in individual meeting rooms to hold their presentations. Each student will be allotted approximately 30-40 minutes of time during the group sessions, to include a formal presentation about his/her doctoral research followed by in-depth discussions and feedback. All students will be assigned a specific mentor among the expert panelists, who will be responsible for reading the student's submission materials in particular depth and providing detailed feedback; additional feedback will be given by other members of the faculty panel, as well as by fellow student participants. Discussion is encouraged. The feedback is geared to helping student participants understand and articulate how their work is positioned relative to other visualization research, whether their topics are adequately focused for thesis research projects, whether their methods are correctly chosen and applied, whether their results are being appropriately analyzed and presented, etc. The goal is to give a second opinion on each student's doctoral research beyond the guidance provided by the student's own dissertation advisor. There will be a common catered working lunch on site for all participants (students and panelists alike) where students get an additional opportunity to meet and network with the expert panelists on a more individual level. Finally, at the end of the day, there will be a roundtable discussion where all participants meet and discuss higher-level topics beyond technical research. Student research will be disseminated via posters during the VIS technical program, and via publication in the VIS Extended Abstracts. The organizers will file a final report (with feedback from participants), which will be archived by the VIS Executive Committee and provided to the organizers of future doctoral colloquia.