CIF: Student Travel Support for the 2017 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

The IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT) is the premier international conference on information theory, the scientific discipline that studies the mathematical foundations of efficient, reliable, and secure communications, including telephony, television, wireless, optical, and data storage systems. By their nature, the fundamental limits of communication and storage are not technology-dependent, and do not become obsolete with improvements in hardware or software. In fact, the performance benchmark provided by information theory has successfully guided engineers in the design of ever more efficient coding systems that leverage the technological advances to closely approach the fundamental limits. The symposium typically attracts around 1000 paper submissions with about 600 papers accepted and 850 participants, including about 350 students who benefit from the excellent learning and networking opportunity that ISIT provides. This award provides travel funds for students to attend the symposium. Students form an integral part of the Information Theory community. Over the past few years the IEEE Information Theory Society has undertaken several activities to promote student participation. These include the establishment of Schools of Information Theory on five continents, the ISIT Jack Keil Wolf Best Student Paper Award, the Information Theory Society Student Committee, and the ISIT tutorial series. The ISIT Jack Keil Wolf Student Paper Award is given to up to 3 outstanding papers for which a student is the principal author and presenter. This author must be a registered student of an educational institution at the time of paper submission to be eligible. The criteria for the award includes both content and presentation. In addition, an outstanding benefit of the ISIT is the close personal interaction between senior and junior researchers in information theory, which encourages the liberal exchange of ideas and critical comments. The opportunities for cross-fertilization are immense and it is vital that those who are new to the field and bring fresh ideas be present to discuss their work with those who are more experienced.