WORKSHOP: Graduate Student Consortium at the 2019 Designing Interactive Systems Conference

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

This is funding to support a Doctoral Consortium (workshop) of approximately 10 promising graduate students (4 from the United States who will be supported by this award), along with a number of distinguished research faculty. The event will take place in conjunction with the 2019 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS2019), which will be held on June 23-28, 2019, in San Diego, California. DIS is an annual international conference that brings together 200-300 researchers and corporate leaders, as well as students, to present and discuss the latest multidisciplinary work on the design and evaluation of next-generation interactive user interfaces, systems, and applications. Topics of special interest to the conference include: methods, tools, and techniques for engaging people; researching, designing, and co-designing interactive systems; user experience; usability; engagement; empowerment; well-being; designing things that matter; diversity; participation; making; sensors and actuators; mobile devices; novel artifact design; hybrid materials and surfaces; bio-electric systems; multi touch and touchless interaction; social media; personal, community, and public displays; health informatics; children-computer interaction; sustainability; digital arts; and new media. Approximately 100 papers will be presented; accepted papers will be published in the DIS Conference Proceedings as well as in the Association for Computing Machinery's Digital Library. The program will also include invited keynote speakers, demonstrations, a variety of workshops, and poster sessions. The theme of this year's conference is "Contesting Borders and Intersections." The goal of the DIS Doctoral Consortium, to be held as a full-day event on Tuesday, June 25, is to expand student attendance and training in this area. The workshop will help develop and refine the work of doctoral candidates in the field, under scrutiny and support from peers and experts that they would not otherwise be able to access. Graduate student development is key to building a sustainable and vibrant intellectual community, engaged with the most important topics and approaches of the field. Graduate student participation in the consortium by itself broadens the field; the impact is multiplied by what they bring back to their institutions and (eventually) to their workplaces and the students that they train. The Doctoral Consortium is designed to give students exposure to their research community, and the opportunity to present their work and receive constructive feedback from peers and senior researchers in the field. The event, which will be held in parallel with the conference workshops, is designed to encourage PhD students to start building a professional support network of peers and mentors. During the session, each student will make a short presentation, followed by an open discussion and feedback from their peers. A senior researcher will be appointed as a mentor for each student and will be requested to lead the discussion, ask questions, and provide specific feedback. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.