Travel: CIF: Student Travel Support for the 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

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, with applications in telephony, television, wireless, optical, and data storage systems. 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 fundamental limits. The Symposium focuses on the presentation of previously unpublished contributions in all areas of information theory, including big data analytics, communication theory and systems, cryptography and security, and various emerging applications. The pandemic in years 2020 to 2022 resulted in significant disruption to international conference travel. ISIT-2023 is expected to be the first edition after the pandemic that will be fully back to normal with the travel restrictions from around the globe being lifted. Attendance by student researchers to the Symposium is especially crucial to the continued vitality of the field of Information Theory, which, if history is to serve as an indicator, is the basis for US competitiveness in the fields of data transmission, storage, compression and security. In addition, an outstanding benefit of the Symposium is the close personal interaction between senior and junior workers in information theory, which encourages the free 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. The travel support from NSF will significantly ease the burden of the attending students, given the expected higher-than-normal cost of international travel in the summer of 2023. In the past few years (pre-pandemic), the attendance at IEEE ISIT has varied between 750 and 925, typically including over 300 students. Among them, 40% are students enrolled in graduate or undergraduate programs in the United States, who will benefit directly from this travel support grant. In the last few years, ISIT has had significant participation from women engineers, with about 40% female student participation. The student travel grant will be administered to ensure that no less than 45% of the awards are women recipients, which will continue promoting a healthy and diverse study participation that is key to the vitality of the community. While the travel support will be given mostly to student authors who will present technical papers during the conference, a portion of the US NSF Student Travel Grant will be reserved for US graduate/undergraduate students who will attend the conference for the first time and may not have a paper/ presentation/poster/demo at the conference. Preference will be given to students from under-represented groups (e.g., women, minorities and people with disabilities). The introduction of this new category will ensure a broader, more diverse student participation and also promote student interest in the broad STEM areas in general. 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.