Call for Doctoral Consortium Applications

Call for Doctoral Consortium Applications

Important Dates 

Submission Deadline: January 5 (23:59 UTC-12)
Author Notification: February 5 (23:59 UTC-12)
Camera Ready Deadline: March 5 (23:59 UTC-12)
Camera Ready Deadline: March 1 (23:59 UTC-12)
Doctoral Consortium: May 3 – 4 

UPDATE: AAMAS 2021 and the doctoral consortium to be held as fully virtual events.

Doctoral Consortium Program

The doctoral consortium (DC) of AAMAS 2021 is intended to provide Ph.D. students the opportunity (1) to receive feedback on their research (from established researchers in their fields), (2) to interact closely with established researchers/mentors, and (3) to build their professional network. 

Each accepted student to the program will be matched with an established researcher/mentor in the field who will assist the student with research and career management advice. An informal lunch will be organized between the students and their mentors allowing for in-depth discussion and exchange.

Each student will be given ample time to orally present their work and therefore be able to fully benefit from direct feedback from the assigned senior researcher mentor and their peers. Furthermore, the students will also present a poster of their PhD work during the poster session of the main conference. Apart from extra feedback, this will also help provide students with new contacts and professional networking opportunities. In addition, the students will work in groups in a Social Good Idea Challenge.

The DC is intended for PhD students who have a specific research proposal and some preliminary results, but who have sufficient time prior to completing their dissertation to benefit from the consortium experience. Preference will be given to students satisfying these criteria, but well-motivated applications from students who are at earlier or later stages of their doctoral studies will also be considered.

Program Format: It is our hope to hold the DC program in person and host our attendees at the conference venue. However, we are aware of the ongoing global public health situation and will be considering any safety protocols in place at the time when implementing the DC program. As such, we are also planning the possibility of running the DC program as a partly or fully virtual event.

Submission Procedure

The submission package should include the following items in one single pdf file:

  1. A cover sheet containing: the student’s name, email address, homepage, university affiliation, gender, citizenship, PhD start date, expected graduation date, name and email of PhD supervisor, at least three mentor suggestions (should be chosen from the list of PCs or SPCs in (this year and past) AAMAS conferences, for example, the list of PCs and SPCs for AAMAS 2020 can be found here: https://aamas2020.conference.auckland.ac.nz/program-committee-members/ and https://aamas2020.conference.auckland.ac.nz/senior-program-committee-members/), and at least three areas of study keywords (should be chosen from the list of areas of interest in the AAMAS’ call for paper: https://aamas2021.soton.ac.uk/calls/papers/, https://aamas2020.conference.auckland.ac.nz/area-topics-of-interest/, or http://aamas2019.encs.concordia.ca/cfp.html).
  2. A 1-page letter of support from the supervisor.
  3. A 2-page (short) CV that includes the list of publications of the student.
  4. A 2-page extended abstract of the student’s thesis or thesis topic (in AAMAS submission format)
  5. A 1-page personal statement citing around five favorite papers in the field and briefly describing how they influenced the students’ work.

Applications should be submitted via easychair:

AAMAS-2021 EasyChair Site

The selection process will consider the quality of the submitted proposal and the stage of the student’s PhD project. Doctoral students who submit to the DC are encouraged to submit papers to the associated workshops.

Important: All students, including DC applicants, should apply for student scholarships separately on the scholarship website. While acceptance to the DC may play a role in scholarship decisions, those decisions are made by the scholarship chairs and are subject to available funding support.

For any questions, please contact the doctoral consortium co-chairs.

Organisers

  • Hau Chan (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, United States) 
  • Emiliano Lorini (IRIT, France)