From: "John R. Koza" Subject: CFP: Student PhD Workshop at GP-97 Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 10:22:59 -0800 (PST) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- First Call for Participants and Poster Papers for GP- 97 PhD Student Workshop (Deadline: Wednesday, February 26, 1997) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a call for participants for a one-day PhD student workshop to be held on Saturday July 12, 1997 at Stanford University (just before the start of GP-97 conference on Sunday July 13). The GP-97 PhD workshop is intended to give the presenting PhD students an opportunity to describe their ongoing research work to a faculty panel, other students, and other participants of the workshop. It is expected that there will be feedback on each presenter's current progress as well as suggestions and advice for future research directions from the faculty panel, other student presenters, and other attendees of the workshop. This call is the result of the recent discovery that there are around 50 theses involving genetic programming in the works at the present time. The proposed GP-97 PhD workshop will bring together four distinct groups: (1) A faculty panel, consisting of (at least) the following three faculty members who have agreed so far to participate if there is sufficient interest: ------ David Goldberg, University of Illinois - Urbana ------ Nils Nilsson, Stanford University ------ John Koza, Stanford University (2) Approximately 12 students selected as "presenters." These students will have been selected from among students submitting a one-page poster paper describing their thesis work involving genetic programming. The group of presenting students will be selected from the submissions on the basis of creating a diverse group of students working on a wide range of topic areas. In most cases, the presentations will be from students whose thesis topic has already approved by their university and who been working on their thesis for at least several months. (3) Additional students (PhD, masters, bachelors) who may be working on, or planning to work on, a thesis involving genetic programming at the PhD, masters, or bachelors level. (4) Other interested GP-97 conference attendees (including both students or non-students). The details of the workshop are unsettled at this time, but based on the number and mix of submissions. The workshop will probably be run along approximately the following lines: The workshop will consist of 4 successive 1/2 hour segments, each consisting of a group of 3 short presentations (probably about 15 minutes each, totaling 45 minutes) followed by about 45 minutes of questions, comments, and suggestions from the faculty panel and the audience. The 4 successive 1 1/2 hour segments during the day would cover the 12 presenting students. In general, the workshop would be patterned along the lines of the PhD workshop held in summer 1996 by the AAAI in Portland, Oregon. The intent is to keep the workshop fairly small, so attendance may be limited to students who submitted a one-page poster paper (whether or not they were selected as presenters) and/or other students working on PhD, masters, bachelors theses. The deadline for arrival of submissions is Wednesday, February 26, 1997. Students interested in presenting their work at the workshop should submit 5 physical copies of a one-page camera-ready paper in the style of a poster paper briefly describing their work and any existing intermediate results of their research. The paper should follow the style for papers for GP-97. See the one-page poster papers contained in the GP-96 conference proceedings for samples. For details of the camera- ready copies, see the GP-96 WWW page. It is anticipated that most or all the one-page papers submitted by students who participate in the workshop will be printed either in the GP-97 conference proceedings book or the GP-97 late-breaking papers book (depending on not-yet-settled timing and logistics). Submissions should be sent to GP-97 PhD Workshop, c/o American Association for Artificial Intelligence, 445 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025. Selection of the presenting students and final decisions concerning the workshop will be made shortly after submission. It is anticipated that at least some of the one-page submissions will require revisions and a second deadline will be subsequently announced for the revised versions. The workshop has been scheduled to occur on the day before the regular GP-97 conference to allow students to meet each other and encourage subsequent meetings with their fellow students, if they so choose, during the conference. In addition to the activity at the workshop, at some point during the regular GP-97 conference as a whole (perhaps for 2 hours on Monday afternoon July 14), there will be one parallel track of the regular GP-97 conference provided so that the 12 presenting students can give very brief 10-minute thumbnail sketches of their work. These presentations will give the presenting students an opportunity to present their work to the larger conference audience and will allow attendees of the GP-97 conference to learn about this ongoing PhD research work. Please send your questions or comments concerning this PhD workshop to koza@cs.stanford.edu. John Koza