doctoral mentoring program

AAMAS 2004 will include a doctoral mentoring program, intended for PhD students in advanced stages of their research. This program will provide an opportunity for students to interact closely with established researchers in their fields, to receive feedback on their work and to get advice on managing their careers.

Specifically, the goals of the program are:

• To match each student with an establish researcher in the community (who will act as a mentor). The mentor will interact closely with the student, will provide feedback on research, help form new contacts, etc.
• To allow students an opportunity to present their work to a friendly audience of other students as well as mentors.
• To provide students with contacts and professional networking opportunities.

submission requirements
We encourage submissions from PhD students at advanced stages of their research within the Autonomous Agents and Multi Agent Systems field. Based on the submissions, the organizing committee will select a group of students that will be invited to participate in the program. Participants will be expected to take active part in all doctoral mentoring program activities.

Each submission should include a set of documents from the students, and a recommendation letter from the advisor (see below). The submission package from the students should include:

1. A two-page extended abstract of the student's thesis (in the AAMAS submission format)
2. A personal research statement (one page)
3. A list of estimated expenses (travel, accommodations, etc.)
4. A short (2-page) resume (CV)

In addition, the dissertation advisor should send a letter of recommendation by e-mail to galk@cs.biu.ac.il. The letter should address the expected benefit of attending (to the student), the significance of the research, and the expected date for thesis submission. This letter can be sent in either plain text, postscript or PDF format. The student's name must be clearly pointed out in the letter.

important dates

Submission package and recommendation letter due	February 28, 2004
Acceptance notifications	March 20, 2004
Camera-ready copy due	April 1, 2004
Doctoral Mentoring Symposium	July 18, 2004

The one-day symposium will be held in parallel with the Agent School and prior to the main technical program of the conference, the workshops and tutorials. Note that students may attend either the Doctoral Mentoring Symposium or the Agent School, due to scheduling constraints.