The 21st ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2019) 
Suzhou, Jiangsu, China October 14-18, 2019
ICMI 2019 Doctoral Consortium - Call for Contributions
The goal of the ICMI Doctoral Consortium is to provide PhD students with an opportunity to present their work to a group of mentors and peers from a diverse set of academic and industrial institutions, to receive feedback on their doctoral research plan and progress, and to build a cohort of young researchers interested in designing and developing multimodal interfaces and interaction. We invite students from all PhD granting institutions who are in the process of forming or carrying out a plan for their PhD research in the area of designing and developing multimodal interfaces. We expect to provide some economic support to attendees that will cover part of their costs (travel, registration, etc.).
Who should apply?
While we encourage applications from students at any stage of doctoral training, the doctoral consortium will benefit most the students who are in the process of forming or developing their doctoral research. These students will have passed their qualifiers or have completed the majority of their coursework, will be planning or developing their dissertation research, and will not be very close to completing their dissertation research. Students from any PhD granting institution whose research falls within designing and developing multimodal interfaces and interaction are encouraged to apply.
Submission Guidelines
Graduate students pursuing a PhD degree in a field related to designing multimodal interfaces should submit the following materials:
1. Extended Abstract: A four-page description of your PhD research plan and progress in the ACM SigConf format. Your extended abstract should follow the same outline, details, and format of the ICMI short papers. The submissions will not be anonymous. In particular, it should cover: o The key research questions and motivation of your research o Background and related work that informs your research o A statement of hypotheses or a description of the scope of the technical problem o Your research plan, outlining stages of system development or series of studies o The research approach and methodology o Your results to date (if any) and a description of remaining work o A statement of research contributions to date (if any) and expected contributions of your PhD work 2. Advisor Letter: A one-page letter of nomination from the student's PhD advisor. This letter is not a letter of support. Instead, it should focus on the student's PhD plan and how the Doctoral Consortium event might contribute to the student's PhD training and research. 3. CV: A two-page curriculum vitae of the student.
All materials should be prepared in PDF format and submitted through the ICMI submission system.
Review Process
The Doctoral Consortium will follow a review process in which submissions will be evaluated by a number of factors including (1) the quality of the submission, (2) the expected benefits of the
consortium for the student's PhD research, and (3) the student's contribution to the diversity of topics, backgrounds, and institutions, in order of importance. More particularly, the quality of the submission will be evaluated based on the potential contributions of the research to the field of multimodal interfaces and its impact on the field and beyond. Finally, we hope to achieve a diversity of research topics, disciplinary backgrounds, methodological approaches, and home institutions in this year's Doctoral Consortium cohort. We do not expect more than two students to be invited from each institution to represent a diverse sample. Women and other underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to apply.
Financial Support
The conference is pleased to offer partial financial support for doctoral students participating in the Doctoral Consortium and attending the conference. Only students who apply and are accepted for participation in the Doctoral Consortium can be considered for financial support. The number and size of the offers of financial support are contingent upon the number of invited student participants.
Attendance
All authors of accepted submissions are expected to attend the Doctoral Consortium and the main conference poster session. The attendees will present their PhD work as a short talk at the Consortium and as a poster at the conference poster session. A detailed program for the Consortium and the participation guidelines for the poster session will be available after the camera-ready deadline.
Process
 Submission format: Four-page extended abstract using the ACM format (https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template#aL2)  Submission system: https://new.precisionconference.com/user/login?society=sigchi/  Selection process: Peer-Reviewed  Presentation format: Talk on consortium day and participation in the conference poster session  Proceedings: Included in conference proceedings and ACM Digital Library  Doctoral Consortium Co-chairs: Daniel McDuff (Microsoft Research) and Kristiina Jokinen (AIST)
Important Dates
Submission deadline June 28th, 2019 (23:59PM, PST) Notifications July 26th, 2019 Camera-ready August 9th, 2019 Doctoral Consortium date October 14th, 2019
Questions?
For more information and updates on the ICMI 2019 Doctoral Consortium, visit the Doctoral Consortium page of the main conference website https://icmi.acm.org/2019/index.php?id=cfdc For further questions, contact the Doctoral Consortium co-chairs:
 Daniel McDuff (Microsoft Research) damcduff@microsoft.com   Kristiina Jokinen (AI Research Center, AIST Tokyo Waterfront) kristiina.jokinen@aist.go.jp