Inspired by broad student interest and successful events at past IEEE VR conferences, we are holding a Doctoral Consortium (DC) event associated with IEEE Virtual Reality 2016. The purpose of the DC is to provide a unique, interactive, supportive, and prestigious mentoring opportunity for select graduate students in VR at any level, offering them a valuable opportunity to get the independent perspectives of senior individuals with a collective breadth and depth of knowledge, at a time in their studies when it can make a significant difference. The DC is a multi-day event, starting with a social dinner on March 19th, a concentrated full-day main event on March 20th full of focused presentations and discussions, followed by poster presentations and networking opportunities on March 21st, 22nd and 23rd. Accepted students will be expected to give in-depth presentations of their position paper where they will receive constructive critiques from mentors. Accepted students will also be required to create a poster to present during the poster presentation sessions. This will provide students with another avenue to practice presenting their work and to receive valuable feedback from other conference attendees. Information on format and length of presentations will be provided at a later time to accepted students. Accepted students will also be expected to finalize the position paper, which should be revised based on feedback from the reviewers, into a two-page extended abstract (references included) to be included in the online IEEE VR indexed proceedings. The main event is a full-day private workshop where each student presents their research interests/plans/results to a panel of senior VR researchers and receive specific constructive feedback. DC Fellowships Students are encouraged to seek funding from their institutions to participate in the DC, that way more students may benefit from this exciting event. However, in addition to the honor of being chosen, and the benefits of the mentoring, students who are selected can request complimentary full-conference registration (entire VR2015 conference), Lodging, and Travel funds. Depending on availability and constraints of funding, we will select some students who will receive this financial support based on the submitted applications and on financial need. Topics The DC welcomes applicants from a broad range of disciplines including VR, AR, wearable computing, HCI, social informatics, information technology, cognitive science, and related fields. Submissions/Format: Students interested in participating in the Doctoral Consortium are required submit a 1-2 page position paper, a curriculum vitae, and complete the following Doctoral Consortium Online Application form. Accepted students may be at any stage in their Ph.D. studies, however the submitted DC paper should reflect progress that has been made so far towards a Ph.D. dissertation. The length of the position paper should reflect the progress that has been made. The DC position paper must clearly motivate, discuss, and summarize the proposed PhD research, describe how the research fits into and advances research in VR and/or related fields, and report on the work done so far. The maximum length is two pages and formatting guidelines are described in the IEEE extended abstract template found here. References should be included but are not counted towards the two-page maximum. Examples of DC position paper content: Newer Ph.D. students should discuss more about their research interests, research questions, and potential ideas that they have for narrowing down their dissertation topic. More advanced Ph.D. students should discuss their dissertation topic in more depth which may include but not limited to: data collected, results, shortfalls, proposed next steps, etc. Ph.D. students closer to graduation should discuss their dissertation topic in depth and proposed research for their career which may include but not limited to focused research interests, proposed work they would include in a research statement, etc. Review All papers submitted to the DC will undergo a thorough review process that will provide constructive feedback to the applicant. The best submissions will be selected for presentation both at the DC and poster session. The students will have a chance to meet and discuss their work with each other and with a group of senior researchers and practitioners called mentors. Please contact the program chairs if any assistance is needed in preparing an application. Submission Submission Deadline: December 4th, 2015 11:59 EST Friday Notification of acceptance

• December 14th, 2015 Monday

Camera-Ready:

• January 8, 2016 11:59 EST Friday

Date of the event:

• March 19th-23rd, 2016

All submissions will be acknowledged by email; submissions received after this date will not be considered. Participants will be chosen with an emphasis on diversity of topics, participants, approaches, and institutions. For more information, please contact the Program Chairs at doctoralconsortiumchairs2016@ieeevr.org:

• Tabitha Peck, Davidson College, USA
• Toni B. Pence, University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA
• Andrew Raij, University of Central Florida, USA

Materials and questions should be e-mailed to the Program Chairs at doctoralconsortiumchairs2016@ieeevr.org.