Nomination process for the 2018 Best Dissertation Award

The IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee and the IEEE VR Steering Committee are pleased to solicit nominations for the 2018 Best Dissertation Award in the broad field of Virtual and Augmented Reality. One award will be given each year, and the recipient will receive a cash prize of $500 along with complimentary registration to the IEEE Virtual Reality Conference, where they will be invited to make a short presentation.

Submission Deadline: May 21st, 2018
Results Announced: March 2019

Eligibility

All dissertations that have been successfully defended during the two calendar year period prior to the award deadline are eligible for consideration (e.g. January 1, 2016 – December 31, 2017 for the 2018 award).

Resubmissions of unsuccessful nominations from prior years are welcome, as long as the dissertation defense date remains within the period of eligibility.

If the dissertation defense date and the dissertation filing date are sufficiently different as to create ambiguity in determining the appropriate start of the period of eligibility for the dissertation to be considered for this award, the candidate may elect for their work to be classified as belonging to the period they prefer; however once defined this determination cannot be changed, so that no work may be considered more than twice.

There is no limit on the number of nominations that can be made for candidates affiliated with any single institution or advisor.

Submissions

Nomination materials should be sent by email to dbowman [at] vt.edu and must include:

• The title and abstract of the dissertation;
• The name of the candidate;
• The name of the candidate’s primary advisor;
• The name of the institution where the dissertation was defended;
• The date of the dissertation defense;
• A 1-2 page summary of the significance of the dissertation research;
• An electronic copy of the full dissertation or a pointer to where it can be obtained;
• One letter of recommendation, up to 1 page in length, ideally from the candidate’s primary advisor;
• A list of publications produced from the dissertation work

Evaluation

All nominations will be carefully reviewed by a committee of experts, selected by a representative from the IEEE VR Steering Committee. Factors that will be considered when choosing the winning entry include: the significance and impact of the technical contributions of the work, and the clarity with which these contributions are communicated.