Call for Nominations: IFAAMAS-09 Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award

Nominations are invited for the 2009 Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award sponsored by IFAAMAS, the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (http://www.ifaamas.org/).

This award includes a certificate signed by the IFAAMAS Chair and 1500EUR. Eligible doctoral dissertations are those defended between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009 in the area of Autonomous Agents or Multiagent Systems.

The award will be based on the originality, significance, and real or potential impact of the work. Evidence of such impact may come from existing pre- or post-defense publications of the work at highly selective conferences and journals, and/or from comments of the supervisor and references. Work that resulted primarily from the student's initiative will be considered more favourably. The selection committee will be the final arbiter in the decision process. The selection committee might decide to consult external assessors and reserves the right not to award the prize if the nominations do not meet the expected quality level.

The dissertation must be nominated by the thesis supervisor and must be supported by the following documents:

*A.* A pdf file of the dissertation. If the dissertation is not written in English, the nomination must include a long paper in English, with the nominee as the first author, published in a journal or a prestigious conference.

*B.* A list of citations to published papers based primarily on work reported in the dissertation with links to corresponding pdf files.

*C.* A recommendation from the supervisor nominating the dissertation for the IFAAMAS-09 Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award. The recommendation should argue the merit of the dissertation and highlight, where relevant, how the work resulted from the initiative of the student. This document, not to exceed 500 words, should also certify the eligibility of the PhD by asserting that the PhD was defended in calendar year 2009.

*D.* Up to three reference letters of no more than 500 words in length, signed and scanned as pdf files, from researchers familiar with the research of the candidate and with related research expertise.

These documents must be placed on a web page and only a link to this page e-mailed to the chair of the selection committee, Peter Stone, at pstone at cs.utexas.edu on or before February 5, 2010.

Though the nomination is to be submitted by the student's supervisor, it is assumed that the student has consented that the dissertation be considered for this award and, if selected, commits to attend the AAMAS10 conference where he/she will receive the award and will give an hour-long presentation on this work in a special session. The cost of attending the conference is not covered by the award.

Selection committee: Peter Stone (Chair) Ana Bazzan Ariel Procaccia Mike Wooldridge Makoto Yokoo