Student Mentoring Program: Dissertation Research Roundtable
Table of Contents
- Student Mentoring Program: Dissertation Research Roundtable
Important Dates
All times are in Anywhere on Earth (AoE) time zone. When the deadline is day D, the last time to submit is when D ends AoE. Check your local time in AoE.
- Thursday, January 21, 2027: Submission deadline
- Thursday, February 18, 2027: Notification
- Thursday, February 25, 2027: E-rights completion deadline
- Thursday, March 4, 2027: TAPS upload deadline (Author must upload their final paper source to TAPS for processing)
- Thursday, March 18, 2027: Publication-ready deadline (Authors upload final TAPS-approved version to PCS)
- Thursday, March 18, 2027: Conference registration deadline
- Thursday, March 18, 2027: (optional) Video presentation deadline
Note: All deadlines include a 24-hour grace period in which submissions can still be corrected. This period is provided solely for contingency and should not be treated as an extension. No support will be available, and authors must not contact the chairs regarding submission issues once the official deadline has passed.
Submission Details
- Online submission: PCS Submission System
- A benefits statement, explaining why they should be selected
- Background information.
- A research description up to 4 pages long (excluding references)
- Template: ACM Master Article Submission Templates (single column)
- Submissions must not be anonymous and must include any author names, affiliations, ORCID, and email.
ACM Selection Process Category
About the Program
The CHI 2027 Student Mentoring Program (SMP) provides opportunities for students to discuss their research, receive feedback from established researchers, and build connections with mentors and peers. The program supports students at different stages of their careers in Human-Computer Interaction and will take place fully in person at CHI 2027.
The SMP includes two main activities:
- Dissertation Research Roundtable. An in-depth mentoring session for mid-stage Ph.D. students to discuss their in-progress dissertation research with peers and expert mentors. Participation requires an application and acceptance into the program. Participants will also showcase a poster in a poster session.
- Building a Research Cohort. A cohort-building activity for students at any stage of their training to connect with peers who share similar interests and grow their network. Participation requires registration before the conference. See Building a Research Cohort for Students.
Overall, the Student Mentoring Program aims to help students:
- Gain new ideas and perspectives on their research directions;
- Support each other by constructively offering their feedback to the other attending Ph.D. students;
- Form new friendships with the other attendees, together becoming a supportive cohort of emerging scholars with a spirit of collaborative research; and
- Engage with the full CHI conference by participating in many of the events and opportunities that CHI offers, and by enjoying interactions with other CHI attendees.
Publication Policies & Requirements
Authors must review ACM’s publications policies. Please read this separate page for them.
Metadata Integrity
The metadata is crucial to the integrity of the review process and author representation. Therefore, the paper submission deadline is a hard deadline; there are no exceptions. See the SIGCHI blog post for further information. If any the author need to be added or removed after the paper submission deadline, they would need to withdraw their submissions/papers. The affiliations entered in PCS during submissions are final. Affiliations used for submission must stay on the paper per ACM policy, only a secondary affiliation can be added. Title changes are only permitted if specifically requested by the chairs.
Policy on Use of Artificial Intelligence
Authors must follow the standing policy on the use of artificial intelligence, such as large language models, in the creation of academic work. Please review the ACM Policy on Authorship before using these tools.
Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects
Any research in submitted manuscripts involving human subjects must comply with the ethics review requirements applicable to the authors’ research environment. As research environments vary considerably concerning their requirements, authors are asked to submit a short note to reviewers that provides this context. Please also see the 2021 ACM Publications policy on research involving humans before submitting.
Accessibility
Accessible submissions are essential for reviewers and are good practice. Authors are expected to follow SIGCHI’s Guide to an Accessible Submission. If you have any questions or concerns about creating accessible submissions, please contact the Accessibility Chairs at access@chi2027.acm.org early in the writing process (the closer to the deadline, the less time the team will have to respond to individual requests).
Preparing and Submitting the Dissertation Research Roundtable Application
Participating in the Dissertation Research Roundtable requires applying first and getting accepted. Interested students must apply via the PCS Submission System before the submission deadline.
Who Should Apply?
The Dissertation Research Roundtable will give preference to mid-stage Ph.D. students who are currently working on or developing their dissertations, so they may benefit from feedback in the mentoring session. Please note that students participating in the Dissertation Research Roundtable will be required to read several other students’ Extended Abstracts prior to the in-person meeting.
How To Apply?
Applications must be submitted through the PCS Submission System. To apply for the Dissertation Research Roundtable, students must submit an application through the CHI 2027 > Student Mentoring Program: Dissertation Research Roundtable form, including:
- A benefits statement to help the jury understand why they should be selected for the activity.
- Background information, which will help us ensure diversity in the cohort of participating students.
- A research description (4 pages max., excluding references) in the form of an Extended Abstract using the ACM Master Article Submission Template (single column). If accepted, this document will be published as an Extended Abstract in the ACM Digital Library.
Submissions must not be anonymized and must include the author’s name, affiliations, ORCID, and email. Thus, anonymized submissions will be desk-rejected. Students must be the only authors of the submission and any associated document, e.g., the submitted Extended Abstract. Thus, advisors or collaborators cannot be listed as co-authors; adding additional authors beyond the submitting student will result in a desk rejection.
Selection Process
As soon as the submission deadline passes, the Student Mentoring Program jury will review and select candidates via an ACM reviewed process that considers both research quality and the goal of identifying a set of students who will benefit significantly from the event and support each other. We will seek diversity in backgrounds, identities, abilities, intellectual viewpoints, topics, and geographic areas. Only invited students will be allowed to participate in the Dissertation Research Roundtable. A priority will be accommodating as many (and as diverse) students as possible.
We aim to support a wide range of institutions/advisors. In addition to the selection criteria above, to ensure diversity, even excellent submissions may not be accepted and invited to the discussion roundtables. For example, we probably cannot accept more than 2 students from the same institution, and might not accept more than 1 student with the same advisor.
Upon Acceptance of the Submission
Students whose submission is accepted will receive invitations to participate in the Dissertation Research Roundtable by the Notification deadline. Invitations will include further information on participation requirements, event timings, and planned activities.
For publication, all accepted submissions must be in double-column format. In a double-column format, the text is not allowed to exceed 4 pages, excluding references. Adding appendices is not allowed; however, the authors may upload supplementary material with additional information. Moreover, their poster must be uploaded as a PDF for publication in the ACM DL by the publication-ready deadline.
AUTHORS TAKE NOTE: The official publication date is when the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to two weeks before the first day of the conference. The official publication date may affect the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. For those rare conferences whose proceedings are published in the ACM Digital Library after the conference, the official publication date remains the first day of the conference.
ACM Open
Content in this track will be published under ACM Open Access as an “extended abstract” article type. Extended abstract article types will not be charged an article processing charge (APC) for open access. For more information about which article types are subject to an APC, see the ACM article types summary.
At the Conference
The author of an accepted Dissertation Research Roundtable submission must register by the registration deadline. If the author fails to register for the conference by the conference registration deadline, their accepted work will be withdrawn from the ACM Digital Library.
Accepted contributions may be scheduled at any time during the conference. Accepted students must bring their printed poster to present during the conference. Authors should ensure their availability, as individual scheduling requests cannot be accommodated.
Students will be responsible for the conference registration fee, travel cost to the in-person conference, accommodation, and any other costs that might arise. Note: If the student’s institution cannot provide support, they may consider applying for the Gary Marsden Travel Fund.
For students attending the Roundtable Mentoring Session, they must follow the instructions on preparing and submitting a final version of the Extended Abstract by the publication-ready deadline. If the student cannot meet these requirements by the publication-ready deadline, the venue chairs will be notified, and the submission may be removed from the program.
Contact Us
Aakash Gautam, Pawel W. Woźniak, and Yvette Wohn
studentmentoring@chi2027.acm.org