Student Committee Report

1. Student Committee Report Aylin Yener, Penn State Presented at the BoG meeting, CISS A. Yener

2. Outline • Previous Events: • ISIT 2008 • Allerton 2008 • Upcoming Events: • ISIT 2009 • General info and Outlook • Second Annual School of Information Theory Update A. Yener

3. ISIT 2008, Toronto • July 7, 2008: we organized a research discussion round table event for all participating students. • 130+ students attended the lunch event. Discussion leaders were: • Graphical models - Alex Dimakis (UC Berkeley) • Source coding - Krish Eswaran (UC Berkeley) • Feedback - Ramji Venkataramanan (University of Michigan) • Interference and Secrecy - Xiang He (Penn State) • Relaying - Bobak Nazer (UC Berkeley) • Distributed detection and estimation - Anima Anandkumar (Cornell) • Scaling laws - Awlok Josan (University of Michigan) • Zero-error Information Theory - Salim El Rouayheb (Texas A&M) • Optimization - Chee Wei Tan (Princeton) A. Yener

4. ISIT 2008, Toronto (2) • July 10, 2008: we organized a panel discussion titled “What Makes a Great Researcher?” • Panelist were: Tom Cover and Andrea Goldsmith of Stanford, Sergio Verdu of Princeton University, Alon Orlitsky of UCSD and Alexander Barg of University of Maryland. • 130+ attendees. Lunch provided; free IT student committee T-shirts were distributed to the participants. A. Yener

5. Allerton 2008 • Joint event with the Outreach Committee • Panel on Mentoring at Allerton library. • Panelist were: Todd Coleman (UIUC), Elza Erkip (Poly), Olgica Milenkovic (UIUC), Roy Yates (Rutgers), and Aylin Yener (Penn State). • It was a good and interactive discussion. A. Yener

6. Upcoming Events • We decided not to hold the round table at CISS 09 this year. • CISS event (this decision is for this year) is to be replaced by an event at Asilomar or another venue, possibly an industry-student mixer. • ISIT 09, round table, panel A. Yener

7. Membership Update • Retired members: Brooke Shrader, Lalitha Sankar, Nan Liu • New members: Student co-chair: Krish Eswaran (UCB); member: Deniz Gunduz (Princeton/Stanford), Xiang He (Penn State); Web: Matthieu Bloch (Notre Dame) A. Yener

8. Forward look: • Volunteers • We need to reach out to more volunteers to for student leadership as our membership rapidly grows. • Student leaders: Potential new members need to be sought as the current ones transition to post-student life. • Please encourage your students and have them contact Aylin. • Web • The new ITSoc web-site is great! A. Yener

9. Summary • The student committee is alive and well with active enthusiastic volunteers and outstanding attendance at our events. • Example: Attendance at the ISIT events increased by more than 30% in 2008 as compared to 2007. • More attendance=higher cost/event • Despite this, we under spent our 15k budget by more than 5k last year. • We shall be as frugal this year  A. Yener

10. Update: Second Annual (North American) School of Information Theory A. Yener

11. Organizing Committee for 2009 • Aylin Yener, Penn State • Gerhard Kramer, USC • Randy Berry, Northwestern • Dongning Guo, Northwestern • Daniela Tuninetti, UIC • Natasha Devroye, UIC • Yalin Sagduyu, Northwestern • Matthieu Bloch, Notre Dame A. Yener

12. Goals and Procedure: same as 2008! • Any graduate student or post-doc eligible to apply. • Students apply for the school with their presentation/poster title. • Students will each give a 10min talk or present a poster. • Cap: 100 students (could go up a bit not to turn down too many applicants; decision to be made after the application deadline). • No registration Fee. • Ideally: NO COST to attendees. • Reality: As allowed by travel grants. • New for 2009: Lodging available in the dorms. A. Yener

13. Organization Update • Northwestern classrooms will be used. • Instructor list is complete. • Application deadline was March 31, will likely be extended by two weeks (web based application form should be up soon on the web site). • Emails encouraging advisors in the US and Canada to send their students will be sent shortly after the application form is live. • Fundraising: 10k from ITSoc; 5k from NWU, we are trying more avenues. A. Yener

14. Calendar, Location for 2009 The Second Annual School of Information Theory will take place August 10– August 13, Thursday 2009 at the Northwestern University Campus, Evanston IL. A. Yener

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16. Keynote and Instructors • Keynote: Robert Gallager, MIT • Instructors: • Abbas El Gamal, Stanford • Bruce Hajek, UIUC • Dan Costello, Notre Dame • Note: Abbas El Gamal is the Padovani Lecturer nominee. A. Yener

17. 2009 Budget (100 students, 4 days) • Lunches total: $ 8000 • Wednesday Barbecue: $ 3500 • Breaks total: $ 4000 • Breakfasts total: $ 4500 • Easels, poster boards, badges, registration packets, mutimedia, … $ 4000 • Instructor travel support $ 3500 • Contingency $ 2500 • TOTAL 30k, not including student travel grants. • Most expensive item: food (as in 2008). • Students pay for lodging and dinners. + A. Yener

18. Funding Status • Society: 10k commitment (from the BoG meeting in Sept 08) • New: Northwestern Univ. M.S. in information technology program will support the school by 5k. • We are cautiously optimistic about additional possibilities with token amounts that might yet come through. A. Yener

19. Funding Status • Motion: The society commits an additional 10k in funding for the 2009 School of Information Theory. • If approved, we are confident that we can run the school with no registration fee to attend. A. Yener