ِThe combined PhD and Graduate Studies Workshop & SRC program at ACM SIGSPATIAL 2025 offers an opportunity for graduate and undergraduate students to share their research, receive feedback, and engage with the broader research community through the following two complementing events.

PhD and Graduate Studies Workshop

The PhD and Graduate Studies Workshop welcomes submissions from PhD and MSc students who have not yet completed their degrees. The workshop provides an opportunity for students at different stages of their graduate degrees to receive feedback and engage with experienced researchers. Additionally, it features student mentoring activities, including keynote talk(s), a panel, and mentoring sessions where students are paired with senior researchers.

Submissions must be single-author, limited to 4 pages (including all content), and follow the ACM SIGSPATIAL formatting guidelines provided here. Early-stage PhD and MSc students should submit a paper outlining the research problem they are addressing, its significance, the limitations of existing solutions, and the novel approaches they are exploring. Advanced-stage PhD students should provide a more concrete submission that describes their research contributions so far and outlines their future work. Previously published or submitted portions of thesis work are acceptable. Since submissions are limited to 4 pages, they do not constitute a duplicate submission to ACM SIGSPATIAL.

The acceptance decision will consider multiple factors, including the quality of the proposal and the student's progress within their programs. The author of each accepted paper must attend in person to give an oral presentation. All accepted papers in this workshop will be automatically considered for the Graduate SRC as is, without requiring a separate SRC submission. If selected as an SRC finalist, the author would prepare a poster and a presentation for the competition at the main conference. Details on the SRC are provided below.

Student Research Competition (SRC)

Following the success of previous years (2016–2024), ACM SIGSPATIAL 2025 will continue to host the SIGSPATIAL ACM Student Research Competition (SRC) for both graduate and undergraduate students. The SRC provides students with the opportunity to refine their communication skills, compete for prizes, and gain recognition from ACM and the greater computing community. Additionally, this year, all SRC participants, both undergraduate and graduate, will get involved in the PhD and Graduate Studies workshop activities.

In addition to PhD and MSc students automatically entering the graduate SRC via the PhD and Graduate Studies Workshop, undergraduate students can also participate in the undergraduate SRC category. They may submit as a team of up to two student authors per contribution. All submissions must be in the form of an extended abstract (maximum 2 pages), following the ACM SIGSPATIAL formatting guidelines provided here. The lead student author must be an ACM student member. Non-student co-authors can be added to the camera-ready version of finalist submissions. Submissions should present research on a topic of interest to ACM SIGSPATIAL (please check the main conference CFP for relevant topics) conducted primarily by students or a recent development involving substantial student contributions. Submissions must be original and should not be published or under concurrent submission to another venue or SIGSPATIAL track.

Submissions will be judged based on novelty, impact, approach, results, and contributions to the field of spatial systems and algorithms. At least one student author of each accepted SRC submission must attend in person to give an oral presentation and prepare a poster to demonstrate their work during the conference. If selected as finalists, they should be prepared to give a short talk of approx. 5 minutes about their work in front of the judging committee and conference attendees. Winners from both the graduate and undergraduate SRC categories will be announced at the conference and will advance to compete in the ACM-wide SRC Grand Final competition. It is worth noting that Rhett Olson, the winner of the ACM SIGSPATIAL SRC Undergraduate competition 2023 ended up third at the 2024 ACM SRC Grand Finals.

General Submission Guidelines (PhD and Graduate Studies Workshop & SRC)

All submissions must include the following details:

• Author(s) name(s), affiliation(s), and email address(es)
• Research advisor(s) name(s)
• ACM student membership number (for lead student authors). The lead student author must have an active ACM student membership and be enrolled as a student at the time of submission.
• Submission category (PhD and Graduate Studies Workshop, Undergraduate SRC)

Please submit your papers through the main conference submission website.

Important Dates

• Submission Deadline: July 25, 2025 (Firm)
• Notification of Finalists: August 15, 2025
• Event: November 3, 2025

Organizers

• Ibrahim Sabek, University of Southern California, USA
• Liyue Fan, UNC Charlotte, USA

Contact

For more information, please contact the Chairs, Ibrahim Sabek at sabek@usc.edu and Liyue Fan at liyue.fan@charlotte.edu.