FOCS'22

[Shanghua Teng]

Dear USC Theory Students

This year, IEEE FOCS'22 will be held in Denver during Oct. 31- Nov 3.

The Program and the conference information has recently been posted on the conference website: https://focs2022.eecs.berkeley.edu/

As the general chair of FOCS, one of my jobs is to write proposals to NSF and industry partners to build up funds for the FOCS travel awards to support students in need (https://focs2022.eecs.berkeley.edu/travel_grants.html). As a result, I am leading a committee evaluating applications across the country and world.

Because of this conflict, for obvious reasons, I usually do not recommend FOCS travel awards to USC students (like in past years, when I was a SODA general chair). Instead, I use my own research grant to support USC theory students to attend these conferences. 

For FOCS'22, other than my own Ph.D. students (Matt and Zixiang),  I plan to allocate up to a total of about $3,000 to USC theory students to attend FOCS'22. I will follow the basic format of this year's FOCS travel award, by setting up each award in the amount of (B) $550, (M) $750, and (H) $1,000.

If you are interested,  please send the following information (which is part of the information requested for NSF FOCS travel award) to me at shan...@usc.edu

1. A short statement describing your academic standing and interests, your expected graduation date and degree, advisor’s name, and, if available, a URL for a working Web page. Also indicate whether and when you have attended previous major theory conferences (e.g., STOC and FOCS) and whether or not you have received other awards to do so.
2. A short supporting statement from your advisor confirming your status, recommending your attendance, and describing the availability of other funds. This should be included in a message with your name in the subject line which should be emailed by the advisor to me at shan...@usc.edu,. (Note: vague statements such as “funds are tight” are not informative).

I understand the award amount(s) alone may not be sufficient for your travel/hotel/registration.  But like the general FOCS travel awards, such support is to work with students' existing supporting group(s) to enable more participation. 

Because the Early Registration rates end on October 3, 2022, I will only consider applications sent to me before September 30, 2022.

Best,

--Shanghua

Shang-Hua Teng (滕尚华),
University Professor 

Seeley G. Mudd Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics
Viterbi School of Engineering,  USC
https://viterbi-web.usc.edu/~shanghua/