Call for AAAC Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award 2026

[Shreya Ghosh]

Call for AAAC Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award 2026

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We welcome submissions to the AAAC Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award, which will recognize the most extraordinary research contributions from recently graduated PhD students within the Affective Computing community. The winner will be awarded free registration or a refund of fees for AClI 2026, 4 nights' hotel, and a conference talk.

Eligibility

• Eligible dissertations must have been successfully completed between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2025. An award date appropriate to the student’s institution is acceptable, for example, the graduation date, examination date, or final thesis acceptance date.

• Candidates will only be eligible to apply once for this award.

• At the time of application, the candidate must be an AAAC member.

• Only dissertations written in English will be considered. If a dissertation was written in another language, please submit an English translation.

• Each nominated dissertation must be on a topic relevant to Affective Computing. The AAAC Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award Committee will determine whether a dissertation is within scope for the award.

Preparing and Submitting

PDF format is preferred for textual materials. Supplementary materials must be multi-platform.

Submissions must include:

• A published paper that is representative of the dissertation.

• The dissertation.

• Statement from the PhD advisor confirming eligibility as well as addressing why the nominee’s dissertation should receive this award (max 1 page). The statement should address the contribution of the dissertation, not simply repeat the information in the abstract.

Submit by emailing content no larger than 25MB as attachments or by links to hosted documents to: Raiyan Abdul Baten <rba...@usf.edu>.

Deadline

The submission deadline is 31 March 2026.

Award Review Process

The AAAC Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award Committee will preliminarily review each submission. Short-listed submissions will be sent to a panel of experts selected by the AAAC Executive Committee to evaluate the quality, contribution, and impact as demonstrated by the submitted thesis and supplementary materials. The winner will be announced around July 2026.

Award Committee: The Committee will be composed of experts based on the short list of dissertations resulting from the preliminary review.

Questions

Please send questions to Raiyan Abdul Baten <rba...@usf.edu>.