RI: Doctoral Student Workshop at the Fourth Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems

Overview: We seek funds in support of the Doctoral Student Workshop at the Fourth Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems to be held at Northwestern University in June of 2016. Advances in Cognitive Systems (ACS) is an international and interdisciplinary conference series covering all aspects of research on cognitive computing which is distinguished by a focus on high-level cognition and decision making, reliance on rich structured representations, a systems-level perspective, use of heuristics to handle complexity, and incorporation of insights about human thinking. The goal of the doctoral student symposium is to encourage, expand and guide the participation of young researchers starting research in cognitive computing. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Computing, Cognitive Science, Cognitive Systems Intellectual Merit: Recently, the field of cognitive computing has seen exciting growth encouraged by the successes of IBM’s Watson and its related systems, an academic interest in cognitive challenges like those proposed by the Allen Institute for AI, as well as the ubiquity of personal assistants like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google Now. ACS builds on these advances and fosters research carried out in the original spirit of AI, which aimed to design and implement computer programs that exhibited the breadth, generality, and flexibility often observed in human intelligence. We expect the Fourth Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems to significantly increase our understanding of cognitive computing, and add momentum to the development of new theories, techniques and tools for cognitive computing. Broader Impacts: The conference sessions and workshops will help develop human research capital by enabling interactions between senior and junior researchers and catalyzing new collaborations. The doctoral student workshop will increase the exposure and visibility of young graduate student researchers in these areas, and train them by providing early input and feedback in the field in an interactive and constructive environment.