SIGIR 2012 Call for Student Volunteers

We are seeking student volunteers for the ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval. The 2012 conference will be held in Portland, OR, USA.

We are soliciting student volunteers during the conference. Volunteers will receive a registration waiver that includes admission to the main conference, a tutorial, a workshop, and the conference banquet. We cannot provide travel support, but will make an effort to help volunteers find reduced rates for lodging (for example, the student housing mentioned elsewhere on this site).

Student volunteers will be expected to assist staff with tasks such as organizing conference material, handling attendee registration, supporting sessions to ensure they run smoothly, check badges, helping people get where they need to be, running errands, and the like. These tasks will typically consist of multiple three to four hour time periods, including the days for tutorials and workshops, allowing the student to spend the rest of the time attending the conference.

There are a limited number of these positions. Applicants will be notified if they are not needed by the end of July at the latest. (We will let all applicants who are not needed register at the Early Bird rate even after the deadline has passed.) Applicants must be enrolled as a student at the time of the conference. Graduate students will be given preference, but undergraduate students will also be considered. Students interested in volunteering should send the following information in an email message to Justin Fletcher fletchju@ohsu.edu:

• Name
• Email address
• Cell phone number
• Please indicate days and times when you are unable to work as a volunteer
• University/college where you are a student
• Advisor‘s name (or the name of someone who can confirm you are a student)
• Advisor‘s email address
• Advisor‘s phone number
• If you have a paper, poster, demonstration, or doctoral consortium presentation in the conference, indicate which and the title.
• If you have strong preferences for the type of volunteering, please indicate that. For example, if the thought of actually interacting with conference attendees makes you nervous, that would be useful to know.

If you have any travel constraints that impact your availability, please let us know. Volunteer positions will run from Sunday, August 12 through Thursday, August 16.

Applications must be received by July 15th for full consideration. After that date, they will be considered only if there is unfilled need.