Call for Contributions to the ICRA 2025 Doctoral Consortium
We invite PhD students working in the broad research areas in robotics and automation to take part in the Doctoral Consortium (DC) of IEEE ICRA 2025. The DC is an opportunity to interact closely with established researchers in your field as well as other PhD students, to receive feedback on your research, and to get advice on managing your career.
Each accepted student will be matched with an established researcher from the community who will act as the student’s mentor. The mentor will interact closely with the student, will provide feedback on research and career management questions, and help foster new contacts. Each accepted student also will have the opportunity to present their work to their peers and senior members of the community attending. The program will include invited talks, a panel discussion on career development/management, and an informal lunch for participating students and mentors.
This event is specifically intended for PhD students, who already have a concrete research proposal and preliminary results but still have sufficient time before the completion of their dissertation to be able to benefit from the DC experience. Preference will be given to students satisfying these criteria, but well-motivated applications from students who are at earlier or later stages of their doctoral studies will also be considered.
Submission
A complete application package to the DC should have the following components:
- The application will request the following information: name, university, homepage, citizenship, PhD start date, expected graduation date, and name(s) of PhD supervisor(s).
- Extended abstract (up to 2 pages + at most 1 page of references) motivating and describing your PhD topic and outlining some of the results obtained so far as well as your plans for continuing the work.
- Personal statement (1 page) with citations and brief discussions of up to five papers that have inspired your own research.
- Curriculum vitae (at most 2 pages), including your list of publications.
The extended abstract must be formatted using the official IEEE ICRA 2025 paper guidelines including abstract and keywords. In addition, you will need to provide:
- Letter of support: The contact information for your supervisor. They will be emailed a link where they can upload a 1-page letter (PDF) (signed and on official letterhead), in which they confirm that they support your application to the DC and explain why they believe that this is the right moment for you to attend the DC. A detailed letter of recommendation is not required or expected.
- Mentor suggestions: The names of three or more individuals you would hope might get assigned to you as a mentor during the DC. These should be established members of the Robotics & Automation research community, who would typically attend the conference. For inspiration, look at the listings of Organizing Committee members of recent IEEE ICRA and/or ask your supervisor for advice.
If your application is accepted, your extended abstract (but not the other components of your application package) will be available to the ICRA attendees.
All applications must be submitted through: https://apply2.org/ieee/apps/icra_phdforum/
We will likely have travel scholarships, details of which will be provided later.
Important Dates
- DC submission deadline: Monday, March 31, 2025
- Notification: Monday, April 14, 2025
- Camera ready submission: Monday, April 28, 2025
- Early registration deadline: Friday April 18, 2025
- DC date: Monday May 19, 2025
All deadlines are at 11:59pm AOE.
Questions?
For any questions, please contact the DC chairs Maria Gini (University of Minnesota) and Ming Lin (University of Maryland at College Park) at icra2025.doctoralconsortium@gmail.com.
