The Ph.D. Colloquium at the 2007 WSC in Washington DC was a great success, with 24 participants from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Israel, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Topics ranged from advances in optimization using simulation, to applications of simulation techniques in diverse industries (railways, lumber) to urban planning. Ray J. Paul led a stimulating discussion on the true meaning of a researcher's discipline in his keynote address during the Ph.D. luncheon. The following support was provided to the participants:
  1) $100 reimbursement for the conference registration from the General Chair of WSC2007;
  2) complimentary one-year membership from the INFORMS Simulation Society; and
  3) the ACM/SIGSIM-sponsored complimentary luncheon.

In addition to the presentations, poster session, and complementary luncheon, students have had the opportunity to have their papers considered for the I-Sim/ACM-SIGSIM Best Student Paper awards (instituted since 2006).

Two winners have been selected based on their papers and the Colloquium presentations. The best computer science-focused paper was given to Gareth Evans from the University of Queensland, Australia, for his presentation on "Parallel Cross-Entropy Optimization", and the best OR/MS focused paper was awarded to Kuo-Hao Chang of Purdue University, whose presentation was titled "Stochastic Trust Region Gradient-Free Method - A New RSM-based Algorithm for Simulation Optimization".

The 2008 Colloquium promises to be an equally exciting opportunity for Ph.D. students to present their work to an audience of peers. Minor procedural changes will be introduced for the 2008 phd colloquium program.

Stay tuned for further details! For more information, check the phd-colloquium section at the WSC08 website at wintersim.org, or contact co-chairs Soumyadip Ghosh at ghoshs@us.ibm.com , Victor Chan at chanw@rpi.edu or Durk-Jouke van der Zee at d.j.van.der.zee@rug.nl.