Call for Nominations: TCCLS 2021 PhD Thesis Award

Application Deadline: 31 December 2021

The IEEE Technical Community on Computational Life Sciences (TCCLS) 2021 Ph.D. Thesis Award consists of an honorarium of US$800 and a Certificate.

TCCLS promotes research in all aspects of computational methods and tools with applications in Life Sciences, with a particular emphasis on biology, medicine, and healthcare services. It provides a platform for practitioners and researchers to exchange information and resources related to the fields of bioinformatics, systems biology, medicine, and healthcare informatics.

For the year 2021, up to two awards will be presented (US$800 each).

Only candidates with the following requisites are eligible for this award:

• A member or student member of both IEEE and TCCLS, when the application will be submitted (TCCLS membership is free, join here);
• Have completed Ph.D. university coursework and completed thesis defense in 2020 or 2021;
• Thesis shall be in one of the following main fields of interest: any aspects of computational methods and tools with applications in life sciences, with a particular emphasis in biology, medicine, healthcare services, and informatics, bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, systems biology;
• Theses will be evaluated according to the following criteria: degree of innovation in the proposed methodology or technology, the potential for application in real-world situations, and potential effectiveness;
• Candidate’s supervisors can not be members of the award selection committee.

Candidates must send their application by 31 December 2021 (23.59 GMT) together with:

• Name and email address of the candidate;
• Self-certification of IEEE membership with member number;
• Title of the Ph.D. thesis;
• Name of the Ph.D. thesis advisor and their contact email address;
• Name of the university where the Ph.D. has been acquired;
• Date of thesis defense;
• An electronic copy in PDF format of the Ph.D. thesis;
• An electronic copy in PDF format of a 2-page summary of the contribution of the Ph.D. thesis, reporting how the thesis fits each of the aforementioned evaluation criteria;
• An electronic pitch in a movie format, no longer than 2 minutes, where the candidate presents a summary of the contribution of the thesis, explaining how the thesis fits each of the aforementioned evaluation criteria;
• A list of the publications co-authored by the candidate resulting from the thesis, if any;
• Curriculum vitae listing candidate’s educational background;
• A one-page presentation letter by the Ph.D. thesis advisor.

All documents must be sent electronically by email to the TCCLS chair (Paolo Soda, p.soda@ieee.org) and include "Application for 2021 Ph.D. Thesis " in the subject line.

Theses will be evaluated by the award selection committee. Applicants will be notified of the outcome by 28 February 2022. Awards will be presented during the award ceremony held during of the conferences technically sponsored by TCCLS. The winners must attend the ceremony, physically or virtually, and present a short summary of their work.

All the decisions of the award selection committee are final.

Candidates shall authorize the treatment of the personal information provided according to the European Community Law 95/46/CE regarding the protection of privacy (Italy Law 675/96).

Candidates shall authorize IEEE and TCCLS to communicate the award-winning through media communication channels (e.g. web, newsletter, audio-visual, press release, etc).

Important dates

Submission deadline: 31 December 2021 (23.59 GMT)

Award recipient notification: 28 February 2022

Award winner presentation: to be announced

Award Selection Committee

Ghada Alzamzmi, National Library of Medicine, US (past recipient)

Alfredo Benso, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Zacharie Mbaitiga, National Institute of Technology, Okinawa College, Japan

Mariacarla Memeo, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy (past recipient)

Beren Semiz, Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey

Paolo Soda, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Italy

Agma J. M. Traina, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil